Stargate Campus, Dyess B-21 and Lift-Day Weather Data for Abilene, TX

Last reviewed 2026-10-14. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

The Stargate data center campus in Abilene is the project OpenAI calls "the flagship Stargate campus", and KTXS, reporting on March 5, 2026 on a Lancium and Crusoe briefing for city leaders, described the project as the city's largest single investment since Dyess Air Force Base. Oracle's Abilene, Texas Data Center page, marked current as of January 2026, counts eight buildings and 4 million square feet of building space across 1,100 acres, and Crusoe, which designed and built the buildings, put the campus's power capacity at 1.2 gigawatts on March 18, 2025. On adjacent land, Crusoe announced a second, 900 MW campus for Microsoft on March 27, 2026. This page sets out those figures, and the region's other large jobs, with each number's source and date.

After the Stargate figures come the campuses planned or under way in Shackelford County and around Sweetwater, the B-21 construction program at Dyess, the road, airport, water and wind projects, and the weather that decides when a crane can lift here, read against OSHA's rules. Each table row comes from one source on one date, company figures stay the company's own statements, and news reports are used only for what happened and when. Where two sources disagree, the page gives one figure with its source or leaves the figure out. Nothing here describes work of ours; projects like these set the demand for cranes, mats, heavy hauls and man lifts around Abilene, and the permits and notices they trigger are in our permit and airspace guide.

The Stargate Campus in Abilene, in the Owners' Own Figures

Four companies have named roles at the Abilene campus, and each describes its own part. OpenAI's post on five new Stargate sites (September 23, 2025) names Abilene the flagship and says the campus is running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Lancium calls the project "Stargate 1" on its Abilene page, and the DCOA said on November 19, 2024 that Lancium, as owner and master developer of the Lancium Clean Campus, was leasing about 90 acres to Crusoe and had annexed over 800 acres into the city limits. Crusoe says it designed and built the data center buildings (March 18, 2025), and on September 30, 2025 it said Oracle began delivering the first NVIDIA GB200 racks in June 2025. The City of Abilene places the project in northwest Abilene (January 2025).

Local approvals trace the build. The City's summary for its August 28, 2025 council meeting describes an 85% abatement on the taxable value of new improvements for 10 years, with two consecutive abatements available per site, and its December 4, 2025 summary adds Reinvestment Zone RZ25-1, around 614.91 acres, with abatements for Phase 9, Phase 10 and an electricity generation plant, without saying which campus those serve. KTAB/KRBC reported on September 18, 2025 that a project lead put the concrete placed at 480,000 cubic yards, and a Bloomberg feature from May 2025 described trucks weaving between cranes and excavators over red clay. No source we read after March 2026 says all eight buildings are finished. Work on this scale calls for lift plans, mats, heavy hauls and long crane rentals, which our crawler crane page covers class by class.

Each row is one source's statement on its date, and figures from different dates stay apart. Where sources differ, as on water use per building, the table gives one figure with its source and leaves the other out.

The Next Data Center Campuses Around Abilene

Crusoe announced on March 27, 2026 a second, separate Abilene campus on adjacent land: a 900 MW site for Microsoft AI workloads with two buildings, each designed to deliver 336 MW of critical IT load, a 900MW on-site power plant paired with an MV BESS battery system, and closed-loop non-evaporative liquid cooling. Crusoe's 900 MW campus announcement said land clearing and site preparation were under way, expected the first building to be energized in mid-2027 and put the full Abilene site at 2.1 GW. No source we read calls this campus Stargate. In Shackelford County, whose largest city, Albany, lies some 35 miles northeast of Abilene according to Data Center Dynamics (August 19, 2025), OpenAI on September 23, 2025 named one of three new Stargate sites to be developed by Oracle, where Vantage Data Centers is building its Frontier campus.

