Wyoming's data center tree
Cheyenne is no stranger to data centers, who has attributed facilities of Microsoft and Meta since 2012 because of his cool climate and energy access. However, the new project pushes the state into unknown territory. Although Wyoming is the third largest energy supplier of the country and produces 12 times more total energy than it consumes (dominated by fossil fuels), the electricity supply is finite.
Although Tallgrass and Crusoe have announced the partnership, they have not revealed who will ultimately use all this computing power – which leads to speculation about potential tenants.
A potential connection with OpenAi's Stargate AI infrastructure project, announced in January, remains a topic of speculation. When asked by the Associated Press whether the Cheyenne project was part of this effort, Crusoe spokesperson Andrew Schmitt was not -committal. “We are not at a stage that we are ready to announce our tenant there,” said Schmitt. “I cannot confirm or deny that this will be one of the Stargate.”
OpenAi recently activated the first phase of a data center complex built by Crusoe in Abilene, Texas, in collaboration with Oracle. Chris Lehane, the most important worldwide officer of OpenAi, told The Associated Press last week that the facility of Texas “roughly and depending on how you count, generates a gigawatt energy” and represents “the biggest data center – we consider it a campus – in the world.”
OpenAi has committed itself to develop an additional 4.5 gigawatt of data center capacity through an agreement with Oracle. “We are now in a position where we have identified more than five gigawatt energy that we can build in a really concrete way,” Lehane told the AP. The company did not announce any locations for these extensions and Wyoming was not until the 16 states where OpenAi said it was looking for data centers sites earlier this year.
