AI Boom Roars On in Texas, Powered by the Cloud and ‘Man Camps’
Far-flung data centers take shape, thanks to big tenants and perks on the frontier
The Stargate AI data center under construction in Abilene, Texas.
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Texas found itself in the center of the AI revolution when Abilene got a big data center project as part of the massive Stargate venture that President Donald Trump announced last year. Then the site faced questions about its future when Bloomberg reported that Oracle Corp. and OpenAI had scrapped plans to expand that flagship initiative.
That bump in the road now looks short-lived, with The Information reporting that Microsoft is in advanced talks to lease capacity at the AI campus, supporting its Azure AI cloud business. That would be a second prospective new tenant, since the Bloomberg scoop also disclosed that Meta was in negotiations with developer Crusoe. AI chipmaking giant Nvidia was helping facilitate those discussions, Bloomberg’s Brody Ford, Ed Ludlow and Dina Bass reported.