CIA Venture Arm Invests in Data Center Developer Prometheus Hyperscale
The Takeaway
- CIA venture arm IQT invests in AI data center developer Prometheus Hyperscale.
- Prometheus Hyperscale develops gigawatt-scale AI data centers in Wyoming and Texas.
- IQT investment suggests Prometheus could handle sensitive national security workloads.
The Central Intelligence Agency’s venture investment arm, IQT, has invested in AI data center company Prometheus Hyperscale, which is developing campuses in Wyoming and Texas, the company said.
Wyoming has long been a location for sensitive military assets, and the CIA’s investment suggests Prometheus could potentially run national security workloads from its AI data centers.
IQT will place Sara Jones, a partner on its investment team, on the Prometheus board. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Prometheus says it will serve unidentified AI hyperscalers as tenants.
IQT, a nonprofit also known as In-Q-Tel, did not respond to a request for comment. IQT has been an early investor in defense technology company Palantir Technologies and Google Earth, a virtual global map, among other entities, and often takes stakes in companies to advance American national security and competitiveness.
Prometheus is based in Wyoming and has sought to make the state a destination for critical national infrastructure for AI. Its chair is former BP CEO Bernard Looney. It is developing data center complexes of over a gigawatt each near Evanston, Wyo., and another in Casper, Wyo. The company has not disclosed revenue.
“You cannot lead the world in artificial intelligence from places that make it impossible to build,” Prometheus Hyperscale President Trevor Neilson said in an interview. “Wyoming makes it possible.”
Wyoming has been the site of intense new AI development over the past two years. Microsoft long had a data center presence in Cheyenne. Meta Platforms is building a large AI campus in Cheyenne and this January agreed to help fund eight of TerraPower’s next-generation Natrium nuclear reactors in locations including Wyoming. Another prominent AI data center developer, Crusoe, is developing a 1.8 GW data center and power site, Project Jade, with energy infrastructure firm Tallgrass Energy near Cheyenne that it says could eventually scale to 10 GW and would have a carbon capture option; no tenant has been disclosed.
Prometheus founder and CEO Trenton Thornock has worked for five years to develop a computing campus near Evanston on his family’s land and more recently a campus near Casper.
Prometheus’ management team includes former CIA counterintelligence officer Blake Mobley, a behavioral profiling expert who is the company’s chief talent officer. His bio says he supported clandestine operations and advised senior U.S. policymakers.
Land clearing has begun on the Evanston campus, and permit applications are underway but could change based on energy configurations. Prometheus will build its own power using natural gas and is providing the tenant the option to capture carbon emissions and store them in existing old wells and geological formations there. It may connect to the grid later.
Prometheus says it has developed a proprietary geothermal cooling system that uses nonpotable, briny water from the aquifer below to cool the facility, although it will use more typical liquid cooling inside for AI chips.