The Data Center is the New Unit of Compute: Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller

Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller explains how his company is building AI data centers faster than Big Tech by vertically integrating steel, power, and cooling supply chains.

• Crusoe has 5,000 workers daily on-site in Abilene, Texas; first data center phase completed in 300 days, second in 200 days.
• Crusoe has ~2 gigawatts under construction and 20 gigawatts in the pipeline — nearly 5x all of Northern Virginia’s total data center capacity.
• To cut 100-week lead times for low-voltage switchgear, Crusoe built its own factory and now delivers in 22 weeks.
• GPU rack power density has gone from 2–4 kW (20 years ago) to 120–130 kW (GB200 NVL72) to 600 kW (Vera Rubin Ultra, just announced at GTC).
• Each Crusoe building holds ~1 million gallons of water and 84 chillers for direct-to-chip liquid cooling.
• Abilene site has eight interconnected buildings with 44-inch conduit between network cores to form one coherent GPU cluster — targeting world’s largest.
• Crusoe chose Abilene because West Texas wind power was negatively priced ~30% of the time due to grid curtailment — AI demand as a natural buyer.
• Lochmiller has signed three deals with small modular reactor companies to secure long-term nuclear power for future data centers.

2025-05-07 · Watch on YouTube