Google is building its first data centre in Wyoming — and it is doing so by taking over a struggling project from another AI company. Google has bought the unfinished data centre site in Laramie County, Wyoming from AI infrastructure company Crusoe, and now plans to turn it into its first Wyoming campus. Google says it plans to invest $17 billion in the state over the coming years, with a campus that would provide work for hundreds of people.
First, the number everyone is getting wrong
It's worth being precise from the outset: the $17 billion Google mentions is not the purchase price of this site — it is the total investment Google plans to make in the state of Wyoming, across a project that would include multiple buildings and at least 1,400 megawatts of power generation, if it all goes ahead. The price Google paid Crusoe for the site alone has not been disclosed — and it is almost certainly far below $17 billion.
What Google is actually building
- Location: Laramie County, Wyoming — Google's first data centre in the state.
- The site: Crusoe's unfinished south-east Wyoming development, sold before completion.
- Partners named so far: Tallgrass, Black Hills Energy, AEP and Related Digital, with Bloomberg Energy also involved.
- The power plan: a planned 702 MW Bloom fuel-cell project. Electricity is expected not before late 2027, with the build reaching its peak around 2030.
Why Crusoe sold — the backstory
As TechCrunch reported, this site had a difficult history. Crusoe had earlier failed to land Google as a customer for the project, and the development had run into cost and timeline problems. Selling to Google solves both problems at once: the project gets an owner with effectively unlimited capital and a direct need for the capacity, and Crusoe exits a site that was not coming together on schedule. Google, meanwhile, gets a permitted, partly-developed site years faster than starting from a green field.
Why this deal matters
- Power is the real bottleneck of AI. A 702 MW fuel-cell plan — gas-fired generation on site, rather than waiting years for grid connections — shows how far the big AI companies will go to secure electricity on their own timetable.
- Wyoming is the new frontier. Cheap land, a cool climate and available energy are pulling data centres into states that were barely on the map five years ago — with local debate about jobs, water and power prices following them.
- Troubled projects will change hands. Smaller developers raced to start AI campuses during the boom. When costs or timelines slip, the hyperscalers are the obvious buyers — expect more takeovers like this one.
- The timeline is long. Power from late 2027 and a peak around 2030 means this campus is about the AI demand of the next decade, not next quarter.
Bottom line: Google did not spend $17 billion buying a field in Wyoming. It bought time — a head start on a campus it plans to invest $17 billion in over the coming years, in a state where power and land are still available. In the AI infrastructure race, that head start may be worth more than the land itself.
Source: TechCrunch, "Crusoe sells troubled Wyoming data center project to Google", 6 November 2026. Hero image: data centre server racks (Racksquared), Wikimedia Commons.