Around Sweetwater, three projects sit at three different stages. IREN's Sweetwater 1 has power: on May 1, 2026, IREN announced that the 1.4GW site, part of a 2GW Sweetwater campus it is developing, was energized, meaning its high-voltage substation now ties into the ERCOT grid, and IREN's Sweetwater 1 release gives no county. A $7 billion, 200-megawatt data center project led by Crusoe Energy Systems won a 10-year tax abatement from Nolan County commissioners, according to KTXS on April 14, 2026. For CB Sweetwater, LLC, the county court took up a proposed abatement for a first phase of 300 megawatts, the Sweetwater Reporter said on June 25, 2026, though the outcome was not visible in what we read. Every one of them puts the same questions to a lift: ground under the outriggers, wind on broad loads and FAA notice for tall booms.

Each row is one source on one date. News reports are cited only for what was announced or approved and when; the CB Sweetwater and PowerPlay AI entries are proposals with few published details, and IREN's release names no county for its Sweetwater site.

The B-21 Construction Program at Dyess Air Force Base

Dyess is the third base picked for the B-21 Raider. In the Air Force's basing announcement of Sept. 13, 2024, the Secretary of the Air Force approved Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and Dyess, in that order, as the second and third basing locations, after Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, and the Air Force said it will purchase at least 100 B-21s. At the December 15, 2025 groundbreaking for a $26.7 million fuels facility, 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs, in the Dyess fuels facility story, called it one of more than 24 infrastructure projects planned over the next decade in a $1.6 billion modernization effort, and named the Mission Planning Facility, projected to break ground in 2026, as the first project built exclusively for B-21 operations.

The Small Business Administration's subcontracting notice for that Mission Planning Facility describes an approximately 47,000 SF single-story building on a drilled pier foundation with a steel frame, masonry and metal panel walls and a standing seam metal roof, plus site work with tree clearing and grubbing, earthwork and hauling, and a 600KW diesel generator on a concrete pad. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington's office reported on November 13, 2025 that $90.8 million for B-21-related construction at Dyess had become law, and reported House passage of $160 million for B-21 facilities in May and July 2026, which no source we read shows enacted. Work beside an active runway puts the Air Force's height surfaces and FAA notice on every tall lift plan; our all-terrain crane page covers the long-boom side.

The fiscal 2027 items were House-passed as of the May and July 2026 releases, and no source we read shows them enacted. The fuels project appears as $12.8M plus $18.5M in the 2024 bill and as $26.7 million at the 2025 groundbreaking; each figure keeps its own source.

Roads, Airport, Water and Wind Projects Around Abilene

Interstate 20 through Abilene is due for major reconstruction. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation's registry lists TxDOT's reconstruction of IH 20 from FM 600 to SH 351 (CSJ 0006-06-109), with main lanes, frontage roads, storm drains, retaining walls, bridges and traffic signals, at an estimated $125,517,728, starting 11/3/2026 and finishing 10/16/2029. TxDOT's district profile lists the same corridor as IH 20 including the overpass at Judge Ely Blvd., and the Abilene MPO's TIP describes adding two main lanes for a six-lane freeway. The six-lane widening TxDOT proposed in November 2024 starts beyond the city limits on the west and stops 0.6 miles short of Catclaw Creek, 5.32 miles in all, and reworks the US 277 and US 83 interchange. The City's August 28, 2025 council agenda carried the IH-20 utility relocation, and TxDOT's US 83/277 interchange at FM 3034 began in October 2024 for completion in spring 2027.

Abilene Regional Airport's ABINext terminal project carries a $70 million estimate, with $20 million in local bonds approved by voters on May 3, 2025 and up to $50 million in anticipated FAA grants, and the airport lists it as still in grant application and design; a TDLR registration for the hold room expansion lists $19,000,000, from 8/1/2026 to 4/28/2028. The City re-initiated permitting for Cedar Ridge Reservoir in January 2025, and its June 26, 2025 council summary describes a Phase 1 contract capped at $360,000. In Taylor and Nolan Counties, AES's Buffalo Gap Repower replaces 282 older turbines with 117 newer ones for 526.5 MW of planned wind generation, building through late 2025-2026 for operation in 2027. Turbine parts travel as oversize loads; our heavy haul page covers their permits.

