Crusoe Reveals Developer Role at Google’s Texas AI Data Center Campus

Crusoe announced on September 28, 2026, that it is the developer of Google’s data center campus under construction in Armstrong County outside of Amarillo, Texas, a project the company said is engineered to provide capacity to power advanced AI and where more than 5,500 skilled laborers are on-site daily.

“Building the future of AI requires a new kind of infrastructure, starting with energy. Crusoe’s strategy is to build AI factories directly at the source of abundant, low-cost energy – to both improve utilization of existing assets as well as catalyze new energy generation,” Chase Lochmiller, CEO and co-founder of Crusoe, said in the company’s announcement. Lochmiller described the Armstrong County campus as an example of that energy-first strategy and said the company is bringing new, affordable clean energy online at the site.

Construction broke ground in June 2025 and remains underway, according to the announcement, which said the project is bringing significant investment and employment to the local community. Lochmiller said Crusoe is building at the same swift pace it set in Abilene.

Direct Wind Connection and Cooling Design

The campus has a direct connection to Serena’s adjacent Goodnight 1 wind farm, a 265.5 MW facility that is operational, and the Goodnight 2 wind farm, also 265.5 MW, which is under construction and was catalyzed by Crusoe’s development at the site. When wind generation exceeds campus demand, surplus power is supplied back to the grid, an arrangement Crusoe said benefits local ratepayers and reduces curtailment of West Texas wind energy.

The project will use a closed-loop, non-evaporative liquid cooling system that Crusoe said is designed to significantly limit the facility’s water footprint to primarily domestic uses such as kitchens.

The Across the Meter Power Model

In a blog post published the same day, Crusoe described the “across the meter” model behind the campus design: co-locating AI data centers at the source of generation to capture power that would otherwise be curtailed or stranded. The post said the windiest areas and those most suitable for solar production are often in remote locations with limited local demand, which can push power prices negative when generation exceeds local consumption, a dynamic compounded by transmission congestion as many plants send power through the same lines to distant urban markets.

Crusoe’s post cites the Independent Market Monitor for ERCOT’s 2025 State of the Market Report, which found that roughly 4.7% of wind generation was curtailed in 2025, and a U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate that roughly 5% of electricity is lost during transmission and distribution.

The company said its original business model brought modular data centers to remote oil production sites to capture gas that was otherwise being flared, and that the same logic now applies to stranded renewable energy. Under the across-the-meter design, a campus draws incremental power from the grid when onsite generation falls short and sends excess power onto the grid when onsite generation exceeds campus load. Crusoe said co-located load also gives renewable developers a market-driven incentive to repower and upgrade aging turbines, because existing wind and solar sites already hold permitted land, interconnection agreements, and community relationships.

Community Investment and West Texas Portfolio

The announcement said local investment in the community also includes Google’s Texas Energy Impact Fund, which recently announced support for efficiency upgrades in public buildings and homes in Armstrong County. Google announced the fund’s first recipients on May 21, 2026, part of a $30 million commitment to energy resilience and affordability in Texas.

Google’s post said the inaugural recipients include The Energy Management Alliance, funded to expand energy manager training to rural communities and to fund efficiency upgrades in public buildings in Armstrong, Ellis, Haskell and Wilbarger Counties, along with pre-weatherization home repairs in those four counties through Solar United Neighbors, the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute and the alliance, and in the Houston area through the Houston Advanced Research Center. The Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute grants fund innovation challenges focused on energy resilience, affordability and efficiency for multifamily buildings and electric cooperatives, while Solar United Neighbors will deploy solar energy, batteries and heat pumps in low-income households and as community resilience hubs in Ellis County, according to the post.

Crusoe said its growing West Texas portfolio further establishes the region as critical to the future of American digital infrastructure. Along with the Armstrong County campus, the portfolio includes two campuses under development in Abilene.