Data Center

Janet Mills says moratorium would’ve been ‘appropriate’ if it didn’t interfere with ongoing datacenter project in MaineThe Democratic governor of Maine on Friday vetoed a bill that would have made it the first US state to impose a moratorium on large new datacenters, even as local opposition to the electricity-hungry facilities grows.The decision reflects the difficult trade-off facing political leaders, who must weigh the impact of datacenters on the environment and household energy bills against the millions of dollars in investment and tax revenue they can bring. Continue reading...

Ron Gibson had recently expressed support for a 14-acre, $500m data center project in Martindale-BrightwoodAn Indianapolis city councilor said his home was fired at on Monday, with a note left behind suggesting he had been targeted over his support of data centers.The case involving Ron Gibson – a Democrat on Indianapolis’s city council since 2024 – comes amid growing bipartisan concern in the US over political violence in the wake of cases such as the September murder of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist. Continue reading...

• Emerald AI announced a $25 million strategic funding round on March 31, 2026, led by Nvidia’s NVentures, Eaton, GE Vernova, Salesforce, Samsung, and Siemens. • The funding brings the startup's total capital to $68 million since its founding 16 months ago, targeting bottlenecks in AI infrastructure expansion. • The investment addresses the growing challenge of connecting data centers faster to power grids amid surging AI demand for electricity and land.

• French AI firm Mistral AI secured $830 million in debt financing on March 31, 2026, to build a state-of-the-art data center near Paris. • The funding underscores surging demand for AI computing infrastructure amid global expansions in hardware and power resources. • This move positions Mistral to compete in the intensifying AI race, highlighting shifts toward massive investments in data centers.

• Major companies—Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and xAI—signed a federal pledge to provide their own electricity for AI data centers, shielding U.S. consumers from grid overload. • The commitment responds to exploding energy needs from AI infrastructure, following Meta's Louisiana gas plant initiative and similar efforts nationwide. • Industry leaders aim to prevent rate hikes and blackouts while fueling the AI boom central to U.S. tech competitiveness.

• Meta is financing multiple natural gas power plants in Louisiana to exclusively supply electricity for its massive new data center supporting AI operations. • The project addresses surging energy demands from AI training, with the plants designed to generate dedicated power bypassing the public grid amid national infrastructure strains. • This move highlights tech giants' shift toward self-funded energy solutions to avoid burdening consumers and accelerating U.S. data center expansion.

• Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday to pause new data centers in the United States until national safeguards are established for worker protection, consumer safety, and environmental impact. • A typical AI-focused data center consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, contributing to record U.S. electricity consumption hit in 2024 that is expected to continue rising as data centers expand. • The bill is unlikely to advance in either chamber but signals deep progressive concerns about AI infrastructure's rapid expansion and its effects on working families, democracy, and technology equity.

• ARM unveiled its first proprietary AGI CPU for AI data centers, shifting from licensing designs to manufacturing its own silicon. • Early adopters include Meta, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and Cerebras, positioning ARM directly in the AI infrastructure market. • This move underscores the intensifying competition in AI hardware, where control over end-to-end production is becoming critical for major players.

Lawmakers say moratorium on construction would buy time to create strong, federal guardrails for AIAmid an unprecedented energy crisis and the rapid buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure, progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy to place a moratorium on the construction of AI datacenters.The policy, announced by Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democratic representative, on Wednesday morning, aims to ensure the AI boom protects the environment and communities, and benefits workers instead of harming them. A temporary ban, the lawmakers say, would give the US government time to create strong federal safeguards for AI, which is “affecting everything from our economy and wellbeing to our democracy, warfare and our kids’ education”. Continue reading...

• Baker Hughes announced a collaboration with Google Cloud on March 24, 2026, to develop AI-enabled power optimization and sustainability solutions for data centers. • The Houston-based initiative targets efficiency in high-demand AI computing environments using advanced cloud technology. • This partnership addresses growing energy challenges in U.S. data centers powering AI workloads.

• The United States hosts nearly 5,500 data centers and accounts for three-quarters of the world's computing power as of May 2025, providing a substantial advantage over China in the global AI race according to EpochAI research. • America's semiconductor superiority remains the primary AI advantage, with Nvidia chips significantly outperforming China's most powerful Huawei-produced chips in both processing power and bandwidth memory, and the performance gap will increase substantially in coming years. • ByteDance plans to invest $23 billion this year on AI infrastructure including chips, while US companies are coordinating with the White House to secure additional grid capacity for data centers to prevent consumer price hikes.

