Former BP Chief Joins A.I. Data Center Developer

Bernard Looney, the former chief executive of BP, one of the world’s largest energy companies, said Sunday that he would become chairman of a data center start-up in the United States, a move that comes amid a ravenous appetite for electricity to power the boom in artificial intelligence.The company, called Prometheus Hyperscale, plans to build a $10 billion data center on a 640-acre site in Evanston, Wyo., carved out of the family ranch of the company’s founder and chief executive, Trenton Thornock.The hope is to attract companies like Amazon, Microsoft or Google with mushrooming needs for computer power, Mr.

Looney said in an interview.Prometheus plans to expand in the United States and internationally, he added.“I’ll be helping them with customers,” he said.

“I’ll be helping them with investors.I’ll be helping them with strategy.”Mr.Looney, 54, left BP last year after acknowledging that he failed to properly disclose personal relationships with colleagues.The oil and gas industry may seem far removed from a start-up aimed at serving the A.I.

industry, but the two sectors have become increasingly intertwined.The huge arrays of computers needed for A.I.require staggering, and rapidly increasing, amounts of energy to keep them humming.

Energy companies like BP already view large data service providers, known as hyperscalers, as important buyers of their energy.“Hyperscalers are going to be one of the bigger customers moving forward for energy,” Murray Auchincloss, Mr.Looney’s successor at BP, told analysts last month.Mr.

Looney’s experience with the multibillion-dollar projects that are common in the energy industry, as well as his past work with potential international investors like the oil producers in the Persian Gulf may be useful in his new role.In Mr.Looney’s three years as chief executive of BP, the company shook up its leadership as he announced plans to cut back oil and gas production while increasing investment in renewab...