Tech giant Microsoft has stepped in to secure a massive data center facility in Texas after two other major companies backed out of the project, according to a Bloomberg News report released Tuesday.
Sources with knowledge of the deal say Microsoft reached an agreement with developer Crusoe to lease the Abilene facility, which boasts approximately 700 megawatts of power capacity. The location sits directly adjacent to the main Stargate campus operated by Oracle and OpenAI.
The tech company moved forward with the rental agreement after both Oracle and OpenAI withdrew from discussions about occupying the space, the report indicates.
However, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters that OpenAI’s current partnerships with Oracle remain unchanged despite the development.
When contacted for comment, a Microsoft representative declined to provide details about the arrangement. Oracle and Crusoe have not yet responded to media inquiries about the deal.
This development follows earlier reporting from Bloomberg News indicating that Oracle and OpenAI had scrapped expansion plans for an artificial intelligence data center in Texas. Those discussions reportedly stalled due to disagreements over funding and OpenAI’s evolving requirements.
Oracle subsequently disputed those reports, stating that claims about delays to planned capacity at the Abilene location were false.
The move comes as tech corporations continue investing massive amounts of capital in data center infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence applications like ChatGPT and Copilot, which demand enormous computational resources to operate effectively.
