alt Hacker NewsGoogle announced yesterday they would invest $17 billion into this Wyoming data center project https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/infrastructure-and-clo...
> Data center upstart Crusoe is being pushed aside at an artificial intelligence campus it was developing in Wyoming after failing to lock in customers including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, according to people familiar with the situation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-06/google-ta...
Problems with Crusoe were already brewing back in June:
> The developer [Crusoe] known for giant AI buildouts announced that it had “paused” its plan to build a data center that would draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Denver. In reality, Crusoe is being pressured to leave the project, after Google had raised concerns about the costs and timetable under Crusoe’s watch, some of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/crusoe-pu...
Crusoe was previously a bitcoin mining operation that pivoted to building AI data centers around 2024. They don't have decades of experience building data centers.
It seems Google disagreed with how Crusoe was running the project and decided it would be better to own everything itself, so it acquired the project.
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"would draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Denver."
I wonder where they get that number from? Google mentions a 702 MW fuel cell development, which from what I can tell will be able to generate be between 1/4 to half of Denver's energy usage, depending on duty cycle?
they don't have experience building datacenters, yet
> Crusoe Energy: Acts as the lead developer for the flagship 1.2 GW Abilene, Texas campus ("Project Ludicrous"), as part of Project Stargate, managing the execution, co-financing, and design of the data halls.
> Crusoe was previously a bitcoin mining operation that pivoted to building AI data centers around 2024. They don't have decades of experience building data centers.
Didn't stop CoreWeave. They very successfully pivoted from crypto to data centers.
Yeah crusoe was a bitcoin miner, then pivoted to using flared natural gas for compute, now AI neocloud. I interviewed there at one point; the engineers seemed allright but the leadership… very dodgy.