Stargate's First Campus Is a 1.2 GW Bet on West Texas Power

Two months after OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX announced Stargate with a pledge of $500 billion, the project's first physical footprint has a size. On March 18 Crusoe said it had begun the second phase of its AI data center at the Lancium Clean Campus in Abilene, Texas, taking the site to eight buildings, about 4 million square feet, and a total power capacity of 1.2 GW. The second phase is expected to be complete in mid-2026.

It is also a useful measure of what the larger Stargate pledge implies for electricity, and of how developers in Texas are trying to secure power on timelines that the grid alone cannot meet. OpenAI's January 21 announcement described Stargate as a new company that intends to invest $500 billion over four years building AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States, with $100 billion to be deployed immediately. Crusoe began building in Abilene in June 2024, before Stargate had a name.

Lancium, which owns the land, handles grid interconnection and what it calls power orchestration. Put together, the design layers three sources: a grid connection that grows in steps, on-site gas sized at roughly 30% of the campus's full capacity, and contracted or nearby renewables. A campus drawing 1.2 GW continuously would use about 10.5 TWh in a year, since 1.2 GW times 8,760 hours equals 10,512 GWh. Texas offers what Stargate's first site needed: fast permitting, land, and an independent grid with a market structure that lets large loads connect without the multi-state planning cycles of PJM or MISO.

The first two buildings are scheduled to energize in the first half of the year. For now, Abilene is the clearest picture of what Stargate means in electrical terms: a campus the size of a large power plant, built in phases, and powered by whatever combination of grid, gas and renewables can be brought online fastest.