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SoftBank Plans to Make Large-Scale Batteries for AI Data Centers
SoftBank Group Corp.’s mobile unit said it plans to begin large-scale battery cell manufacturing at its Sakai, Osaka plant to address growing power demand for AI services.
UAE Unveils 5GW AI Campus with First Nvidia Shipments, Aims for Global AI Leadership
The UAE is building a 5GW AI campus and receiving advanced Nvidia chips, marking a major step in its global AI strategy while ensuring chip security.
The Critical Infrastructure Bottlenecks of the AI Revolution
AI scaling faces critical bottlenecks in computational hardware, power generation, and thermal management, making infrastructure a vital investment.
A video: "How AI Datacenters Eat the World" - Erkan's Field Diary
AI datacenters are transforming compute, cooling, power demand, and energy strategy as tech giants race to build AI supercomputers.
Join the Debate Shaping the Future of AI Infrastructure | Data Centre Magazine
Explore hyperscale growth, AI workloads, sustainability, cloud infrastructure, edge computing and power optimisation strategies live in London
The Strait of Hormuz crisis shows energy security is now a boardroom issue
Energy shocks have always been a threat to the broader economy, but energy is now deeply embedded in complex, electricity-dependent business systems.
Energy Transfer Expands Infrastructure Amid AI Energy Demand
Energy Transfer strengthens its infrastructure strategy through Permian expansion and rising AI-driven energy demand linked to growing data center activity.
Private capital turns AI demand into a data center investment boom
Ares and Blackstone see AI infrastructure reshaping private markets
A massive AI data center transforms rural Utah into a national flashpoint : Peoples Dispatch
These data facilities, although ... infrastructure powering the AI technology boom. Backed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (known internationally for the television show “Shark Tank”) and Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), the project would be roughly the size of Washington D.C. (160 square-kilometers). This hyperscale data center is set to consume 9 gigawatts of power. More than double the total energy consumption of the entire ...
All the latest updates on AI data centers
An exploration of the ongoing controversy and infrastructure challenges surrounding the massive energy demands of AI data centers.
TeraWulf Shifts Focus from Bitcoin Mining to AI Compute
TeraWulf's Q1 2026 results show HPC leasing revenue of $21 million, surpassing its Bitcoin mining revenue as the company pivots to AI infrastructure.
Florida Law Ensures Data Centers Pay Fair Share
Florida Governor signs SB 484 to ensure data centers cover their own energy infrastructure costs, shielding residential ratepayers from subsidizing these facilities.
From Capacity to Chaos: How AI Data Centers Challenge the Grid
Unpredictable power swings from AI data centers are forcing utilities to model how these facilities behave during disturbances.
Copenhagen’s Reel raises €15 million to make renewable energy predictable for businesses and profitable for producers
Reel, a Copenhagen-based electricity supplier and trader accelerating the energy transition, has raised €15 million in Series A funding to refine its products, grow its portfolio and build a commercial team in Germany. The round was led by Future Energy Ventures, with participation from UVC Partners, Transition, The Footprint Firm, and angel investors. Jon Sigvert, […]
The Power Needs of AI Are Becoming a Crunch Issue for Governments
Governments are already conducting probes of AI’s energy use.
Iren acquires Spanish data center developer Nostrum
Data center and cloud firm Iren is expanding into Europe with the acquisition of Spanish developer Nostrum. The Nasdaq-listed firm this week announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Ingenostrum, S.L. (Nostrum Group), a data center developer based in Spain. The deal marks Iren’s entry into Europe, adding approximately 490MW of secured, grid-connected […]
From Cradle to Cloud: A Life Cycle Review of AI's Environmental Footprint
arXiv:2605.05416v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The rapid growth in the deployment and scale of modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems has intensified concerns regarding their environmental impacts, yet we still lack a comprehensive view of where and how these impacts arise across the AI life cycle. In order to shed more light on this question, we conduct a structured, comprehensive literature review of scientific papers and technical reports that examine different aspects of AI's environmental footprint. Using an eight-stage life cycle framework, spanning hardware manufacturing, infrastructure construction, data gathering and preprocessing, model experimentation, training, post-training adaptation, deployment, inference, and end-of-life, we systematically map which stages are covered, the metrics reported at each stage, and the methodological choices made. We then draw conclusions about the information we gathered, finding that although life cycle language is increasingly common in discussions of "green" or "sustainable" AI, its definition remains unclear -- while some studies focus solely on model training and inference, others encompass broader measurements such as data collection, infrastructure, and embodied emissions. We also find that reporting practices rely predominantly on CO2e estimates derived from coarse proxies, with limited attention dedicated to water usage, materials manufacturing, and multi-impact life cycle assessment, making it difficult to compare and aggregate true results. Building on these findings, we propose measurement and reporting approaches to support more comprehensive, comparable and policy-relevant assessments of AI's environmental impacts.
LLMSpace: Carbon Footprint Modeling for Large Language Model Inference on LEO Satellites
arXiv:2605.05615v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) impose rapidly growing energy demands, creating an emerging energy and carbon crisis driven by large-scale inference. Solar-powered, AI-enabled low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites have been proposed to mitigate terrestrial electricity consumption, but their lifecycle carbon footprint remains poorly understood due to launch emissions, satellite manufacturing, and radiation-hardened hardware requirements. This paper presents \textit{LLMSpace}, the first carbon modeling framework for LLM inference on AI-enabled LEO satellites. LLMSpace jointly models operational and embodied carbon, peripheral subsystems, radiation-hardened accelerators and memories, and LLM-specific workload characteristics such as prefill-decode behavior and token generation. Using realistic satellite and GPU configurations, LLMSpace reveals key trade-offs among carbon footprint, inference latency, hardware design, and operational lifetime for sustainable space-based LLM inference. Source code: https://github.com/UnchartedRLab/LLMSpace.
Powering AI: Can Canada’s energy systems meet the growing demand? | News and announcements
Kshitij Ahuja, Director of Digital Transformation at Nuclear Promise X, emphasized that since AI is here to stay, the key challenge is not the viability or adoption of the technology, but the planning required across energy systems, infrastructure and processes to support it.
Microsoft May Shelve 2030 Clean Energy Target Amid AI Power Consumption Growth
However, the company’s electricity ... to AI infrastructure expansion. Large AI model training needs big computing clusters. These clusters run all the time and use much more energy than regular cloud tasks. This creates a growing gap between clean energy procurement and real-time electricity usage. Microsoft’s challenge is not ...
Does the Positive Impact of AI Outweigh Its Environmental Costs?
Understanding AI's environmental costs is vital. The study reveals wide-ranging carbon emissions and water use, emphasizing the need for industry transparency.
Pangea 5: TotalEnergies reveals 6x faster AI-powered supercomputer
TotalEnergies unveils Pangea 5 supercomputer to boost AI and seismic imaging for energy projects.
AI Emerging as the Next Big Layer in India’s RE Transition Amid Grid, BESS Challenges
Industry executives said AI-driven ... metering infrastructure could help utilities better manage electricity consumption, reduce technical and commercial losses, and optimize grid operations. Explaining the rold of AI in the Indian context, Tarun said, “There are two parts from the DISCOM perspective. We help DISCOMs monitor and manage energy demand and ...
Biggest US Grid Must Redesign to Cope With AI Boom, CEO Says
The biggest US power grid needs a revamp to cope with the unprecedented surge in electricity demand stemming from the data-center boom, said Chief Executive
South Korea passes special law to speed AI data-center expansion
South Korea's parliament passed a law to accelerate AI data center construction, introducing a one-stop approval system and easing certain facility requirements.
AI Boom Trumps Sleep, Says Boss of Data Center Operator NEXTDC
Short on sleep but flush with new funds, the head of Australian data center operator NEXTDC Ltd. has a message to investors: You snooze, you lose.
