Roundtable: The opportunities & challenges of Abilene's new AI data campus
ABILENE, Texas () – City leaders from across Abilene gathered for the annual State of the City address, highlighting key issues shaping the daily lives and future of Abileneans. Among the topics was one making national headlines—the clean energy Lancium campus that will host what President Donald Trump has called the largest artificial intelligence project in history.
DCOA highlights Abilene's role in Trump's historic $500 billion AI infrastructure project
Abilene has been a part of global discussions on data center development and AI since the announcement that Stargate—a project backed by a $500 billion investment—will call the Key City home. Set to be located at the Lancium campus, a development three years in the making, this project has been made possible in part by the efforts of the Development Corporation of Abilene (DCOA).
During the 2025 State of the City address roundtable conversation, DCOA President and CEO Misty Mayo emphasized that they are 'laser-focused' on two goals that will drive Abilene's growth:
'We're working every day to grow the future for you and your family members… The two things are growing the commercial tax base and growing new jobs because with new jobs and a new tax base, we're able to guarantee the prosperity of our community for years to come,' Mayo explained. 'Lancium, of course, is the most notable, I will say. Over the last five years, we've worked at the DCOA to attract 40 company expansions. That is a record number. Most of the largest projects in the history of our community have happened in the last five years. What I'm talking about is these companies like Lancium and Crusoe are making a commitment to be a part of our community. They're making a commitment to spend their money in Abilene and grow that commercial tax base.'
Mayo also highlighted how this partnership marks the beginning of a new industry for Abilene.
'When we're able to grow the commercial tax base and diversify the types of jobs and the types of industries, that diversification is a strength and is a future for Abilene.'
Locals weigh in: How Stargate benefits Abilene and Taylor County
One concern residents have raised is the impact this project could have on the area's water supply. Abilene City Manager Robert Hanna reassured the public that Lancium prioritizes environmental responsibility and works to minimize its footprint.
'They have a new way, or a responsible way, of cooling their systems with a closed loop system, and we are working with them, and they're working with us to be able to do industrial pre-treatment and the discharge of that water as it leaves the system, so it's available to be used again in other areas as it goes through the nature's process and our treatment facilities. I really want to applaud them publicly for thinking about coming here to West Texas,' Hanna explained.
Hanna also addressed concerns about how Lancium would operate during extreme weather events, such as the 2021 winter storm that left many without power and water.
'We had a citizen come to the councilman today and talk about what's going to happen if we have another winter storm again. The beauty of Lancium's approach is that they're planning ahead for that,' Hanna said. 'They're making sure they have the energy resources and energy production capability to handle their own needs, so they're not going to be this big drain on the grid. So I'm excited that they're here. I'm excited about their community engagement and the responsible nature in which they're growing their business.'
'AI is the new global arms race': Expert says Abilene is a key player in worldwide AI growth
Mayor Weldon Hurt echoed that enthusiasm, emphasizing the significance of this development for Abilene.
'We are excited about Lancuim being here, and we're proud of Abilene, Texas, Taylor County; this area is going to have the biggest data center in the country, maybe in the world,' Hurt expressed. 'These are questions that we asked these companies. We asked about water, we asked about the use of power, and they gave us responsible answers. I just want to say once again that we are excited that they are here.'
Click to explore how Lancium and Stargate are shaping the future right here in Abilene.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
My 5-year-old survived cancer – twice. Don't put politics before medical research.
