Oracle and OpenAI abandoned plans to expand their flagship artificial intelligence data center in Abilene, Texas after negotiations collapsed. Talks lasted more than six months and ended over financing disputes and shifting infrastructure requirements. The breakdown opened a potential path for Meta Platforms to lease the planned expansion site from developer Crusoe. NVIDIA helped facilitate discussions between Meta and Crusoe, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Oracle shares fell following the report and erased earlier gains as investors reassessed the company’s data center growth prospects.
Oracle, Crusoe, and OpenAI began expansion discussions in mid 2025 as demand for artificial intelligence computing accelerated. The companies aimed to expand the Abilene campus from roughly 1.2 gigawatts of capacity to about 2 gigawatts. A single gigawatt equals the output of a large nuclear reactor and can power roughly 750,000 homes simultaneously.
Several issues complicated the project and weakened alignment between the partners over time. Financing discussions became difficult as costs rose and OpenAI repeatedly revised forecasts for future computing demand. Operational tensions also surfaced during the negotiations. A multi day winter weather outage disrupted liquid cooling systems at the facility earlier in the process. The incident reportedly strained relations between OpenAI and Crusoe during critical phases of the talks.
Timing problems created another obstacle for the expansion plan. Power infrastructure for the additional capacity will not become available at the site for roughly another year. By that point OpenAI expects to deploy NVIDIA’s next generation Vera Rubin chips instead of Blackwell GPUs. Those chips were originally planned for the Abilene expansion, reducing the strategic value of expanding the facility.
NVIDIA played an unusual role after the expansion talks collapsed between the partners. The company reportedly paid a 150 million dollar deposit tied to the Abilene expansion site. NVIDIA then began helping negotiate a potential arrangement bringing Meta in as a future tenant. The effort reflects NVIDIA’s interest in keeping its processors installed at one of the largest artificial intelligence campuses in the United States.
