# Lancium A Houston/Woodlands, TX-based company that designs, develops, and operates gigawatt-scale AI data center campuses. Founded in 2017 by Michael McNamara and Raymond Cline, Lancium originally co-located flexible [[Bitcoin]] mining operations at wind farms, arbitraging energy prices on the Texas grid — buying power when cheap, selling it back when expensive. The company has since pivoted to AI infrastructure, building what it calls "Clean Campuses" purpose-built for hyperscale AI workloads. Lancium's Abilene, TX campus is the confirmed home of Phase 1 of the [[Stargate Project]], the $500B AI infrastructure initiative announced by the Trump administration in January 2025 as a joint venture between [[SoftBank]], [[OpenAI]], and [[Oracle Corporation]]. ## Key Innovation Lancium's technical differentiator is integrating grid interconnects, behind-the-meter power generation, and energy storage into a single campus design. Its data centers use closed-loop liquid cooling that requires no water input after the initial fill — a significant advantage over traditional air-cooled or evaporative-cooled facilities in water-scarce regions of Texas. ## Clean Campus Portfolio All sites are in Texas on the ERCOT grid: - **Abilene** (1.2 GW, ERCOT-approved) — Home of [[Stargate Project]] Phase 1. Eight buildings totaling approximately 4 million square feet. - **Childress** (1.0 GW, ERCOT-approved) — 270 acres, developed in partnership with Crusoe. Construction began Q3 2026. - **Hall County** (1.0 GW, advancing through ERCOT review) Total approved capacity: 3.2 GW, with 15 GW in the interconnection pipeline. ## Funding and Valuation Lancium has raised approximately $1.25B prior to the [[NVIDIA-Lancium 3B Investment]] reported in August 2026. Key backers include [[Blackstone]] ($500M in November 2024), ArcLight Capital Partners, Hanwha Solutions, Rosecliff Venture Partners, and Inertia Ventures. Enterprise value reached approximately $10B by mid-2026, with some reports stretching toward $14B. The company is exploring an IPO in 2027. ## KB Relevance Lancium sits at the intersection of AI infrastructure buildout, energy policy, the [[Stargate Project]] (Trump's signature AI announcement), and the defense-tech/AI ecosystem the vault tracks. [[NVIDIA]]'s reported $3B investment signals that the AI supply chain is extending from chips into the physical power layer — a trend with significant implications for energy markets, land use, and the political economy of AI. ## See Also - [[NVIDIA]] - [[NVIDIA-Lancium 3B Investment]] - [[Blackstone]] - [[Stargate Project]] - [[OpenAI]] - [[Oracle Corporation]] - [[SoftBank]] - [[Bitcoin]] - [[Artificial Intelligence]]