• The Trump administration has granted Silicon Valley-based nuclear companies expedited pathways to test experimental reactor designs, with the DOE creating a new program and assigning concierge teams to help companies navigate bureaucracy. • About a dozen advanced reactor companies are currently planning to participate, with the administration targeting some reactors to achieve "critical" status—a key milestone toward functioning power plants—by July 2026. • The DOE quietly overhauled safety rules for new reactors and shared the revised regulations with companies before making them public, addressing long-standing complaints that companies lack opportunities to experiment.

• The U.S. Department of Energy announced a public-private partnership on March 20, 2026, to develop a major 10-gigawatt data center with dedicated power generation on a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. • SoftBank, through SB Energy, is partnering with AEP Ohio to invest $4.2 billion in grid upgrades and new transmission lines, with companies asserting the project will not raise customer rates. • The initiative is part of the U.S.-Japan Strategic Trade and Investment Agreement and supports SoftBank's collaboration with OpenAI and Oracle on Stargate, an AI infrastructure project with potential $500 billion investment.

• AI is expected to drive data center power consumption up 175% by 2030, creating unprecedented grid shortages that have pushed electricity prices higher across the country and compelled tech companies to seek alternative power sources. • Google's deal to power a new Minnesota data center blends wind and solar with a 30 gigawatt-hour battery from Form Energy, while the U.S. is expected to have nearly 65 gigawatts of battery storage capacity by year-end. • Dozens of startups including Amperesand, DG Matrix, Heron Power, Camus, GridBeyond, and Texture are developing power conversion and grid management technologies to address the critical energy shortage.

• The Trump administration, through Energy Secretary Chris Wright's leadership, is accelerating AI data center expansion via a 'Ratepayer Protection Pledge' encouraging major tech firms including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI to fund their own power generation. • Utilities have signed agreements for 183 gigawatts of data center capacity, equivalent to 22% of 2025 U.S. electricity demand, with initiatives including streamlined permits and federal land use for construction. • The expansion presents challenges in deregulated markets like Texas and mid-Atlantic states, where utilities manage only transmission infrastructure rather than power supply responsibility, requiring state and regional coordination to ensure adequate power plant development.

• The bipartisan Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act seeks to prohibit law enforcement and intelligence agencies from buying sensitive data like geolocation from third-party brokers. • Current privacy laws fail to cover data brokers, allowing circumvention of Electronic Communications Privacy Act restrictions via middlemen. • Similar provisions in Government Surveillance Reform Act and Security and Freedom Enhancement Act would limit purchases, with exceptions for emergencies and warrants.

• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced public comment solicitation on Google's proposed data center campus in Botetourt County, Virginia, focusing on effects to local water sources. • The project highlights growing infrastructure demands from tech giants, with Virginia Tech expert Murat Kantarcioglu noting data centers' critical role amid rising cybersecurity risks like potential drone attacks. • This development underscores tensions between tech expansion and environmental concerns in the US, potentially influencing future data center approvals nationwide.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is unveiling new chips and software at the GTC conference to solidify the company's position as the industry shifts from training giant foundation models to inference workloads that power real-world applications. • The strategic pivot targets lower-cost, high-throughput AI deployments within enterprise workflows, autonomous systems, and product integrations rather than just headline-grabbing training clusters. • Nvidia's next moves will shape the cost, speed, and competitive structure of the global AI software and infrastructure market as the industry enters a new phase of AI economics.

• Lawmakers cut severance taxes on metallurgical coal and attempted similar for natural gas, prioritizing fossil fuel industries amid energy cost hikes. • They passed data center rules maintaining developer secrecy but requiring water use disclosures to affected landowners. • These moves support AG Morrisey's $300M Hope Scholarship while diverting public school funds, sparking education debates.

• US mayors are pushing back against the rapid boom in data centers driven by surging AI demands, citing concerns over energy consumption and local impacts. • The backlash highlights tensions in communities facing infrastructure strain from AI infrastructure growth, as reported by Agence France-Presse on March 15, 2026. • This resistance underscores broader debates on balancing technological advancement with environmental and economic sustainability in the US.

Negotiations between OpenAI and Oracle for expanding a massive datacenter in Abilene, Texas, as part of the $500 billion Stargate project, have stalled due to disagreements on financing and capacity delivery speed. The project aims to secure US AI leadership but faces headwinds in the global compute arms race with over $700 billion in datacenter lease volume, up 340%. Resolution could accelerate American AI infrastructure dominance amid bubble concerns.

Amazon Web Services began deploying AI chips from Groq alongside its Trainium2 processors in US data centers on March 13, 2026, to diversify inference capabilities. The move supports over 100,000 Inferentia chips already in use, aiming to cut AI training costs by 50% for customers. This hybrid strategy enhances AWS competitiveness against Nvidia amid chip shortages, boosting scalability for enterprise AI workloads. Expansion to additional regions is slated for April 2026.