To house the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build AI data centers, developers are increasingly relying on temporary villages known as mancamps.
This style of camp became popular as housing for men working in remote oil fields. For example, a Bitcoin mining facility in rural Dickens County, Texas, has been converted into a 1.6 gigawatt data center, and its employees live in gray apartment complexes with access to a gym, laundromat, game room, and cafeteria that grills steaks on demand, Bloomberg reports.
A company called Target Hospitality has signed multiple contracts worth a total of $132 million to build and operate the Dickens County camp, which will eventually house more than 1,000 workers.
Target appears to view the U.S. data center construction boom as its most lucrative growth opportunity, with chief commercial officer Troy Schlenk describing it as “the largest and most viable pipeline we’ve ever seen.”
Target also owns the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, which houses families detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Court filings allege that the center’s food is contaminated with insects and mold, and that children suffer from a lack of accommodations for allergies and special diets.
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