Lithium enrichment threatens to curb fusion deployment
arXiv:2605.04707v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The impact of lithium isotopic enrichment on the global deployment of nuclear fusion energy is analysed. Lithium - the 6Li isotope in particular - is essentially one of two elemental fuels required by fusion reactors for tritium breeding. Whilst variable consumption of lithium is low enough to present negligible cost, it is instead the large stored inventory volume (50-100 tonnes) and its required enrichment that compound to significantly drive capital costs. These costs are driven by the inefficiency of the tritium breeding process, making this challenge fundamental to almost all fusion power plant concepts. Financing would further compound these effects, making lithium fusion fuels more akin to an upfront capital expenditure than operational expenditure. Other potential barriers to fusion deployment created by lithium are also discussed: enrichment technologies of today are shown to be too expensive, not scalable, and environmentally risky, and highly enriched 6Li is a controlled substance. Mitigating actions include: developing alternative enrichment technologies that are affordable, scalable, and do not rely on mercury; incorporating lithium enrichment as an explicit cost driver in reactor design processes, producing more compact reactors with smaller lithium inventories; establishing distinct enrichment levels to enable supply chain monitoring for misuse; and the most radical solution: breeding blankets that use natural, unenriched lithium. These actions may impact tritium breeding capabilities, which calls for an urgent re-assessment of the tritium breeding paradigm. Whatever solution is sought, lithium supply is a mission-critical issue that needs urgently addressing.
AI infrastructure efficiency: Why maximising intelligence per watt will define the inference era | CXO Insight Middle East
For operators planning AI infrastructure, efficiency is an architectural condition to be established at the outset.
Nvidia to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN as part of AI data center deal | Reuters
Thursday's partnership is intended to accelerate the deployment of large-scale AI factories by combining Nvidia's factory architecture with IREN's infrastructure operations, the companies said.
Accelerating battery research with an AI interface between FINALES and Kadi4Mat
arXiv:2605.00909v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The time-consuming formation process critically impacts the longevity of sodium-ion coin cells and End Of Life (EOL) performance. This study aims to optimize formation protocols for duration efficiency, targeting high-performance outcomes while minimizing the number of experiments to reduce resource consumption and accelerate discovery. Specifically, we consider two potentially competing objectives: minimizing formation time and maximizing EOL performance. Beyond this application focus, we also present a methodological contribution: a framework designed to enable interoperability between the FINALES and Kadi RDM ecosystems, which we employ to tackle our optimization problem. In this setup, the FINALES framework orchestrates experiment planning and execution on the POLiS MAP, while an active-learning agent implemented within Kadi4Mat guides experiment selection, using multi-objective batched Bayesian optimization to efficiently explore the parameter space. This interoperability enhancement enables coordinated, distributed collaboration across automated systems and human-operated workflows, bridging multiple research centers. Using this approach, we iteratively explore the trade-off between formation time and EOL performance and identify candidate solutions approximating the Pareto front. The resulting workflow demonstrates the capability of interoperable infrastructures to facilitate data-driven optimization in battery research, and establishes a transferable framework applicable to diverse materials science and engineering optimization tasks.
Will the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism Impact European Electricity Prices? A GNN-Based Network Analysis
arXiv:2605.03304v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) creates a complex challenge for the interconnected European electricity market. Traditional static analyses often miss the cross-border spillover effects that are vital for understanding this policy. This paper addresses this gap by developing a spatio-temporal Graph Neural Network (GNN) framework. It quantifies how CBAM affects electricity prices and carbon intensity (CI) at the same time. We modeled a subgraph of eight European countries. Our results suggest that CBAM is not just a uniform tax. Instead, it acts as a tool that transforms the market and creates structural differences. In our simulated scenarios, we observe that low-carbon countries like France and Switzerland can gain a competitive advantage. This suggests a potential decrease in their domestic electricity prices. Meanwhile, high-carbon countries like Poland face a double burden of rising costs. We identify the primary driver as a fundamental shift in the market's merit order.
A Michigan farm town voted down plans for a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center. Weeks later, construction began
Despite local opposition, construction has commenced on a large-scale data center project in a Michigan town.
Energy Intelligence Solution Market to Reach $7.5B by 2035 at 13.2% CAGR, North America Leads - Siemens, Schneider Electric, IBM
The market's evolution reflects ... platforms capable of managing energy consumption, forecasting demand, optimizing costs, and ensuring regulatory compliance in real time. Growth Drivers: Regulation, AI Optimization, and Smart Infrastructure Regulatory Compliance Becomes ...
As Oil Prices Stay High, China Doubles Down on Wind Power
An industrial policy of subsidies and import restrictions laid the foundations for China to become almost as dominant in wind turbines as in solar panels.
TADI: Tool-Augmented Drilling Intelligence via Agentic LLM Orchestration over Heterogeneous Wellsite Data
arXiv:2605.00060v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present TADI (Tool-Augmented Drilling Intelligence), an agentic AI system that transforms drilling operational data into evidence-based analytical intelligence. Applied to the Equinor Volve Field dataset, TADI integrates 1,759 daily drilling reports, selected WITSML real-time objects, 15,634 production records, formation tops, and perforations into a dual-store architecture: DuckDB for structured queries over 12 tables with 65,447 rows, and ChromaDB for semantic search over 36,709 embedded documents. Twelve domain-specialized tools, orchestrated by a large language model via iterative function calling, support multi-step evidence gathering that cross-references structured drilling measurements with daily report narratives. The system parses all 1,759 DDR XML files with zero errors, handles three incompatible well naming conventions, and is backed by 95 automated tests plus a 130-question stress-question taxonomy spanning six operational categories. We formalize the agent's behavior as a sequential tool-selection problem and propose the Evidence Grounding Score (EGS) as a simple grounding-compliance proxy based on measurements, attributed DDR quotations, and required answer sections. The complete 6,084-line, framework-free implementation is reproducible given the public Volve download and an API key, and the case studies and qualitative ablation analysis suggest that domain-specialized tool design, rather than model scale alone, is the primary driver of analytical quality in technical operations.
Market Power and Distributed Solar Integration in Microgrids under Limited Regulation
arXiv:2603.16893v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Decentralized electricity systems increasingly emerge where centralized grids fail to provide reliable supply. In such settings, privately operated neighborhood microgrids, often based on diesel generators, exhibit significant market power, limited regulatory oversight, and high environmental externalities. In parallel, households increasingly deploy off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to gain control over electricity supply. However, these systems suffer from curtailed excess generation during peak solar hours and unreliable access at other times. While prior studies have optimized microgrids in low-reliability grid contexts from a techno-economic perspective, they largely neglect the market power exerted by monopolistic private generators. This paper addresses this gap by developing a bi-level game-theoretic model that enables household-generated electricity to be fed into the microgrid while explicitly accounting for the market power of a neighborhood diesel generator company (DGC). The regulator sets price and feed-in-tariff caps to maximize household economic surplus (HES), while the DGC acts as a profit-maximizing agent controlling access and supply. The model is illustrated using high-resolution empirical data from Lebanon. Results show that: (i) price and feed-in-tariff caps substantially increase HES and consistently induce significant household PV feed-in to the microgrid; (ii) higher DGC budgets or greater PV-owner penetration lead to pronounced gains in HES; and (iii) the renewable energy share reaches 60% under base conditions and approaches 100% at sufficiently high budgets or PV-owner penetration levels, compared to 0% under the status quo.
The Hidden Cost of Thinking: Energy Use and Environmental Impact of LMs Beyond Pretraining
arXiv:2605.01158v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Modern language model development extends far beyond pretraining, yet environmental reporting remains narrowly focused on the cost of training a single final model. In this work, we provide the first detailed breakdown of the environmental impact of a full model development pipeline, from pretraining through supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, and reinforcement learning, for Olmo 3, a family of 7 billion and 32 billion parameter models in both instruction-following and reasoning variants. We find that reasoning models are 17x more expensive to post-train than their instruction-tuned counterparts in terms of datacenter energy, driven by reinforcement learning rollout generation. Development costs (including experimentation, failed runs, and ablations) account for 82.2% of total compute, a roughly 65% increase over the ~50% reported for pretraining-focused pipelines in prior work. In total, we estimate our model development process consumed ~12.3 GWh of datacenter energy, emitted 4,251 tCO2eq, and consumed 15,887 kL of water, with water consumption driven entirely by power generation infrastructure rather than data center cooling. These costs, which are almost entirely unreported by model developers, are growing rapidly as post-training pipelines become more complex, and must be accounted for in environmental reporting standards and by the research community working to reduce AI's environmental impact.
AI data centers head for the ocean
The industry is exploring moving AI data centers to the ocean to address cooling and energy demands.
Europe is hungry for AI data centres — but its energy grid cannot feed them | Euronews
From decade-long grid queues to facilities running at half capacity, a new study exposes the energy crisis at the heart of Europe's push to boost its AI capabilities.