Costs and dates are each source's own. Where two public sources give different costs for the same road job, the table shows one; TxDOT's district profile and the MPO's TIP carry other figures for the IH 20 project. The AES, AEP Texas and Hendrick Health entries are the companies' own statements.

The Weather That Sets Lift Days in Abilene

Heat, freeze and storms set the calendar here, and the official numbers come from the station at Abilene Regional Airport. In NOAA's 1991-2020 normals, the yearly average of days at 90 degrees F or more is 102.4 and at 100 degrees F or more 18.5, August has the most 100-degree days (7.3 on average) and July the hottest normal high (96.4); freezing nights average 47.7 a year, and the 50 percent dates for the last spring freeze and first fall freeze are March 20 and November 10. February 2021 shows the cold extreme: NWS San Angelo's February 2021 summary records 252 hours in a row at or below freezing at Abilene, from Feb. 9 to Feb. 19, daily record lows of -2 and -4 degrees, a record 9.8 inches of snow on Feb. 14, and a city water outage after power was lost at treatment plants.

None of these numbers stops a lift by itself; OSHA leaves the call to people on site. OSHA section 1926.1417 makes the competent person adjust the equipment and operations for "the effect of wind, ice, and snow" on stability and rated capacity, and, once a local storm warning is issued, decide whether the manufacturer's steps for securing the equipment are needed. Section 1926.1431 sets a 20 mph trigger, sustained or gusts, at a personnel platform, past which a qualified person must decide whether people can still be lifted. Makers add their own limits: Liebherr's wind guide halts crane operation when the wind passes the permissible speed in the load chart, and Liebherr's magazine says its lifting tables generally apply in "gust speeds of up to 9 m / s (20 mph)". We watch the forecast, reschedule a weather delay, and the quote says how standby is billed.

Normals are 30-year averages for 1991-2020 at the official airport station; gusts are single readings at the station or site named, and the 74.0 mph figure is the largest in NCEI's 1984-2024 annual summaries, not an all-time record. NWS advisory values are national typical values, and NWS San Angelo counts a thunderstorm as severe at gusts of 58 mph or more or hail of at least 1 inch in diameter.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-10-14). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. Oracle, Abilene, Texas Data Center — Campus size, grid and backup power, cooling and jobs; current as of January 2026
2. OpenAI, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank expand Stargate with five new AI data center sites — Names Abilene the flagship Stargate campus; September 23, 2025
3. Crusoe, Crusoe expands AI data center campus in Abilene to 1.2 gigawatts — Eight buildings, phases and workforce; March 18, 2025
4. Crusoe, Crusoe Announces New 900 MW AI Factory Campus in Abilene, Texas to Support Microsoft AI Infrastructure — Second Abilene campus and the second-phase target; March 27, 2026
5. Lancium, Lancium Clean Campus Locations - Abilene — Stargate 1 and the ERCOT-approved interconnect; page modified July 2026
6. Development Corporation of Abilene, Project Radiance — Eight buildings, jobs and tax estimates; May 1, 2025
7. City of Abilene, council meeting summary for August 28, 2025 — Lancium abatement terms and the IH-20 utility relocation
8. Dyess Air Force Base, Dyess breaks ground on new fuels facility — B-21 program, fuels facility and Mission Planning Facility; December 2025 groundbreaking
9. Texas Department of Transportation, US 83/277 at FM 3034 — Interchange cost, contract and schedule
10. AES, Buffalo Gap Repower — Turbine replacement, capacity and schedule
11. National Weather Service San Angelo, Climate and Weather Summary for September 2026 — The record 34-day run of 100-degree highs at Abilene, ended Sep. 4, 2026
12. NOAA NCEI, 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals documentation — The dataset behind the Abilene Regional Airport normals