Just off of Interstate 20, in the heart of West Texas, is a town of 125,000 people called Abilene. Once a stopping point along a cross-country cattle trail in the days of the American Old West, the small outpost is now getting into the burgeoning artificial intelligence business. Houston-based tech company Lancium and Denver-based Crusoe Energy Systems announced on Thursday morning a multibillion dollar deal to build a 200-megawatt data center just outside Abilene that is designed to “meet the unique needs of AI companies” — such as enabling advanced cloud computing for applications like medical research and aircraft ... (full story)