SP Energy Networks and Keen AI launch digital tool to cut UK grid connection wait times
ScottishPower transmission and distribution subsidiary SP Energy Networks has partnered with UK AI company Keen AI to deploy an AI-powered tool that provides greater visibility into transmission grid connection options for energy developers. – Sebastian Moss The tool, dubbed IConn, works by digitalizing the transmission network into a unified view of existing, contracted, and planned […]
AI Datacenter Liquid Cooling Market to Reach USD 17.8 Billion by 2036 as Hyperscale AI Infrastructure Drives Thermal Management Transformation | Morningstar
This growth reflects a structural transformation in datacenter thermal management, where operators are moving beyond traditional air-cooling architectures toward liquid-based cooling systems capable of supporting ultra-high-density AI racks and GPU training clusters. As AI accelerators continue to increase rack-level power densities, liquid cooling is becoming a critical infrastructure requirement for maintaining thermal efficiency, reducing energy consumption...
AI and Open-data Driven Scalable Solar Power Profiling
Solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment is expanding rapidly, yet detailed, up-to-date information on the spatial distribution and capacity of rooftop PV remains limited. This paper presents an open, scalable framework for detecting solar panels from open data and generating city-level solar power profiles. We leverage foundation vision AI models to detect solar panel geometries from open-source satellite imagery.
AI Data Center Power Surge: Shifting Trends Toward Natural Gas - AAF
Despite higher carbon intensity, ... and infrastructure hurdles. ... Rapid growth in artificial intelligence (AI) data center power demand is driving a resurgence in fossil fuel investment. This is highlighted by the 2026 approval of massive natural gas projects in Texas and Pennsylvania. These developments pose challenges to carbon-free energy targets as utilities prioritize grid reliability ...
Water utilities jettison listening sticks and embrace AI
World leaders in the sector, such as Singapore, have leakage rates that are 75% lower than in England and Wales
Powering data centers in emerging markets - Atlantic Council
This report examines how emerging markets are increasingly powering the next wave of data centers, with recommendations for policymakers.
Enbridge aims to help North America win from the AI boom and the Iran war as the FedEx of energy delivery
Enbridge is feeding the growth of U.S. power demand and rising foreign reliance on North American oil and gas.
How AI Data Centers Are Reshaping the Power Market (And the 4 Plays Investors Are Making) - 24/7 Wall St.
If your electricity bill jumped this year, you’re not imagining it. The driver is the server racks humming inside warehouses going up across Virginia, Texas, Ohio, and Arizona, more than summer heat or aging infrastructure alone. The AI boom is colliding with a power grid that wasn’t built ...
AI Infrastructure Is Disrupting Energy Demand Forecasts | Energy Intelligence
It also means monitoring infrastructure build-out more closely, including data center investment, grid connection requests, chip availability, cooling requirements and corporate commitments to new computing capacity. These are not always captured well by traditional macroeconomic indicators. A national forecast may still track GDP growth, industrial output and energy prices, but AI-related demand ...
ON Semiconductor Q1 2026 slides: AI data center surge drives recovery By Investing.com
ON Semiconductor Q1 2026 slides: AI data center surge drives recovery
Geothermal startup Fervo Energy to raise up to $1.3B in IPO
Fervo Energy, a leader in geothermal power technology, is preparing for a significant initial public offering.
Brookfield Infrastructure Q1 2026 Earnings: FFO Hits $709M, AI Data Center Investments Drive 10% Growth - News and Statistics - IndexBox
Brookfield Infrastructure’s Q1 2026 FFO rose 10% to $709M, accelerating from 6% a year ago, fueled by AI data center build-out, new fiber and pipeline acquisitions, and high-end organic growth. The 4.9% dividend remains supported by a strong growth pipeline.
Peter Thiel backs $1bn ocean data centre start-up powered by waves
US tech billionaire leads $140mn investment into Panthalassa as search for AI power pushes into exotic new frontiers
AI boom sparks rare warning of ‘significant risks’ to grid - E&E News by POLITICO
The grid monitor, North American Electric Reliability Corp., is issuing its warning as it develops new standards for large data centers.
AI Data Centers Will Soon Consume as Much Power as Two-Thirds of All American Homes | The Manila Times
A single ChatGPT query uses 10 times more energy than a Google search. Former CIA and Pentagon advisor Jim Rickards says the AI boom has a massive dependency most people aren’t seeing - and the U.S. power grid is already at capacity.
AI Data Center Boom Rewires US Power Supply Chain
Rising demand for electrical equipment drives supply growth, but hyperscale construction accelerates and infrastructure challenges persist.
How a Single Piece of Heavy Machinery Is Reshaping the AI Race - The National Interest
Tags: China, Data Centers, European ... Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Siemens Energy, and United States ... AI’s next bottleneck is power, with turbine shortages and grid constraints reshaping where and how fast data center infrastructure can scale globally....
The AI electric grid calls for a mixed‑fleet transmission strategy | Utility Dive
In the AI-era planning environment, hybridization is not a compromise — it is the engineering approach best aligned with real world system needs, timelines and locational realities, writes NYISO planning engineer Anees Jeddy.
Under a cloud: the growing resentment against the massive datacentres sprouting across Australian cities
Residents say AI factories with unknown environmental impacts are being rushed into development as proponents argue Australia must ride the data boom or be left behind
NYT
Not Even Japanese Bathhouses Are Immune From Shocks of Iran War
The couple fighting a 52m-high data centre next door
Japan is getting ready for a huge surge in AI facilities — and complaints from nearby residents
Why water will shape the next phase of UK AI data center growth
The race to scale AI infrastructure is accelerating. In the UK, billions are flowing into new data center capacity as operators respond to surging demand for high-performance compute. Much of the discussion has centered on power grid capacity, generation, and how quickly new supply can be brought online.
Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science—and mining
Smack dab between Australia and South America, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research vessel Rainier is currently on a mission to map more than 8,000 square nautical miles of the Pacific seafloor in search of critical mineral deposits. But it isn’t doing it alone; for a month starting this week, it will…
Nuclear AI Startup Fermi Promised Land and Ample Power. But It Couldn't Sign a Single Client
Now the ex-CEO is waging a battle for Fermi’s future and its vision of atomic-powered data centers in the Texas panhandle.
The AI Infrastructure Bottleneck: Power and Thermal Challenges
AI workloads, particularly the training and inference of generative AI models, require a density of compute that far exceeds traditional cloud computing. This density creates two primary physical challenges: power delivery and thermal management. Traditional data centers were designed for a ...
AI Data Center Growth Is Now a Power Infrastructure Problem
In an environment where megawatts ... valuable infrastructure in its own right (Figure 1). 1. AI-driven demand, amplified by cloud architectures that stack redundancy and availability for AI workloads, is pushing data center power requirements onto a growth curve that significantly outpaces the U.S. grid’s traditional expansion trajectory, forcing developers toward power-first designs that blend grid supply with microgrids, on-site generation, and energy ...
The Power Problem Behind AI—and a Path to Fix It
AI data centers strain the grid with massive load swings. Battery storage, microgrids, and unified controls offer a stable path forward.
AI Data Center Boom Keeps Natural Gas in Focus Despite Big Tech’s Clean-Energy Bets - TipRanks.com
The rapid expansion of AI data centers is intensifying global power demand, with much of the current load still met by natural gas, despite Big Tech’s growing inves...
Coatue has a plan to buy up land for data centers, possibly for Anthropic
Investment firm Coatue is reportedly acquiring land for data center development, potentially to support Anthropic's needs.
Australia risks missing AI boom without data centers, inquiry hears
Australia risks becoming a “consumer of someone else’s technology” unless it accelerates investment in data centers, an industry group told a state parliamentary inquiry.
Unsupervised Electrofacies Classification and Porosity Characterization in the Offshore Keta Basin Using Wireline Logs
arXiv:2604.27126v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This study presents an unsupervised machine learning workflow for electrofacies analysis in the offshore Keta Basin, Ghana, where core data are scarce. Six standard wireline logs from Well~C were analysed over a depth interval comprising approximately $11{,}195$ samples. K-means clustering was applied in multivariate log space, with the clustering structure evaluated using inertia and silhouette diagnostics. Four clusters were identified, supported by an average silhouette coefficient of approximately $0.50$, indicating moderate but meaningful separation. The resulting electrofacies exhibit systematic, depth-continuous patterns associated with variations in clay content, porosity, and rock framework properties, forming a geological continuum from shale-dominated to cleaner sandstone-dominated units. The results demonstrate that log-only, unsupervised clustering supported by quantitative metrics provides a robust and reproducible framework for subsurface characterisation. The proposed workflow offers a practical tool for early-stage formation evaluation in frontier offshore basins and a foundation for future integrated studies.
