AI boom drives data centers to unexpected markets as power becomes top priority

Advocates want light shed on power plans for Meta’s Louisiana data center

Environmental and consumer protection advocates are calling for transparency into how Meta will power a massive new data center in Northeast Louisiana. The Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed a joint motion Wednesday with the…

How Utility Customers Wind Up Paying to Serve Data Centers

Who pays for a data center? The first answer is the investors and developers who are planning on pouring billions of dollars into building out power-hungry facilities to serve all sorts of internet services, especially artificial intelligence. And how much will it cost them? The numbers thrown around have a kind of casual gigantism that makes levelheaded evaluation difficult. $80 billion? $100 billion? $500 billion?But while technology companies…

Power for data centers could come at ‘staggering’ cost to consumers

Deer are seen outside of a Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Google Data Centers)This story was originally published by Floodlight.   The explosive growth of data centers around the country — driven in large part by the burgeoning use of artificial intelligence — could come at a “staggering” cost for average residents with skyrocketing electricity bills. A new report from Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative says unless something chan…

Nuclear, Microgrids Could Ease the AI Power Drain

It’s no secret that data centers are power hogs. Going nuclear might be part of the solution.  Small modular nuclear reactors, or reactors that are significantly smaller than your average nuclear power plant, could provide relief for the stress that data center demand poses on an already-weary power grid. But given that only three of these reactors are actually in operation, scaling them is slow-going, and likely won’t be commercially viable for…

Data centers are consuming more and more energy. A start-up from Stuttgart wants to remedy this situation and has developed a chip that expects light instead of electricity - and uses significantly less energy. By Frank Wittig.

Power for data centers could come at ‘staggering’ cost to consumers • Louisiana Illuminator

Construction is underway on Amazon’s Mid-Atlantic Region data center in Loudoun County, Virginia. The power needs of large data centers like this one are driving a projected increase in demand for electricity in the United States after years of stagnant or declining demand. Photo taken Feb. 10, 2024. (iStock photo/Getty Images)The explosive growth of data centers around the country — driven in large part by the burgeoning use of artificial intel…