Owner of ICE detention facility sees big opportunity in AI man camps | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. To house the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build an AI data center, developers are increasingly relying on temporary villages known as man camps. This style of camp was popularized as housing for men working in remote oil fields. For example, as a Bitcoin mining facility in rural Dickens County, Texas, is converted into a 1.6 gigawatt data center, Bloomberg reports its workers are living in gray housing units with access to a gym, a laundromat, game rooms, and a cafeteria that grills steaks on-demand. A company called Target Hospitality has signed multiple contracts worth a total of $132 million to build and operate the Dickens County camp, which could eventually house more than 1,000 workers. Target apparently sees the U.S. data center construction boom as its most lucrative growth opportunity, with Chief Commercial Officer Troy Schrenk describing it as “the largest, most actionable pipeline I’ve ever seen.” Target also owns the Dilley Immigration Processin