Crusoe, a Denver-based data center developer valued at $30.9 billion, sold an unfinished data center project in southeastern Wyoming to Google on Friday. Google is taking over development after raising concerns about the project's cost and construction timeline under Crusoe's management.
Crusoe initially announced the project last year with Blackstone-backed infrastructure company Tallgrass, planning to scale it to 10 gigawatts of power capacity. Google did not disclose its purchase price but announced plans to invest $17 billion to develop the data center campus.
Google had tried and failed to become a customer for the project under Crusoe's management. Despite the Wyoming setback, Google continues working with Crusoe on another data center near Amarillo, Texas.
The deal was first reported by Bloomberg in June. The Wyoming setback did not prevent Crusoe from raising a $3.9 billion funding round in September, which added three board members including JB Straubel, the Redwood Materials founder and Tesla board member who invested in Crusoe in 2021.
Crusoe makes money by leasing data center space to customers who bring their own GPUs, renting its own GPUs, and selling compute power used to run AI models. Its customers include Oracle, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta. Bloomberg reported that the trading firm Jane Street signed a $13 billion five-year cloud deal with Crusoe.
Crusoe was founded by Chase Lochmiller, now CEO, and Cully Cavness, who started it as a cryptocurrency-mining business powered by natural gas that would otherwise have been burned off.