Crusoe’s next phase in Abilene: More jobs, more power, completion in 2026

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Crusoe and the Development Corporation of Abilene have shared new details about the Lancium Clean Campus. Along with plans to add six more buildings and boost power capacity to 1.2 gigawatts, the project has already created thousands of jobs. Set to be energized in the next couple of years, it will run on a mix of renewable energy sources.

In a press release on March 18, Crusoe detailed the next phase, known as Project Radiance, which includes constructing six more buildings. Once completed, the campus will feature eight buildings spanning approximately 4 million square feet.

Crusoe launched its Abilene venture in June 2024, initially developing two buildings totaling 980,000 square feet and a power capacity of more than 200 megawatts. These are expected to be energized in the first half of 2025.

“Designed and built by Crusoe at the Lancium Clean Campus, the project incorporates innovative data center design to support powerful AI workloads. Each building is designed to operate up to 50,000 NVIDIA GB200 NVL72s on a single integrated network fabric, advancing the frontier of data center design and scale for AI training and inference workloads,” the company shared.

While under construction, about 2,000 people work on the campus daily, and that number is expected to grow to nearly 5,000 as the expansion progresses. Upon completion, the project is expected to generate hundreds of new jobs for IT professionals, engineers, and others.

“Our mission at the DCOA is to build the future of Abilene by attracting industries that drive economic growth and create new jobs,” said Misty Mayo, President and CEO of the Development Corporation of Abilene. “Project Radiance is a testament to the strength of the Abilene and Taylor County economy, the long-term vision of our community, and the opportunity for transformational growth for the Abilene community.”

The Development Corporation of Abilene (DCOA) estimates the initial phase alone will generate a direct and indirect economic impact of approximately $1 billion over 20 years.

“The Abilene campus will help drive breakthroughs across a variety of industries and accelerate large-scale AI training and inference,” said Shar Narasimhan, director of data center GPUs and AI at NVIDIA.

Michael McNamara, Co-founder and CEO of Lancium, emphasized the campus’s role in supporting the energy grid.

“Operating data centers at this scale and beyond demands campus-level innovation to ensure grid reliability under all workloads.  We are very excited to showcase the Lancium Clean Campus and energy services model that pairs new behind-the-meter resources with the grid interconnect to transform large loads from potential risks to robust grid assets,”  said Michael McNamara, Co-founder and CEO of Lancium.

The second phase of construction is expected to be completed in mid-2026. The campus will be powered by multiple energy sources, including large-scale behind-the-meter battery storage, solar and wind resources, and natural gas turbines for backup power.