• Crusoe’s Texas data center for OpenAI secures $11.6 billion in funding to expand from two to eight buildings.

• The data center, expected to be OpenAI’s largest, will use up to 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips per building.

• OpenAI aims to reduce reliance on Microsoft for computing power.

The AI infrastructure site under construction in Abilene, Texas, is a collaboration between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle.

A Texas data center that the startup Crusoe is building for OpenAI has secured $11.6 billion in new funding commitments, expanding a site that is core to increasing the ChatGPT maker’s long-term computing capabilities.

The funding, a mixture of debt and equity, will expand the data center to eight buildings from two and increase the total amount secured for the project to $15 billion, Crusoe said. Both Crusoe and investment firm Blue Owl Capital are contributing cash to the data center project as part of the latest financing.

The data center, which is slated for completion next year, is expected to be the largest used by OpenAI. Each of the buildings will run up to 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are commonly used for training large language models.

The development of the Abilene site is a key step in reducing OpenAI’s reliance on Microsoft in the race to build the next generation of AI models. For years, the startup exclusively relied on Microsoft for its computing power, but grew frustrated that the tech giant wasn’t keeping up with demand. Last spring, it struck a deal with Oracle to use the Abilene site after receiving the signoff from Microsoft. 

Longer term, OpenAI aims to build and operate its own network of data centers. In January, Chief Executive Sam Altman unveiled a $500 billion infrastructure project called Stargate alongside the Japanese tech investor SoftBank and cloud firm Oracle. OpenAI said at the time that it was evaluating sites across the country for Stargate, though details have so far been scarce. 

Earlier this month, Altman posted a photo of him visiting the Abilene site on X, wearing an Oracle construction vest: “great to see progress on the first stargate in abilene with our partners at oracle today. will be the biggest ai training facility in the world,” he wrote.

Crusoe began construction on the Abilene site last June after Oracle agreed to lease the data center for 15 years. OpenAI separately struck an agreement with Oracle to rent servers from the facility. Oracle plans to supply the data center with the Nvidia chips.