An arXiv preprint surveys how falling launch and hardware costs have led to more satellites and a fast-growing volume of data generated in orbit. Because downlinking that data to Earth is expensive and slow, the paper looks at processing it in space, including onboard edge AI and orbital data-center concepts. It is a cross-listed replacement submission and has not been peer reviewed.
An NGO report says several major manufacturers of PFAS chemicals are scaling up production capacity. Demand linked to data centers and semiconductors serving AI, along with batteries, is named as the main suspected driver. The findings have not been independently confirmed by the companies involved.
US President Donald Trump said there is a "sick conspiracy" targeting artificial intelligence and data centers, responding to mounting pressure for tighter oversight of the technology. The remark came as part of a live blog covering a Supreme Court ruling that blocked his administration's mail ballot restrictions ahead of the midterm elections. Voting rights groups praised that court decision.
Silicon Valley is moving from simple chatbot interactions toward agentic AI systems that require more computing resources. This shift is helping drive a buildout of data centers to meet the added power and infrastructure demands. The trend raises questions about energy use as AI agents become more capable and widely deployed.
Former Environmental Protection Agency officials say the Trump administration is relaxing pollution rules to accelerate construction of AI data centers. In a new report and briefing, they argue the rollback puts Americans' health at risk and are pressing the president to reverse course. The group's appeal is seen as unlikely to change the administration's approach.
A new arXiv paper examines the "job power elasticity" of large language model training, looking at how much these workloads can adjust their electricity consumption. Power supply is described as a key constraint on the growth of AI data centers, which are among the fastest-rising sources of electricity demand. The work aims to characterize how training jobs could respond to power limits.
A transmission line failure in Ashburn, Virginia on July 22, 2026 removed more than 3 gigawatts of demand from the grid within seconds, highlighting the fragility of power delivery in the world's largest data center hub. The incident follows a similar event two years earlier, when a single failed surge arrester took roughly 60 Virginia facilities offline. Together the outages point to transmission architecture, rather than generation alone, as a growing constraint on AI buildouts.
Massachusetts has approved new clean energy requirements for data center operators, making it the third US state to tighten rules on such facilities within a few months. The measures add to a growing set of state-level restrictions on data center growth, driven largely by rising power demand from AI workloads.
Google is committing more than 13 billion euros to build out AI infrastructure in Finland, marking its largest single investment in Europe to date. The arrangement also includes a power purchase agreement covering nuclear-generated electricity for the sites.
Google plans to spend a minimum of €13 billion on Finnish operations across 2027-2028, contingent on a long-term power purchase agreement with utility Fortum. The 22-year contract is linked to extending the Loviisa nuclear plant, giving Google stable low-carbon electricity for its planned data centres in the country.