Economic Crosscurrents Mount as Energy Shock Meets AI Wave
The global economy is increasingly captive to two opposing forces.
Optimal Consumption and Investment with Energy-Efficiency Adoption
arXiv:2604.28052v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Despite many decades of research, economically grounded models that analyse energy consumption and energy-efficiency adoption within a unified framework remain underdeveloped. This article addresses this gap by proposing a model of consumption, investment, and energy-efficiency adoption under uncertainty. It develops new definitions of the rebound and backfire effects, and integrates their welfare implications into a model of optimal subsidy design. Macro-level technology diffusion and energy consumption across heterogeneous agents are also formalised. Explicit results for core objects are derived, including the adoption threshold and post-adoption strategies, and these are shown to depend on agent wealth, introducing a novel channel through which financial conditions influence technology-adoption decisions. An approximation scheme is proposed to estimate welfare implications explicitly. Adoption of energy efficiency is shown to be welfare improving in the main. A detailed case study of a representative German single-family home illustrates the theoretical results. Numerical analysis indicates that the subsidy policy effectively steers aggregate energy consumption.
As the world swelters, companies scramble for ways to keep everyone cool
From record heat to rising energy costs, climate control is now strategic—helping companies like Trane Technologies post strong results as AI reshapes how buildings are managed
AVK launches modular power system for data center market
UK-based power solutions provider AVK has launched a modular power system for the hyperscale and AI data center sector. – AVK The AVK PowerPod is a fully integrated, pre-engineered power solution delivered in a transportable modular unit. The unit comprises an engine for power delivery, switchgear, UPS, controls, and enclosures.
US Interstate Transmission
US House Republicans and Democrats are feeling equal pressure to shield their constituents from energy bill hikes amid the country’s artificial intelligence boom and spiking electricity demand, but they disagree on how to allocate the costs of interstate electricity transmission.
Electricity price forecasting across Norway's five bidding zones in the post-crisis era
arXiv:2604.26634v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Norway's electricity market is heavily dominated by hydropower, but the 2021--2022 energy crisis and stronger integration with Continental Europe have fundamentally altered price formation, reducing the reliability of forecasting models calibrated on historical data. Despite the critical need for updated models, a unified benchmark evaluating feature contributions across all structurally diverse Norwegian bidding zones remains lacking. Here we present a comprehensive evaluation of electricity price forecasting across all five Norwegian Nord Pool bidding zones. We constructed a multimodal hourly dataset spanning 2019--2025 and evaluated eight forecasting model families including LightGBM, ARX, and advanced deep learning architectures using a strictly causal test set. We implemented robust rolling-origin backtesting, leave-one-group-out feature ablation, and conditional regime analysis to dissect model performance and feature utility. Our results show that LightGBM achieves the best performance in every zone with MAE ranging from 1.64 to 5.74~EUR/MWh, while the ridge ARX model remains a highly competitive linear benchmark in northern zones. Feature ablation reveals that models relying solely on lagged prices and calendar variables achieve high accuracy and often match or exceed full multimodal integration. However, conditional regime analysis demonstrates that external features like reservoir levels and gas prices remain crucial to stratify forecast errors, which consistently increase under stressed market regimes. This highlights the practical value of model interpretability and regime awareness for decision makers facing structural changes in market dynamics.
Counting own goals: High-level assessment of the economic relationship between the ICT and the Oil and Gas sectors and its environmental implications
arXiv:2604.26539v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The ICT sector has been one of the most successful and fastest-growing industry in history. While the environmental issue in this sector has mainly been addressed by assessing its footprint and, to a lesser extent, its avoided emissions or net impacts, the additional emissions from the digitalization of carbon-intensive activities, such as the Oil and Gas (O&G) sector, have rarely been discussed. By doing so, we have forgotten to count the own goals conceded over more than 20 years in the troubled relationship between the ICT and the O&G sector. Using input-output analysis and economic data ranging from 2000 to 2022, we observe that on average 2% of the annual financial flows from the ICT sector are directed towards the Oil and Gas sector. Considering the significant growth of the ICT sector during this time, O&G companies now spends a massive amount on ICT products in absolute terms. It also appears that in 2022, for each dollar going from the ICT sector to the renewable and nuclear energy industry, more than $4 go to the O&G industry. In addition, we also provide a classification of digital activities in the O&G sector to facilitate environmental assessments and present two case studies estimating potential added emissions from the digitalization of oil activities. Finally, looking at the immense growth in generative AI, we provide an exploration of causal links between the current success of GPU technology and its intricate early relationship with the O&G sector. This article lays the groundwork for defining the nature of the relationship between ICT and O&G, which predates the current hype surrounding generative AI. We provide the analytical elements needed to begin estimating the added emissions from the digitalisation of O&G.
Power Infrastructure for Data Centers Market to Reach $47.3 Billion by 2030, Driven by AI-Intensive Computing Expansion
The fundamental shift toward ... data center infrastructure cannot accommodate. AI training workloads and large language model operations demand continuous, high-capacity electrical supply with minimal downtime tolerance. For more information or to download the report, visit https://www.bccresearch.com/market-research/energy-and-resou...
New Study Flags AI Data Centers as Major Test for US Electricity Grid
A RAND study finds that rapidly growing electricity demand from AI data centers could strain the US power grid, especially because new capacity is uncertain and unevenly distributed across regions. Although thousands of gigawatts of generation projects are proposed, only a small fraction is ...
Schneider Electric AI Growth: 5 Key Revenue Surprises?
Paris / Brussels – April 30, ... surging demand from AI-powered data centres. The French multinational, known for its energy management and automation solutions, is benefiting from a global wave of investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. ... The latest results highlight how rapidly expanding AI workloads are transforming industrial and energy sectors, positioning companies like Schneider Electric at the center of a new digital ...
Speed to Power: How Developers Are Restructuring for AI Demand
Behind-the-meter data center builds, phased energization, and nuclear bets move from edge cases to core strategy. ... Power constraints are no longer a future risk for data center developers – they are already shaping how projects are designed, financed, and delivered. As AI infrastructure demand ...
Mapping Out America’s AI Data Center Boom: 4,000 Sites and 442 GW in Active Queue | TheEnergyMag
A U.S. data center map shows nearly 4,000 sites today, but 442 GW of active interconnection requests reveal the true scale of AI-driven power demand — echoing a buildout first seen in Bitcoin mining.
Solaria Raises €300 Million to Fund Data Center, Battery Boost
Spanish clean-energy producer Solaria Energía y Medio Ambiente SA has raised about €300 million in a share offering, with the funds to be deployed in expanding its data center and battery storage operations.
China’s clean tech grip raises national security threat to Europe: Report
Europe’s rapid shift to clean energy is raising fresh security concerns, as a report warns that heavy reliance on Chinese solar, wind and battery technology could expose the region to supply disruptions, cyber risks and geopolitical pressure
Data center firm Kitebrook targets projects in Norway, backed by Carlyle Group co-founder
The backers of Nordic data center firm DigiPlex are back with a new Scandinavian-focused venture. Kitebrook Infra is aiming to develop several data center campuses in Norway, totaling more than 500MW of capacity. – Kitebrook Kitebrook is a property development and investment company based in Washington DC. The company is backed by real estate developer […]
Chinese green technology poses national security problem for Europe, report warns
European countries want to accelerate the shift to solar, wind and other energy sources whose supply chains are dominated by China
Is it reasonable to force AI companies to produce at least half of their electricity?
A discussion on the feasibility and ethics of mandating that AI companies generate a significant portion of their own power.
AI Data Centers: Rising Electricity Costs & Your Bill – Archyde
This isn’t just about the chips ... cooling infrastructure required to dissipate the heat generated. Liquid cooling, while more efficient than traditional air cooling, still adds to the overall energy consumption. The problem extends beyond simply generating enough electricity. The existing power grid, in many areas, isn’t equipped to handle the concentrated power demands of these data ...
