Flexing a data centre against the grid: cutting demand without cutting the work
As AI data centres strain the grid, a new approach is being tried: slowing work that can wait while critical services keep running.
Policy
Energy
US data centres could burn more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035
BloombergNEF projects US data centre natural gas use reaching 18 billion cubic feet a day by 2035, nearly double its forecast from nine months earlier.
Policy
The UK grid has a phantom data center problem: the queue filled with projects that will never be built
Demand in the connection queue rose from 41 to 125 gigawatts in eight months. The government believes most of it is a mirage.
Policy
China's AI hub is a grassland city, and Ulanqab is running out of water
Nearly a hundred data centers have gone up in this Inner Mongolian city. Power is cheap and winters are cold, but rainfall matches Denver's.
Companies
Opposition to data centers jumped from 42 to 75 percent in a single year
Three in four Americans now oppose a data center being built near them, a Heatmap News survey finds. A year earlier, opinion was almost evenly split.
Policy
The giant Ohio data center: Nvidia backing it with up to $105 billion
OpenAI has leased a campus in Ohio from SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy for 20 years. Nvidia is backing the project with up to $105 billion and becomes the exclusive chip supplier; Jensen Huang says the bottleneck is now land, power and shell.
Companies
If gas prices triple, the data centre plans get shaken
Energy research firm Noreva forecasts that natural gas prices could triple in parts of the US. Four large companies are planning gigawatt-scale gas plants.
Companies
AI's bottleneck is not the power, it is the path the power takes
NVIDIA argues the constraint is not how many watts are consumed but how power gets from the grid to the chip. An 800-volt DC architecture removes conversion stages.
Products