To house the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build AI data centers, developers are increasingly relying on temporary villages, known as workforce camps.
This style of camp became popular as housing for men working in remote oil fields. For example, as a Bitcoin mining facility in rural Dickens County, Texas, was converted into a 1.6-gigawatt data center, Bloomberg reported that employees are living in gray housing with access to a gym, laundry room, game room, and cafeteria that grills steaks on demand.
A company called Target Hospitality was awarded multiple contracts worth a total of $132 million to build and operate the Dickens County camp, which would eventually house more than 1,000 employees.
Target sees the U.S. data center construction boom as its most profitable growth opportunity, with CCO Troy Schrenk describing it as “the largest and most viable pipeline I’ve ever seen.”
Target also owns the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, which houses families detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to court documents, the center’s food contained bugs and mold, and children suffered from allergies and an inability to accommodate special diets.