Energy industry insiders advise lawmakers on supporting AI growth, protecting ratepayers | National | thecentersquare.com
(The Center Square) – Energy industry experts testified before Congress about what lawmakers should include in legislation looking to support the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence while protecting ratepayers from
Core Scientific Joins Crypto-to-AI Bandwagon
Core Scientific joins the crypto-to-AI bandwagon, expanding its services to include AI-related offerings.
The great American data centre divide
Many rural communities are viscerally opposed to AI infrastructure, putting them at odds with the White House
Oracle plans to power its New Mexico mega datacenter with a 2.45GW fuel cell farm
No sense in OpenAI stressing over its cloud bills if Oracle can't get the lights on Close on the heels of a report that OpenAI has missed revenue targets and may not be able to pay its future bills, compute partner Oracle is keeping calm and carrying on with a massive new datacenter complex in the New Mexico desert.…
Fermi’s nuclear-powered AI data center plan looks shaky after stock crash - The Washington Post
Corporate drama and a stock plummet at Fermi America are raising questions about the sustainability of the wider artificial intelligence boom.
AI-Driven Power Demand Reshapes US Energy Consulting Market - Business Insider
Consulting firms like Boston Consulting and McKinsey see AI-driven electricity demand surge, complicating energy transition efforts.
The Breaking Points: Power Emerges as AI’s Defining Limit
As AI workloads scale, power limitations are increasingly driven by infrastructure timelines and system complexity, rather than generation alone.
Energy Crisis Blows Softer In U.S.: AI Infrastructure Trade Appears Intact | Seeking Alpha
Energy companies and AI infrastructure firms are positioned for the long term given secular compute demand. Read what top investors are thinking about the possibilities.
US signs new AI and energy deals with Balkan countries as geopolitical influence widens
The United States has recently decided to sign new energy deals with other countries to combat power and economic challenges Recently, the US companies signed deals worth billions of dollars with...
It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready
The New York Times reports that America's aging power grid may struggle to meet the surging electricity demands driven by AI data centers and industrial electrification.
Mythos Is The AI The Grid Should Fear, And The One It Needs
Can AI improve the very grid it demands so much from? Emerging AI models, like Anthropic's Mythos, are at once the grid's biggest threat and its most powerful defense.
Nvidia-Tied Data Center Taps Junk-Debt Market for $4.5 Billion
A data center developer is seeking $4.54 billion in junk-debt financing for an artificial intelligence project tied to Nvidia Corp., testing investor appetite after a recent surge in offerings.
Big Tech shifts to new energy sources amid AI expansion
Data centers accounted for about 4.6% of total US power consumption in 2024, a figure that could nearly triple by 2028, according to government estimates. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect data centers to consume around 8% of US electricity by 2030, up from roughly 3% today. Meanwhile, Rystad Energy estimates that data centers and electric vehicles combined could add 290 terawatt hours of demand by the end of the decade. This surge is placing unprecedented strain on existing power infrastructure...
Data centers are looking to short-term energy patches for power to meet demand
Industry leaders also pointed to community opposition and a lack of policy as barriers to bringing facilities online at this year’s Data Center World conference.
Amazon partners with Veolia to deploy water-reuse technology at data centers in Mississippi
Amazon has partnered with the French utility company Veolia to reduce data center water use and support water-reuse technology across its operations in Mississippi. Is water the new power? Controlling water usage remains one of the biggest questions for data centers 23 Jun 2025 By Zachary Skidmore The partnership will see the companies collaborate on […]
Siemens Energy, TCS partner on AI for energy operations and data center demand
Siemens Energy and TCS have expanded their partnership to deploy AI-driven solutions across energy operations, industrial systems and data center infrastructure to improve efficiency and reliability.
Data center demand drives 66% surge in natural gas power plant costs | TechCrunch
Natural gas power plant costs have nearly doubled in two years and take 23% longer to build as data center electricity demand skyrockets.
Iran War, Hormuz Closure Hit Helium and Semiconductor Supply Chain
The Iran war is choking off a critical input for chipmaking and AI infrastructure.
How the AI Boom Is Putting America’s Clean Energy Future at Risk
AI data centers are threatening Americas clean energy goals — but bold solutions and community action can still turn the tide.
AI-enabled smart grid to accelerate power sector’s shift to clean energy - Power Technology
AI-enabled smart grids use real-time predictive analytics and machine learning to match supply with demand, improving efficiency.
AI-enabled smart grids to accelerate power sector’s shift to clean energy, says GlobalData | Empower Stories | Build Authority - Drive Impact
AI-enabled smart grids are revolutionizing energy production and distribution through real-time predictive analytics and machine learning, dynamically aligning supply with demand. AI is profoundly transforming grid ecosystems, optimizing operations, bolstering reliability and strengthening ...
Meta wants to power data centers from space
Meta has agreed to reserve generating capacity from startup Overview Energy, which plans to use satellites to beam solar energy to the ground. The project aims to maximize energy availability for AI infrastructure.
A political battleground is forming around data centers. | The Verge
Multibillion-dollar data center developments in Georgia are sparking bipartisan backlash, with Politico reporting that 47 percent of local voters oppose the plans. Given this is just one of several states experiencing an AI boom, similar opposition may also define local and statewide elections ...
UK departments at odds over energy demands of AI datacentres
Discrepancy in forecasts raises questions over government planning for net zero One vision of the UK’s future involves a decarbonised economy powered by clean, renewable energy. Another involves making the UK an AI superpower. The government departments responsible for these two visions do not appear to have agreed on their numbers. Continue reading...
Power supply and data center growth: understanding the critical nexus shaping the AI economy
The relationship between power supply and data center growth has moved from being a technical consideration to a defining economic and strategic issue. As artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital services expand rapidly, data centers are no longer passive infrastructure.
Amazon-backed nuclear developer X-energy surges 27% in trading debut
Company taps rising demand for electricity from data centres to power AI boom
AI data centre emissions vastly underestimated, UK admits
New projections raise forecasts of climate impact by up to 136 times
Officials hugely underestimated impact of AI datacentres on UK carbon emissions
Revised figures increase fears about energy-intensive datacentres worsening climate emergency The UK government vastly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence, it has emerged, after officials raised their estimate of carbon emissions from AI by a factor of more than 100. According to new data quietly published this week, energy use by AI datacentres in the UK could cause the emission of up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) – about as much as generated by 2. 7 million people – over the next 10 years.
Powered land and zombie projects: Real estate in the age of AI | Reuters
The AI gold rush has spawned a whole new industry around data center wannabees, upended land valuations and created a logjam in the lengthy queue for grid connections, according to more than 20 interviews with data center operators, advisers, lawyers and investors.
Big Tech's AI data centers are pushing the power grid to its limits — and one state is feeling it the most
The Texas power grid faces unprecedented demand surge driven by data centers, with projections showing demand could quadruple by 2032.
How does the data center industry move closer to net zero? Charting a practical path towards responsible data center growth
The European data center industry is in tension, as surging demand driven by AI and digitization runs up against mounting, industry-wide pressure to decarbonise. The EU Green Deal sets out an ambitious plan to create a more sustainable future for Europe. But this sits in a context of widespread AI growth – and the desire […]
Amazon-backed X-Energy raises over $1 billion in IPO
Nuclear reactor developer X-Energy, which is backed by Amazon , said on Thursday it had raised $1.02 billion in its initial public offering in the United States.
Insight: Powered land and zombie projects: Real estate in the age of AI
Land left dormant by the decline of the chemical industry in northeastern England has taken on a new lustre. Blessed with power plants, water and a grid connection, the site has just what it takes to house a state-of-the-art AI data center campus.
