Crusoe closes Series E at $10.4B valuation, announces 45GW energy pipeline and operational Abilene AI factory

Summary

Crusoe has closed its Series E at a $10.4 billion valuation, confirming the company's position as one of the most heavily capitalized players in AI infrastructure. Chase Lochmiller, co-founder and CEO, frames Crusoe not as a cloud provider but as an "AI factory" company, vertically integrated across energy development, data center construction, and the software stack that operates large-scale GPU clusters.

Speed is the explicit strategic priority. The Abilene, Texas campus — a 1.2 gigawatt facility — has its first phases operational, a timeline Lochmiller describes as a direct rebuttal to press narratives that the project was behind schedule. The campus manages tens of thousands of GPUs today. The confusion around timelines was partly attributable to the site's association with the Stargate initiative, announced via the White House, which set expectations neither Crusoe nor its partners formally committed to.

Alongside the funding close, Crusoe is disclosing an energy pipeline exceeding 45 gigawatts — roughly 37 times the capacity of the Abilene campus, or approximately eight times the power consumption of New York City. The scale signals that Crusoe is positioning itself as an energy-first infrastructure platform, not merely a compute provider. Lochmiller argues the company's ability to identify and develop stranded or underutilized energy assets has been a core competitive advantage from the outset.

Energy Economics and the Rate Impact Debate

On the politically charged question of whether data centers raise electricity costs for consumers, Lochmiller cites a recent report — unspecified by name — showing that markets with significant data center investment saw lower ratepayer costs compared to markets with less digital infrastructure buildout. The underlying logic is that large facilities are required to build net-new generation capacity sized to peak demand, leaving surplus power available to the broader grid and increasing overall supply.

This framing aligns with Crusoe's stated mission of "accelerating the abundance of energy and intelligence," and positions the company as a net contributor to grid capacity rather than a demand burden.

Nuclear as a Near-Term Bet

Crusoe is active across the small modular reactor ecosystem and is planning to bring online what it describes as the first SMR-powered AI factory in 2027. Lochmiller characterizes the initial deployment as a smaller-scale proof of concept intended to serve as a template for broader nuclear-powered infrastructure. He also flags Westinghouse's AP1000 large-scale reactor program as a significant future power source for the industry. Regulatory reform at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a priority for Energy Secretary Chris Wright, is cited as a necessary condition for accelerating private-sector nuclear deployment.