centers

The vast majority of data centers in Europe keep information about their environmental impact secret, according to a study by Lighthouse Report in collaboration with Trouw and other European media. In the Netherlands,…

"We’re seeing a pivotal shift in the US economy: investment is shifting away from residential investment and towards computers."

A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Data centers are good. I like data centers. Theft is bad. I don’t like theft.

Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative since January. But many are unsure or unfamiliar with them.

Compare United States and China AI data center infrastructure: 84 vs 7 facilities, 43.6 GW vs 1.1 GW capacity. Status, energy, and operator breakdown.

Meta is building a data center in Louisiana which at full power could consume nearly as much energy as New York City.

The technology could strap onto existing gas turbines and make them more efficient—but it wouldn’t do away with their emissions entirely.

Tribal consultation isn’t optional, but the corporations building data centers in New Mexico are acting like it is.

Google is taking its first step toward making Project Suncatcher a reality. Announced last year, Suncatcher is Google's "moonshot" effort to design orbital AI data centers, which AI boosters like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have pitched as an alternative to divisive terrestrial data centers . Google's first experimental satellite will launch on October 1 with the aim of validating Google's vision for a constellation of AI satellites . The satellite, dubbed MVP, is about the size of a refrigerator. Inside, it has four of Google's custom TPU AI accelerators, which are used to train AI models and run inference to generate tokens for AI workloads. On Earth, a data center will run thousands of these chips, which consume massive amounts of power—one of the reasons putting solar-powered AI hardware in space is so attractive. Google’s latest moonshot to put machine learning in space. MVP is starting small, with solar panels that supply only about one kilowatt of power, The New York Times reports. That's enough to power a microwave or a hair dryer. Google did not build the satellite from scratch. While the AI hardware inside is Google's, the spacecraft comes from a satellite imagery firm called Planet Labs. The initial plan was to launch two custom satellites in 2027, but Google wanted to accelerate its efforts. So the company opted to integrate its chips into a satellite that Planet Labs had already built for an early test. Read full article Comments

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of bills on Monday that could finally give communities better data - and more say - on how data centers impact their electricity bills and water supply. As data centers invade a growing number of communities across the US, they've triggered protests over how the infrastructure underpinning AI might stress power grids and local water systems. That's fueled partly by concerns about how difficult it is to see just how much electricity or water they're actually gobbling up. California's new disclosure rules won't offer a full picture, but starting next year, data center operators will have to start s … Read the full story at The Verge.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger ordered the state government to take steps that could empower local communities to have a larger say in data center development and slow down approvals in a state that is already home to the data center capital of the world . Executive Order 22 bans executive branch officials from signing nondisclosure agreements for data center projects, requires expedited noise regulations, and requires a review of backup-generation operations used by data centers, among other requirements. The order also establishes an AI task force responsible for evaluating how the state government can address risks to Virginians like wo … Read the full story at The Verge.