AI Data Center Boom Strains Power Grids, Fuels Billions in New Investment
AI Data Center Boom Strains Power Grids, Fuels Billions in New Investment The artificial intelligence revolution is reshaping the global energy and real estate landscape, pushing companies to pour billions of dollars into data center infrastructure — and straining the power grids that keep it all running. From massive lease deals to record-breaking chip revenues, the AI data center boom is moving faster than the world’s power systems can keep up. Contents A $7.5 Billion Lease and Surging SpendingTexas at the Breaking PointDevelopers Go Off-GridAI Reshapes Real Estate MarketsContracts Could Be the Industry’s Weak Link ## A $7.5 Billion Lease and Surging Spending Applied Digital recently signed a $7.5 billion AI data center lease with a major U.S. hyperscaler, signaling just how aggressively companies are committing to long-term infrastructure growth. This deal is part of a wider wave
Crusoe Advances Energy-Integrated Data Center Architecture for AI Workloads
Crusoe Advances Energy-Integrated Data Center Architecture for AI Workloads https://www.everythingpe.com/News/details/10266-crusoe-advances-energy-integrated-data-center-architecture-for-ai-workloads # Crusoe Advances Energy-Integrated Data Center Architecture for AI Workloads Crusoe is advancing a next-generation data center paradigm that directly addresses the rapidly growing energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The company’s approach redefines conventional data center design by treating energy availability, quality, and geographic proximity as primary engineering constraints, rather than secondary considerations tied to grid access. This strategy emphasizes the co-location of compute infrastructure with energy sources, particularly in regions where energy is stranded, curtailed, or underutilized. By deploying modular, prefabricated data center systems at
Australia data centre growth shifts towards renewable power
Sjoquist points to International Energy Agency estimates that global data centre electricity consumption will rise from about 415 TWh in 2024 to around 945 TWh by 2030, taking the sector to just under 3% of global electricity consumption. That increase, he says, exposes a structural issue. "Across the industry right now, everyone is trying to solve the same problem: how do we build enough infrastructure to support AI...
Applied Digital signs $7.5 billion AI data center lease with US hyperscaler | Reuters
AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) letters are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023.
Siemens Energy (SIEGY) Upgrades 2026 Financial Outlook Amid AI Data Center Demand
On April 23, 2026, Siemens Energy (SIEGY) announced a revision of its financial guidance for the fiscal year 2026, reflecting a significant increase in demand f
Exclusive: Cloneable Raises $4.6M To ‘Clone’ Expert Worker Knowledge With Agentic AI For Utilities And Infrastructure
Cloneable, a startup that uses AI to shadow human experts in heavy industries such as energy and replicate their specialized workflows into autonomous agents, has raised $4.6 million in seed funding, the company tells Crunchbase News exclusively.
Can the carbon removals market keep pace with the AI boom?
Demand for carbon credits is spreading beyond tech heavyweights, says CEO of major supplier
There are fixes for AI’s toll on the power grid. Here’s why they’re not happening | CNN Business
Tech companies charging ahead with artificial intelligence have a problem: AI’s rapid growth is colliding headlong with a finite amount of available energy and computing power.
Energy Constraints Emerging as Critical Factor in Sustaining AI Expansion
AUSTIN, Texas, April 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AINewsWire Editorial Coverage: Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to software innovation; it...
AI Is Only One-Third of the Problem - Take Back Our Tech
In this segment from a recent webinar, I explain that AI is just one piece of the puzzle. By 2030, AI might account for around a third of data center power usage, but the rest is everything else we rely on—cloud storage, streaming services, and more.
US Air Force department names firms to power its bases with mini nukes
Three vendors matched to three sites The US Department of the Air Force (DAF) has selected three companies for possible nuclear microreactor projects at three of its installations under a program aimed at improving energy resilience if the electricity grid goes down.…
U.K. Inflation Jumps as Iran War Pushes Fuel Prices Higher
Inflation climbed as the war drove up energy prices, although it is unlikely to prompt the Bank of England to raise its key interest rate at next week’s meeting.
Supreme Court Rejects Oil Company Argument in Fight Over Great Lakes Pipeline
The justices sided with Michigan officials, who have raised environmental alarms and pushed to decommission an aging section of the pipeline.
Feud between AI power startup Fermi and its fired CEO and top shareholder heats up over proposed sale
The former CEO wants to sell the company to make money for shareholders rather than see Fermi's plans to fruition.
Forget call centers, local energy prices mean Britain's latest offshoring wave is AI projects
Brit firms look to run tech overseas as govt tries to support 'sovereign' creators One in five UK firms have already moved AI workloads abroad due to high energy costs, in findings likely to alarm a government counting on AI to drive economic growth.…
Kinder Morgan Tops Estimates
Kinder Morgan tops quarterly profit estimates amid rising natural gas demand.
Energy And The AI Buildout: An Investor’s Perspective | Seeking Alpha
The AI buildout is revealing capacity constraints in many key inputs, with power being one of the most strained. Read more here.
The AI economy runs on helium. The Iran war just created a $650 billion problem
“Helium doesn’t get much attention in the AI supply chain, but it should,” says Moody’s David Pan. “There is no viable substitute at scale.”
Datacenter boom keeps dirty coal plants alive in the US
Happy Earth Day! Datacenter growth in the US is helping keep aging fossil-fuel plants online longer, slowing the shift to a cleaner grid and worsening air pollution, according to new research from a group of environmental nonprofits.…
Report: Data Center Electricity Demand Rising, Impacting Grid Capacity and Policy Debates – NaturalNews.com
U.S. Data Center Electricity Consumption Increases, Impacting Grid Planning Electricity consumption by data centers in the United States has significantly increased, posing challenges for grid operators and utilities, according to a recent report. The International Energy Agency (IEA) found ...
‘Why isn’t the energy used by people?’: China’s global AI push hits resistance
TikTok’s plan for $9.5bn data centre on Brazil’s coast reflects national ambitions but is hit by environmental concerns
Strait of Hormuz May Not Return to Normal, Whether It’s Open or Closed
The energy industry is planning for a future where the choke point on Iran’s southern coast is a lot less important.
Green Data Center Market Outlook 2026–2031: USD 206.15 Billion by 2031 at 15.74% CAGR, Driven by AI and Sustainability Demand, Reports Mordor Intelligence | Business Upturn
Data Center Construction Market ... investments, cloud adoption, and AI infrastructure expansion. The market is projected to increase from USD 281.34 billion in 2025 to USD 300.38 billion in 2026, reaching USD 431.39 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 7.51% (2026–2031). Expansion is driven by demand for high-capacity, ...
Growing AI Power Consumption Prompts Inquiry
Growing AI power slurpage prompts MPs to examine low-energy computing. Committee launches inquiry into emerging chip designs to curb datacenter energy use
AI Reshapes Britain's Datacenter Map
AI is reshaping Britain's datacenter map away from London. Bit barns need to worry more about space, access to grid – overstuffed center no longer a must, say experts
Growing AI power slurpage prompts MPs to examine low-energy computing
Committee launches inquiry into emerging chip designs to curb datacenter energy use.
The AI Power Surge: Why Energy Infrastructure Is Becoming the Next Critical Bottleneck
Its positioning reflects the reality ... much on energy availability as on technological advancement. ... While demand is surging, existing power infrastructure is increasingly showing its limitations. Many electrical grids were designed decades ago, optimized for predictable industrial and residential consumption rather than the highly concentrated, always-on demands of modern data centers. This mismatch is creating bottlenecks that are slowing the deployment of new AI ...
Clean Power Scarcity: The Hidden Constraint on AI Infrastructure
Grid interconnection delays, 24/7 matching gap, emerging market PPA fragility, hyperscaler supply squeeze, upstream integration into generation
South Dakota data centers raise water, power, and ratepayer questions as AI expands
The health and transparency questions are real as well. A 2025 peer-reviewed paper in Patterns says corporate disclosure is still too weak to separate AI -specific impacts cleanly from general data-center operations.
Bitcoin mining data center slated for deployment at gas field in East Yorkshire, UK – report
A newly licensed gas field in East Yorkshire could be used to power Bitcoin mining, rather than deliver energy into the UK’s ailing power grid, according to reporting from the Telegraph. 01 May 2025 Welcome to Gas Land – how natural gas is powering the US AI boom As AI drives increasing energy consumption in […]
Growing AI power slurpage prompts MPs to examine low-energy computing
Committee launches inquiry into emerging chip designs to curb datacenter energy use MPs are probing whether radically different, low-energy chip designs can stop AI from turning the UK's power grid into a bottleneck.…
Towngas, Tencent partner on cloud, AI services, to co-build digital platforms for energy industry - Telecompaper
The Hong Kong and China Gas Company (Towngas) and Tencent have signed a strategic partnership agreement in Hong Kong. The two companies will collaborate extensively on unified cloud resource management, digital platform development, large AI models and applications, customer engagement enhancement, ...
AI Nuclear Power Developer Fermi Slumps After Abrupt Exit of CEO
Fermi Inc., a developer of nuclear power for AI data centers, slumped after the sudden departure of co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Toby Neugebauer along with the company’s chief financial officer.