Few issues in American politics have consistently united both parties like the fight against cancer. While funding levels and strategies may differ, Democrats and Republicans alike recognize that cancer doesn't discriminate – and neither should our commitment to defeat it. Under the Biden administration, the Cancer Moonshot was relaunched to accelerate progress toward a cure. More recently, President Donald Trump announced his 'Stargate' initiative, which aims to harness artificial intelligence in detecting and treating cancer, including through personalized mRNA vaccines. In the United States, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children after infancy. Across the political spectrum, there remains a shared hope: that no one should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one or fight this deadly disease. Yet today, that consensus is showing signs of strain. State legislatures across the country are advancing bills to ban or severely restrict the use of – and further research into – breakthrough technologies like mRNA, a technology that is driving promising advancements in cancer. What should be a story of American scientific innovation is being twisted into a political talking point. And it's putting lives at risk. Opinion: Biden's diagnosis shows two things. Cancer hits everyone and some forgot that. If the politicians pushing these bans spent even a few minutes inside a pediatric oncology unit, maybe they'd understand. They'd see floors filled with sick children on small bicycles, pulling IV poles behind them. Children in hospital beds, brave beyond measure. And parents clinging to hope. I've seen it firsthand. I'm a mother whose 5-year-old daughter has survived cancer – twice. My daughter Charlie is one of a small percentage of pediatric cancer patients whose tumors don't show up on standard blood tests. Her cancer went undetected for more than a year. By the time doctors found it, it had already spread to her liver. She was just 3 years old and had Stage 4 cancer. Once Charlie's cancer was detected, we rushed into treatment: high-dose chemotherapy, stem cell transplants and multiple surgeries. After months of treatment, we got the news every parent prays for: Charlie was cancer-free. But just a few months later, scans revealed a relapse. Two small nodules were found on her lung. Her baby brother was only two months old when we learned her cancer had returned. Relapse treatment was grueling. Charlie lost weight and muscle mass. She needed a feeding tube to stay nourished, hydrated and medicated. But through it all, she never lost her smile. Her strength became ours. And while we juggled caring for a newborn and two other children, we held onto hope, because science gave us a reason to. Thanks to expert care at Seattle Children's and research-backed protocols, she's once again cancer-free. She started preschool this year. She's coloring, laughing and chasing her siblings again. Every option we had was made possible by decades of public investment in research. Families who came before us joined clinical trials. Lawmakers chose to fund pediatric science and cancer research. That is the same kind of work mRNA research builds on today. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Researchers are developing an mRNA-based diagnostic test that could catch cancers like hers earlier, when they're more treatable. The test uses mRNA from her original tumor to detect any circulating cancer cells through a simple blood draw. Catching a relapse early could be lifesaving. We first learned about this test in 2023, and knowing it's almost within reach brings us, and families like ours, so much hope. Beyond mRNA-based diagnostic tests, mRNA has also shown early promise as a therapy for cancer patients, enabling personalized treatment that could more effectively target one's tumor. That kind of innovation is exactly what's under threat right now. The role of mRNA technology in oncology has been studied for decades, and yet some lawmakers want to roll this progress back, arguing it is untested and unsafe. This technology, along with many innovations that come from federally supported medical research, is a critical source of hope for families around the world. I'm a doctor. So is my mother. When she got cancer, I realized how little that mattered. | Opinion When you're watching your child battle cancer, every advancement matters. I know firsthand how critical it is to catch cancer early and have access to every possible treatment option. When politicians politicize science – when they ban or restrict it based on misinformation and politics – they aren't protecting families like mine. They're limiting our options. They're slowing down the breakthroughs that could save lives. We can't afford to let misinformation and polarized politics dictate the future of lifesaving research. Thanks to innovation in medical research, Charlie is thriving today, but far too many kids are still fighting. Let's ensure science continues to move forward for all of our children. Emily Stenson is a childhood cancer advocate and the mother of 5-year-old two-time cancer survivor Charlie Stenson. She lives in Seattle. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cancer research saved my child's life. Fund mRNA innovation | Opinion
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
My 5-year-old survived cancer – twice. Don't put politics before medical research.
