Mubadala Capital, the investment arm of Mubadala Investment Company, led a $1.375 billion Series E funding round for the American company Crusoe. Alongside Mubadala, the round was co-led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Nvidia, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Salesforce Ventures, Supermicro, T. Rowe Price, and Tiger Global Management. After this deal, Crusoe’s valuation exceeded $10 billion.
Crusoe builds data centres for artificial intelligence using previously wasted energy. The company has been operating since 2018 and has raised nearly $3.9 billion in funding so far. Its business model combines three elements: fast access to energy, data center construction, and a cloud platform for high-performance computing.
Energy decides everything
The main problems in the artificial intelligence industry today are the shortage of computing power and the energy required to sustain it. Training large language models demands enormous amounts of electricity. Traditional data centers take years to build, and the energy infrastructure cannot keep up with demand. Crusoe offers a different approach: the company uses surplus or lost energy — such as flare gas from oil fields — and converts it into computing power.
Crusoe’s first major project is a 1.2-gigawatt data center in Abilene, Texas. It was built in partnership with OpenAI in less than a year and is already operational. Full completion is scheduled for mid-2026. This is a pace unmatched by any traditional data center.
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The Crusoe Cloud platform promises 99.98% uptime and enterprise-level support. Recently, the company acquired Atero — a startup specializing in GPU management and memory optimization. This acquisition strengthens Crusoe’s position in the managed AI services segment, where demand is growing faster than supply.
The UAE plays the long game
For Mubadala Capital, this is its second investment in Crusoe. The first took place in 2022, when the fund invested $350 million in the Series C round. Its renewed participation reflects a long-term strategy: Abu Dhabi is not merely investing in promising companies but establishing a presence in key technological fields.
Mubadala manages over $430 billion in assets through its funds and partnerships. Investments in AI infrastructure align with the broader strategy of the UAE’s economic diversification. Once dependent on oil, the country is now betting on technologies that will shape the global economy in the coming decades.
Interestingly, alongside investments in high technology, the country’s interest in more traditional assets continues to grow. Fresh Sharjah real estate market news today shows a steady demand for housing in the northern emirates, where prices remain more affordable than in Dubai. Many professionals working in the tech sector choose apartments in Sharjah for their balance of price and quality. This is driving demand for professional property management in Dubai, as many property owners live in other emirates or abroad.
Crusoe calls itself an “AI factory company.” The term fits perfectly: the company truly produces computing power just as a factory produces goods. The difference is that the raw material here is energy, and the finished product is cloud services for AI model training.
The list of the largest investors in this round is impressive:
- Nvidia — a GPU manufacturer used in AI
- Supermicro — a supplier of server equipment
- Salesforce Ventures — the venture arm of the CRM giant
- Fidelity and Franklin Templeton — major asset management firms
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Each of them has its own reasons for supporting the development of AI infrastructure. Nvidia sells more chips, Supermicro more servers, Salesforce gains access to affordable computing power for its products. Mubadala, meanwhile, is building a position in a sector that could be worth trillions in five years. Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller says the company is engaged in “activating energy to create intelligence.” Behind this phrase lies a simple idea: the world produces enormous amounts of unused energy. Crusoe transforms it into what is most needed right now — power for AI model training. And judging by investor interest, the idea is clearly working.