AI is reshaping Britain's datacenter map away from London
Bit barns need to worry more about space, access to grid – overstuffed center no longer a must, say experts UK AI datacenter capacity could migrate away from London as power shortages, planning constraints and reduced reliance on low-latency connections to financial firms make other locations more attractive.…
Organizers Reveal Strategies to Successfully Resist a Data Center - El-Balad.com
Communities across the United States are increasingly resisting the rapid expansion of data centers that support artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. As the demand for these facilities continues to grow, local activists are mobilizing to combat their adverse effects, including water and ...
Industrial overcapacity can enable seasonal flexibility in electricity use
arXiv:2511.22839v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In many countries, declining demand in energy-intensive industries (EIIs) such as cement, steel, and aluminum is leading to industrial overcapacity. Although industrial overcapacity is traditionally envisioned as problematic and resource-wasteful, it could unlock EIIs' flexibility in electricity use. Here, using China's aluminum smelting industry as a case study, we evaluate the system-level cost-benefit of retaining EII overcapacity for flexible electricity use in decarbonized energy systems. We find that overcapacity can enable aluminum smelters to adopt a seasonal operation paradigm, ceasing production during winter load peaks that are exacerbated by heating electrification and renewable seasonality. This seasonal operation paradigm could reduce the investment and operational costs of China's decarbonized electricity system by 23-32 billion CNY/year (11-15% of the aluminum smelting industry's product value), sufficient to offset the increased smelter maintenance and product storage costs associated with overcapacity. It may also create labor complementarities between the aluminum and thermal power sectors.
Tesla's Energy Storage Division to Pick Up Slack
Tesla's solar and energy business is likely to outshine the EV maker's challenged core business when it reports quarterly results.
AI Data Centres Drive Renewable Energy Demand Surge | Fuel Cells Works
AI data centres compete with green hydrogen for clean electricity, reshaping renewable energy economics and creating structural tensions in the energy transition.
Artificial intelligence-driven market concentration raises energy and valuation concerns | Domain-b.com
Energy demand growth: Rapid expansion ... electricity demand, particularly in the United States and Europe. Capital expenditure surge: Major cloud and technology firms continue to invest heavily in AI infrastructure, though profitability depends on balancing compute costs with energy ...
Data centers now account for half of all new U.S. electricity use, just as Americans start to sour on AI | Fortune
From state moratoriums to Molotov cocktails, the AI infrastructure boom is becoming a political flash point.
Global 2025 Power Demand Rose as EV, Data Centers Grew, IEA Says - Bloomberg
Global power consumption grew 3% last year, driven partly by fast-growing demand from electric vehicles and data centers, according to the International Energy Agency.
Data Centers Drove Half of U.S. Power Demand Growth in 2025, IEA Says | OilPrice.com
Global electricity demand rose 3% in 2025 — more than double the total energy demand growth rate — as data centers and EVs accelerated power consumption, the IEA says.
Artificial Intelligence: What to expect in 2026 | Nasdaq
AI development is entering a new era that will fundamentally reshape businesses and redefine competitive advantages. The main bottleneck has shifted from chip production to securing the energy needed to power expanding AI infrastructure.
AI’s Energy Appetite Could Double Data Center Power Use by 2030, Report Finds - Ecofin Agency
Data center electricity use is expected to nearly double by 2030 Renewables and gas will supply most of the additional demand Africa remains a marginal player due to limited digital and energy infrastructure The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is driving a sharp rise in electricity ...
AI Absorbs $242 Billion in Q1 Venture Funding, Exceeding All of 2025 Combined
AI took 80% of Q1 2026 venture funding at $242B while half of planned US data centers face delays or cancellation.
Reopening Strait of Hormuz Would Ease Oil Crisis but Only So Much
Analysts said energy and shipping companies would be reluctant to fully restore operations until they were confident that hostilities were over.
Strait of Hormuz Is Open During Cease-Fire in Lebanon, U.S. and Iran Say
Statements from President Trump and Iran aimed to raise confidence in the safety of the waterway, but shipping experts said risks remained.
Oil Prices Fall Sharply After Iran Says Strait of Hormuz Is Open
But analysts said it was not clear how quickly the oil industry in the Persian Gulf would be able to get back to normal.
The 400-Ton Giants That Keep Your AI Models Running
The customer list maps directly to the AI infrastructure buildout. GE Vernova is supplying turbines for natural gas power plants developed by Chevron and Engine No. 1 to support Microsoft’s AI data ce.
Data centre delays threaten to choke AI expansion
Almost 40% of such builds in US risk hold-ups, including projects tied to Microsoft and OpenAI.
Optimizing Earth Observation Satellite Schedules under Unknown Operational Constraints: An Active Constraint Acquisition Approach
arXiv:2604.13283v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Earth Observation (EO) satellite scheduling (deciding which imaging tasks to perform and when) is a well-studied combinatorial optimization problem. Existing methods typically assume that the operational constraint model is fully specified in advance. In practice, however, constraints governing separation between observations, power budgets, and thermal limits are often embedded in engineering artefacts or high-fidelity simulators rather than in explicit mathematical models. We study EO scheduling under \emph{unknown constraints}: the objective is known, but feasibility must be learned interactively from a binary oracle. Working with a simplified model restricted to pairwise separation and global capacity constraints, we introduce Conservative Constraint Acquisition~(CCA), a domain-specific procedure designed to identify justified constraints efficiently in practice while limiting unnecessary tightening of the learned model. Embedded in the \textsc{Learn\&Optimize} framework, CCA supports an interactive search process that alternates optimization under a learned constraint model with targeted oracle queries. On synthetic instances with up to 50~tasks and dense constraint networks, L\&O improves over a no-knowledge greedy baseline and uses far fewer main oracle queries than a two-phase acquire-then-solve baseline (FAO). For $n\leq 30$, the average gap drops from 65--68\% (Priority Greedy) to 17.7--35.8\% using L\&O. At $n{=}50$, where the CP-SAT reference is the best feasible solution found in 120~s, L\&O improves on FAO on average (17.9\% vs.\ 20.3\%) while using 21.3 main queries instead of 100 and about $5\times$ less execution time.
Allbirds Transforms into NewBird AI with $39M Asset Sale
Allbirds is transitioning to NewBird AI, selling its footwear assets for $39 million to focus on AI compute infrastructure.
Should Investors Watch Lynas (ASX:LYC) Amid Geopolitical Shifts?
Geopolitical and trade policy risks cut both ways for Lynas. Favourable US government support is a clear positive, but broader trade frictions — including potential tariffs, sanctions or export controls — could reshape supply chains in unpredictable ways. Managing relationships with customers in Japan, Korea, Europe ...
Data center energy consumption +17% in 2025
Data center energy consumption rises 17% in 2025, driven by AI growth. IEA highlights infrastructure limits and rising global demand.
New IEA report highlights the growing energy impact of AI
Energy use per AI task is falling quickly, and efficiency is improving at an unprecedented pace.
Top 10 Expansion Investments Powering AI, Energy, and Infrastructure Growth in Q1-2026 | Intellizence
Large-scale expansion investments are shaping the future of artificial intelligence, telecom, clean energy, semiconductors, robotics, and industrial infrastructure. Across the world, leading companies are committing billions of dollars to build data centers, strengthen energy networks, expand ...
The AI Energy Surge: Can Data Centers Scale Without Breaking the Grid? – ecoPreserve
How hyperscale AI infrastructure is reshaping energy demand, and the innovations redefining sustainable high-performance buildings.
The Regional Data Centre Revolution Powered by AI Demand - ScotlandIS
Mark Lewis, Chief Marketing Officer at Pulsant, offers his insights into why data centre hubs are gradually moving away from London.
War, Watts, and the AI Buildout That Won't Stop | InvestorPlace
The Iran blockade has injected real uncertainty into global energy markets. Oil is elevated. Inflation expectations are shifting. And the sectors that benefit from sustained energy disruption — defense, energy infrastructure, and AI compute — are not the same ones most investors are watching.
Synthetic Reflections on Resource Extraction
arXiv:2602.09299v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: This paper describes how AI models can be augmented and adapted to interpret landscapes. We present the technical framework of a Sentinel-2 satellite asset interpretation pipeline that combines statistical operations, human judgment, and generative AI models to produce succinct commentaries on industrial mining sites across the planet. To this end we introduce a novel bespoke landscape descriptor, the Urban Dwelling and Mining Index, and discuss how this metric can improve the performance of a multimodal language model in assessing the spatial distribution of mining operations.
