While the company that they will be hosting is focused on AI data processing, this does not mean that Lancium is solely moving to that field. Rather that is one specific client and the new agreement allows the campus to attract multiple clients that could use the computing power for any number of tech fields.
The AI company is yet to be named, but Fenn says the processing that takes place at the data center can range anywhere from running language or image generation models to fields of research in medicine, transportation, climate change, etc., depending on the client they host.
“What happens within the data center is you know pick your favorite version of what the A.I. guys are doing running large language models and so forth…some people think about AI just as chat bots, just minor things you can learn from these models have potentially massive impacts to society, and frankly we hope that’s the kind of stuff that’s happening in these facilities,” said Fenn.
Now that we have a better idea of the business taking place on campus we can discuss how that business has changed in a big way under the new Abilene-Lancium agreement.
Under the initial agreement Lancium was paying a ‘lump-sum’ to the city that was estimated based on a portion of its property tax, which made sense when Lancium Abilene campus was focused primarily on bitcoin mining.
“You identify how you estimate how much the company will be paying in taxes, and then you agree on a payment they’re going to pay in lieu of paying taxes. They’ll pay that amount. So it really is beneficial for a company that is building; it’s beneficial for the community to be able to anticipate how a guaranteed taxes coming in,” Mayo explained.
However, with the ability to now host multiple tech clients, the capitol Lancium receives could dramatically increase.
“Now that Lancium and Crusoe will be spending exponentially more in capital investment, it behooves the City of Abilene and Taylor County to be open to receive a much larger sum,” added Mayo.
And this is a line of thinking that Fenn says every party is in agreement on, Fenn saying that Lancium is deeply invested in showing Abilene the benefit of its presence through financial gain, workforce opportunities, and industry growth in the area.
“Quite frankly, we want to create benefit and we want to bring benefit back to the city and to the county. And so I think it makes a ton of sense that if we’re gonna deploy and we and our partners and customers are gonna deploy more capitol we should pay more taxes,” Fenn said.
Fenn adding that Abilene was chosen as a “top of the list” location due to its unique access to clean energy alternatives such as wind and solar, as well as community resources in terms of university and grade school programs such as STEM.
One Lancium substation to connect to the Abilene grid has already been constructed with plans to add another in the near future. Construction on the data processing center is already underway, Fenn saying they anticipate to be open for at least partial operation in early 2025.