My 5-year-old survived cancer – twice. Don't put politics before medical research. | Opinion When you're watching your child battle cancer, every advancement matters. We can't afford to let misinformation and polarized politics dictate the future of lifesaving research. Show Caption Hide Caption Cuts to health research could impact clinical studies and trials at the NIH The Trump administration wants to cut health spending in the coming year, and plans to cut the budget at the National Institutes of Health by $18 billion. Few issues in American politics have consistently united both parties like the fight against cancer. While funding levels and strategies may differ, Democrats and Republicans alike recognize that cancer doesn't discriminate – and neither should our commitment to defeat it. Under the Biden administration, the Cancer Moonshot was relaunched to accelerate progress toward a cure. More recently, President Donald Trump announced his 'Stargate' initiative, which aims to harness artificial intelligence in detecting and treating cancer, including through personalized mRNA vaccines. In the United States, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children after infancy. Across the political spectrum, there remains a shared hope: that no one should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one or fight this deadly disease. Yet today, that consensus is showing signs of strain. State legislatures across the country are advancing bills to ban or severely restrict the use of – and further research into – breakthrough technologies like mRNA, a technology that is driving promising advancements in cancer. What should be a story of American scientific innovation is being twisted into a political talking point. And it's putting lives at risk. Opinion: Biden's diagnosis shows two things. Cancer hits everyone and some forgot that. My daughter survived cancer twice. Politicians can't imagine what we went through. If the politicians pushing these bans spent even a few minutes inside a pediatric oncology unit, maybe they'd understand. They'd see floors filled with sick children on small bicycles, pulling IV poles behind them. Children in hospital beds, brave beyond measure. And parents clinging to hope. I've seen it firsthand. I'm a mother whose 5-year-old daughter has survived cancer – twice. My daughter Charlie is one of a small percentage of pediatric cancer patients whose tumors don't show up on standard blood tests. Her cancer went undetected for more than a year. By the time doctors found it, it had already spread to her liver. She was just 3 years old and had Stage 4 cancer. Once Charlie's cancer was detected, we rushed into treatment: high-dose chemotherapy, stem cell transplants and multiple surgeries. After months of treatment, we got the news every parent prays for: Charlie was cancer-free. But just a few months later, scans revealed a relapse. Two small nodules were found on her lung. Her baby brother was only two months old when we learned her cancer had returned. Relapse treatment was grueling. Charlie lost weight and muscle mass. She needed a feeding tube to stay nourished, hydrated and medicated. But through it all, she never lost her smile. Her strength became ours. And while we juggled caring for a newborn and two other children, we held onto hope, because science gave us a reason to. Thanks to expert care at Seattle Children's and research-backed protocols, she's once again cancer-free. She started preschool this year. She's coloring, laughing and chasing her siblings again. Public funding for research saved my daughter's life Every option we had was made possible by decades of public investment in research. Families who came before us joined clinical trials. Lawmakers chose to fund pediatric science and cancer research. That is the same kind of work mRNA research builds on today. Researchers are developing an mRNA-based diagnostic test that could catch cancers like hers earlier, when they're more treatable. The test uses mRNA from her original tumor to detect any circulating cancer cells through a simple blood draw. Catching a relapse early could be lifesaving. We first learned about this test in 2023, and knowing it's almost within reach brings us, and families like ours, so much hope. Beyond mRNA-based diagnostic tests, mRNA has also shown early promise as a therapy for cancer patients, enabling personalized treatment that could more effectively target one's tumor. That kind of innovation is exactly what's under threat right now. The role of mRNA technology in oncology has been studied for decades, and yet some lawmakers want to roll this progress back, arguing it is untested and unsafe. This technology, along with many innovations that come from federally supported medical research, is a critical source of hope for families around the world. I'm a doctor. So is my mother. When she got cancer, I realized how little that mattered. | Opinion When you're watching your child battle cancer, every advancement matters. I know firsthand how critical it is to catch cancer early and have access to every possible treatment option. When politicians politicize science – when they ban or restrict it based on misinformation and politics – they aren't protecting families like mine. They're limiting our options. They're slowing down the breakthroughs that could save lives. We can't afford to let misinformation and polarized politics dictate the future of lifesaving research. Thanks to innovation in medical research, Charlie is thriving today, but far too many kids are still fighting. Let's ensure science continues to move forward for all of our children. Emily Stenson is a childhood cancer advocate and the mother of 5-year-old two-time cancer survivor Charlie Stenson. She lives in Seattle.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Actually, Sen. Gallego, the solution for transgender women in sports is simple