A new monetary metric is found in the thermodynamic relation between energy and GDP
arXiv:2508.08723v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: A robust thermodynamic relation between inflation corrected monetary valuation and energy emerges from existing work. This is based on the energy used, the aggregate efficiency of all production processes ($\Lambda(t)$) in terms of Joules per dollar of gross world product, and the gross world product: $\frac{E_A(t) \text{[J]}}{\Lambda(t) \text{[J/\$]}} = Y(t) [\$]$ where: J = Joules, \$= currency. This directs us to the production system and all of its processes in addition to alternatives to carbon energy. The original relation appeared in 'Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?' (Garrett 2011). There a foundation assumption was made that a variable $\lambda$ representing energy per dollar would disprove the presented model. However, because $\lambda$ has dimension [$\frac{E}{\$ \; GWP}$], it represents the aggregate efficiency of all global production, and cannot be a constant in an economic model. Thus, aggregate production efficiency is: $\Lambda(t) \equiv \sum {\lambda_i(t) \cdot \frac{P_i}{GWP}}$. The claimed 50 year constant relation of $W$ ($\sum_{i = n}^{t} Y_i \text{ [\$]}$) to the energy $E$ of the final year is incorrect -- the relation is not flat, nor should this be expected. The graph of $W$ from 1970 back in time is shown to have an historic minimum in 1970 driven by growth in energy consumption and increasing efficiency of energy use that is unlikely to be repeated. With improvements, a robust thermodynamic model is obtained that has general application to the relationship between money and energy and may be useable for evaluating the health of currencies and economies.
Mapping the causal structure of price formation in Texas's transitioning electricity market
arXiv:2604.14257v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Electricity markets are changing, driven by large-scale renewable integration and rising demand from electrification and digitalisation. This raises fundamental questions about how electricity prices form as the relationships among key price determinants evolve. Here we apply causal discovery to characterise these dynamics across major supply- and demand-side drivers of wholesale electricity prices in Texas, where rapid renewable growth intersects with surging demand. We show that wind generation has become the dominant causal driver of day-ahead electricity prices with effects more than 3 times larger than those of natural gas prices, overturning the view of the Texas market as gas-price-driven. Wind reduces prices locally but redistributes congestion costs across regions in seasonally varying patterns. Natural gas prices remain causally relevant, though their influence is modest and the dominant gas benchmark changes over time. Electricity demand also shows region- and period-specific causal effects. These findings highlight the need for causal models that capture time-varying relationships across both supply and demand to guide system planners and market participants navigating the ongoing transition.
AI tech collab takes on SA’s energy distribution crisis | ITWeb
Energy tech firm Plentify partners with local residential developer to roll out AI-driven home energy management system.
Is Energy the Real AI Bottleneck? What Investors Need to Know | The Motley Fool
U.S. AI data centers could consume 9–17% of U.S. electricity by 2030, up from 4–5% today. Here's what that means for investors
Utility companies planning to invest $1.4 trillion in power grids for AI, report finds - CBS News
U.S. utility companies are planning to invest $1.4 trillion over the next five years to help strengthen the nation's power grid, according to a new report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan nonprofit consumer education organization PowerLines. CBS News MoneyWatch reporter Megan Cerullo has ...
Data Farms To Power AI Are A New 'Not In My Back Yard' Flashpoint | Across America, US Patch
In town halls across the country, residents push back against data centers as some state legislatures question if tax breaks went too far.
UK AI Minister Hits Out at OpenAI for Stargate Project Pause
Britain’s AI minister dinged OpenAI for halting a major data center project in the UK and blaming the decision on the country’s energy costs and regulation.
Loud, power hungry - opposition grows to datacenters as Maine passes bit barn ban
If there's one thing folks want less than Copilot in their taskbar, it's a bit barn in their backyard Loud, thirsty, power hungry, and intensely unpopular with neighboring residents: datacenters are becoming the new nuclear waste dump. And many localities are now saying "not in my backyard."…
Green by Design? Investigating the Energy and Carbon Footprint of Chia Network
arXiv:2604.13044v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This paper presents a detailed analysis of the environmental impact of Chia Network (Chia for short), a green-claimed blockchain, which uses a Proof of Space and Time (PoST) consensus mechanism. While Chia claims to be a sustainable alternative to Proof-of-Work-based blockchains, our results show that its resource-intensive initialization phase and ongoing operations lead to carbon emissions 18x higher than claimed (0.88 MtCO2/year), exceeding mainstream "green" blockchains by orders of magnitude. We combine experimental measurements from a controlled testbed (Grid'5000) with theoretical modeling of operational and embodied emissions to assess Chia's true sustainability profile.
Webinaire IA, énergie et environnement: la nouvelle équation concurrentielle
An online conference discussing the competitive equation between AI, energy, and the environment.
Maine becomes first US state to pass data centre construction ban
Closely watched legislation could provide a blueprint for others considering moratoriums
Britain gives Rolls-Royce the nod to sketch out its mini reactor future
Rolls-Royce has been contracted to begin design work on small modular reactors, though power generation is not expected until the mid-2030s.
Maine lawmakers pass nation's first statewide ban on large data ...
Maine lawmakers pass country’s first statewide ban on large data centers - The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness Legislators in Maine on Tuesday passed the nation’s first statewide ban on large data centers, part of a growing backlash to the energy-intensive facilities that fuel the rise of artificial intelligence.
Va. enacts data center bills addressing energy demand, costs, environment
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed over half a dozen bills impacting data centers, focusing on energy demand, utility costs, and environmental concerns.
When Forecast Accuracy Fails: Rank Correlation and Decision Quality in Multi-Market Battery Storage Optimization
arXiv:2604.12082v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Battery energy storage systems (BESS) participating in multi-market electricity trading require price forecasts to optimize dispatch decisions. A widely held assumption is that forecast accuracy, measured by standard metrics such as mean absolute error (MAE), drives trading performance. We challenge this assumption using a hierarchical three-layer optimization system trading simultaneously on frequency containment reserve (FCR), automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR), day-ahead, and continuous intraday (XBID) markets in Germany and Switzerland over 2020-2025, with real market data from Regelleistung.net and Swissgrid. We find that rank correlation (Kendall tau), rather than MAE, is the primary predictor of intraday dispatch value: forecasts above an empirical threshold of tau approximately 0.85-0.95 capture up to 97-100% of perfect-foresight revenue, while persistence forecasts with near-zero tau capture only 33%. This threshold is stable across market regimes and volatility levels, and reflects the ordinal structure of the dispatch problem. Furthermore, under reserve market constraints, FCR capacity revenue exceeds XBID by 6.5x per MW, making capacity allocation -- not forecast accuracy -- the primary driver of total revenue. In the Swiss market, hydrological surplus anomalies are significantly associated with balancing market revenue (p = 0.0005), a mechanism absent from existing German-focused literature. These findings reframe forecast evaluation for BESS operators: the relevant question is not what the MAE is, but whether the forecast achieves tau-sufficiency.
Delska Launches One of the Baltics’ Most Advanced and Sustainable Data Centers in Riga
RIGA, Latvia, April 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Delska, one of the leading data center operators in the Baltics, officially launched EU North Riga LV DC1 – a 10 MW data center designed for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). The project has received the Latvian Construction Annual Award (1st place in the “Production […]
What Drives Energy Use? Prices, Efficiency Policies, and the Demand Frontier
arXiv:2604.12112v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: What drives cross-state differences in U.S. energy consumption? We combine LMDI decomposition, stochastic frontier analysis, and variable-importance methods on a panel of 50 states plus DC over the 2006--2022 period. The observed 12.8% decline in per capita energy use is driven almost entirely by intensity improvements. A variance decomposition attributes 63% of cross-state variation in log energy use to the demand frontier, 34\% to inefficiency above it, and 3% to noise. Within the frontier, energy prices account for roughly 26% of cross-state variation and state efficiency policies for about 13%, while GDP and climate together explain only around 10\%. Efficiency policies also operate through a second channel by reducing inefficiency, adding a further 6 percentage points to their total contribution. The results suggest that pricing and regulation are the primary drivers of cross-state energy use differences.
Amazon-backed X-energy files to raise up to $800M in IPO
The nuclear energy company, supported by Amazon, has initiated the process for an $800 million initial public offering.
Oracle taps Bloom for 2.8 GW of fuel cells to keep datacenter binge going
Oracle is turning to on-site fuel cells to power its datacenters amid grid and turbine supply constraints.