Meta's AI Power Play
Meta Secures 1.6 Gigawatts From Crusoe, Fueling Massive AI Infrastructure Push
Key Points
Reuters reported that Meta and Crusoe “did not immediately respond” to requests for comment, and that Reuters “could not independently verify” the Bloomberg report that described the agreements.
Reuters linked Meta’s deal to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s AI push, noting Meta has pledged to invest $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years to support Zuckerberg’s bets on “AI agent technologies.”
Industry context provided by the reporting quantified the scale of power: one gigawatt can power about 750,000 U.S. homes, and the roughly 1.6 gigawatts Meta is securing would translate to about 1.2 million homes (at any given time).
The deal also came with a noted stock-market reaction: Meta shares “gained about 1.7% on Thursday” but “slipped 0.4% after-hours,” according to one of the reports.
Separate coverage emphasized Crusoe’s rapid rise as an AI-power contender, citing that the startup raised $1.37 billion in Series E funding (co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Mubadala Capital) and that the round pushed its valuation above $10 billion.
Meta has locked in roughly 1.6 gigawatts of AI computing power through new deals with data center startup Crusoe, Bloomberg reported on June 18. The capacity will come from Crusoe sites in Childress, Texas, and Warrenton, Missouri — enough electricity to power about 1.2 million U.S. homes at any given time.
Meta and Crusoe both declined to comment immediately, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the report. Still, Meta shares gained 1.7% on the news before slipping 0.4% after hours, according to Reuters.
Meta Races to Lock Up Scarce Computing Power
The AI boom has shifted the key bottleneck from computer chips to raw electricity and physical space. Data centers need enormous amounts of power to train and run large AI models. Getting that power — and the land to build on — has become the defining challenge for every major tech company.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to spend $600 billion on U.S. infrastructure and jobs over three years, according to Reuters. The company's CFO Susan Li has confirmed 2026 capital spending will land between $115 billion and $135 billion. The Crusoe deals are a direct result of that push, giving Meta a firm claim on gigawatt-scale capacity before rivals can grab it.
Crusoe Grew From Oil Fields to a $10 Billion AI Company
Crusoe started out using "flared" natural gas — waste gas burned off at oil wells — to mine Bitcoin. The company then pivoted hard into AI infrastructure. By late 2025, it sold its Bitcoin mining business to NYDIG and focused entirely on building what CEO Chase Lochmiller calls "AI factories."
That bet paid off fast. Crusoe raised $1.375 billion in a Series E funding round in October 2025, co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Mubadala Capital, according to Parameter. The round pushed Crusoe's valuation above $10 billion. The startup had already proven its scale by running a 1.2-gigawatt campus in Abilene, Texas, as part of the OpenAI-SoftBank-Oracle "Stargate" project.
Warrenton and Childress Will Feel the Impact for Decades
The two chosen sites are not major tech hubs. Warrenton, Missouri, is a town of about 9,500 people. Childress, Texas, is similarly small. But both locations offer something scarce: access to large amounts of affordable power. Analysts at Gabelli Funds say land values in markets like these have jumped 200% to 400% because of data center demand.
In Warrenton, the planned campus includes two buildings totaling 805,000 square feet, according to Verdict. Local governments have approved permits but added strict rules on noise, lighting, and water use. The project is expected to significantly expand the town's tax base and create local jobs.
Power Demand at This Scale Is Reshaping the U.S. Energy Grid
One gigawatt can power about 750,000 U.S. homes, according to Verdict. Meta's 1.6 gigawatts is the equivalent of powering all the homes in a mid-sized American city — around the clock, every day. That kind of demand puts real strain on local power grids and forces utilities to plan years in advance.
The pressure has become a national issue. The White House has intervened in markets like PJM Interconnection — the grid serving the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest — to ensure reliability as data center demand surges. Meta launched a top-level compute initiative in January 2026, aiming to build "tens of gigawatts" of capacity this decade, according to Yahoo Finance. The Crusoe deals are an early piece of that far larger puzzle.
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