The Compute 100: Chase Lochmiller, CEO of Crusoe

Today's guest is Chase Lochmiller, co-founder and CEO of Crusoe. While climbing mountains with his best friend turned co-founder, Chase first learned about gas flares — spots around the world where energy was virtually free. In 2018, the vision was clear: co-locate small data centers next to these flares, mine bitcoin, and scale. But while Crusoe grew its mining business, Chase's core long-term motivation was a side project — using low-cost, clean energy to power compute for AI. Fast forward to 2026: Crusoe is worth over $10B, has sold its bitcoin business, and is building one of the largest data centers in the country in Abilene, TX as part of OpenAI's Stargate project. With over several gigawatts of capacity under management and a newly launched managed inference platform, Crusoe is one of today's most formidable vertically integrated infrastructure companies. Chase sits at the intersection of the two most important markets of our time — energy and compute — and was spectacularly early to the insight that they're intrinsically linked. We loved this conversation with Chase, and hope you do too. Chase: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-lochmiller-604483341/ The Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary's compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe). Primary: https://www.primary.vc/ Follow us on X and check out our daily newsletter. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.