Laurie Roberts wrote a piece about U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego's evolving stance on transgender athletes that I found a bit confounding. Maybe that's because Gallego's position on the issue is muddled to the point of being almost incoherent. Gallego seemed to support the exclusion of trans girls and women from sports, suggesting they could find other activities. But then he also suggested we could leave it to local institutions to decide who participates. Huh? The senator went on to say that trans people should be welcomed into our community, just not apparently the sports community. It's never good when a politician takes a stand, and yet can't comprehend it. I will grant you that the issue is a complex one, but the solutions also seem rather simple given the relatively low number of transgender athletes we are talking about. The NCAA and each state's athletic governing body should make decisions about participation. Kids in grade school, in my opinion, should be able to participate freely. This idea of a level playing field is a joke. Inequities in sports are common. Does the high school girl who is 6'2' have an advantage in volleyball or basketball? What about Brittney Griner? A blanket policy on this issue is unfair. Dan Peel, Scottsdale Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego gave her State of the City address and covered a lot of successes and challenges for our growing city: transportation, water, public safety, housing and economic development. I think she and the City Council are making good progress on many issues, and are thoughtfully anticipating future developments within the constraints of money and public opinion. You can't have everything, and definitely can't subsidize everything. Columnist Phil Boas makes his case for the coming wonders of data centers and artificial intelligence. ('Arizona leaders disagree on data centers. Are they worth the trouble?' May 29.) He may be right, but that doesn't mean the Phoenix taxpayer should give giant tax breaks to this multitrillion-dollar industry of the future that, despite its potential benefits, is unlikely to produce many local jobs or revenue. She is rightfully more focused on tangible, affordable benefits for Phoenicians, rather than picking winners in the economy. She wants to help them get around town more easily, enjoy a reliable supply of water, endure the brutal summer sun and secure many high-paying jobs in the biotech and microchip sectors. Our mayor has also warned us that squandering up to $1 billion to placate the billionaire owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks to upgrade Chase Field and undefined surrounding property is not the best use of our tax receipts. Just ask the City of Glendale. It's reassuring to have a mayor and City Council with good judgment and good results. They've performed no miracles and have work left to do, but they're moving in the right direction. Good luck to the data center folks. I hope the Trump administration's expulsion of foreign students, especially graduate students, doesn't put too much of a crimp in successfully competing with China. Andrew March, Phoenix The Phil Boas column linking tragedies related to the Middle East to liberal teaching in American universities seems one sided ('Two young people are murdered in D.C. We must now ask hard questions of universities,' May 27). To blame an extremist's heart-rending murder of two young people to American universities and how they teach about the Middle East seems tenuous at best. It ignores the horrors of deliberate starvation and the use of sophisticated modern weaponry against the defenseless civilian populations in Gaza. Justification for Israel to destroy Hamas is framed as a fight against antisemitism. More letters: Don't complain about egg prices. It's not Hickman's fault But this is about Israel's long-term plan to establish power over the territory. No effort is made to look at the history or motives of the right-wing Likud party, which uses the cloak of antisemitism to cover its cruelty toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and to continue their land grab. Likud never had any intention of allowing a two-state solution, which might have provided a framework for peace if guaranteed by third parties. Rabin's assassination says it all. Hamas' actions are as indefensible as are Israel's. The bloodshed will only continue until there is justice and security for both peoples. Alan Austin, Phoenix Out-of-control deficit spending has become a big topic in today's news. The answer seems apparent to me. Raise taxes on the super rich. Then get serious about scrutinizing all the waste in the U.S. Department of Defense. That seems like a logical start. Unfortunately, the GOP has never considered this. Instead, the Republicans' latest idea is to take away health care for millions of people. Fred Batko, Phoenix Columnist Bill Goodykoontz says the book 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again' by CNN's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios, is required reading for the left. He adds, 'in retrospect it's easy to say journalism failed,' then asks, 'Where was all this reporting when it really mattered?' Let me answer. The 'journalism' could have been found if people chose to tune in to Fox, Newsmax or talk radio. They early on were showing the videos and airing the sound bytes, making a case for Biden's condition, just as they made cases for all the issues that the left wanted to ignore and to ridicule us for bringing up. Charles Lopresto, Phoenix What's on your mind? Send us a letter to the editor online or via email at opinions@ This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Gallego's stance on transgender athletes makes no sense | Letters
