Envision Energy says that it has completed the world’s first commercial data center deployment of an integrated 800-volt DC power system. It has been testing the Dubhe Controller, supported by its Dubhe Energy Foundation Model since August this year at its Galaxy AI data center in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, China. Touted as offering simpler, and more efficient power architecture, Envision’s system will also support higher computing density, says a press release. The Galaxy campus will scale to 3GW capacity according to current plans, and eventually “support up to one million AI accelerators.”

Currently, data centers rely on several power-conversion stages to achieve a usable supply from the grid. Envision’s Dubhe tech converts power directly from 10kV medium-voltage AC to an 800V DC bus to boost efficiency and slashes the size of the power conversion apparatus. It is built around three critical capabilities:

• Stable solid-state transformer (SST) conversion directly from 10 kV medium voltage to an 800V DC bus across operating conditions.
• Battery storage providing both second-scale power support and minute-scale backup.
• Millisecond-level coordination between SST and storage to absorb GPU load fluctuations locally.

The system includes integrated battery support for fast response to AI workload spikes and for short-term backup power. It will also support higher-density AI racks, for more computing power in the same area, says the Chinese tech firm. Moreover, Envision’s system has been designed to work well with renewable energy sources and storage. Key to the efficiency and performance on offer is the AI-driven power management provided by the Envision Dubhe controller, smartly balancing power supply and computing demand. Other benefits include a more compact footprint and a reduced requirement for copper and other cabling.

By the firm’s own accounts the Dubhe tech system is performing well. Thus, it looks set to be instrumental to the expansion of the compute resources at the Galaxy AI data center in Ulanqab. Furthermore, Envision also intends to roll out this 800V DC tech at its Mission Gobi initiative, targetting 5GW of green AI data center capacity in desert regions by 2030.

OpenAI is reportedly preparing a major public relations campaign to influence how Americans view artificial intelligence, including a proposal to rename its data centers as “AI Compute Campuses,” Axios reports. The initiative comes ahead of the November 3 U.S. midterm elections and forms a broader effort to influence the debate around AI before the 2028 presidential race. Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, noted that the midterms would be “a bit of a movie trailer for what you’re going to see in 2028.” He expects AI to be a major issue for presidential candidates as the technology raises concerns over its impact on jobs, the economy, and the environment.

The proposed terminology change by OpenAI has been ongoing since August as the company focuses on promoting safeguards for the powerful technology, which Lehane described as “speed limits.” The proposed AI compute campuses is particularly interesting as it comes as opposition to large data centers accelerates across the U.S. Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity and water, with nearby communities raising concerns about noise, air pollution, rising utility bills and limited public consultation. OpenAI hopes to address these concerns through community agreements and a different way of presenting the infrastructure. “Compute campuses better describe the role of the infrastructure we are rebuilding for AI," a company spokesperson separately stated. He added that these projects represent long term investments in computing, energy infrastructure, and skilled jobs.

The latest proposal follows similar efforts by other technology companies to improve their relationship with communities hosting their infrastructure. In January, Microsoft announced a community-first approach, promising to cover electricity cost increases associated with its data centers, and invest in local infrastructure and jobs. However, while changing the name may be easier, changing public opinion may bring some headaches. A Redfin report in May found that 47% of Americans surveyed are opposed to having a new data center built in their community. Another report in August detailed how negotiations between developers and local authorities frequently take place behind non-disclosure agreements, leaving residents without access to important project information.

The resistance has also affected actual construction plans. At least 19 Michigan municipalities have already moved to restrict new data center developments after OpenAI and Oracle’s $16 billion Stargate project went ahead with their project in Sanile township despite local opposition. Meanwhile, Amazon abandoned plans for four data centers in northern Virginia last month following community pushback.

OpenAI is not alone in trying to reshape the language surrounding AI. President Donald Trump has previously pushed for terminology change, directing Federal agencies and urging AI companies to replace artificial intelligence with ‘super intelligence.’ Trump announced the change in late September arguing that the word "artificial" made the technology sound "fake." His administration subsequently instructed state department employees to use super intelligence or SI in official directives, websites, reports and policy documents.

Some technology executives have also embraced the terminology. Nvidia CEO Huang has previously referred to data centers as "superintelligence factories" while Elon musk announced plans to rename his AI company SpaceXAI to SpacexSI last month. Meta, meanwhile, established Meta superintelligence labs in 2025, and Microsoft has also assembled a team focused on developing superintelligence. OpenAI’s proposed terminology will now face a more difficult test than simply finding a name as communities will still want answers about the raised issues. Lehane, however, acknowledged that public scrutiny is part of the process saying, “Communities should hold companies responsible and accountable so they really and truly get a transformative benefit from these projects.”

Owners of non-state data centers in Russia have been told to hold back 10% of their capacity, ready to aid the country's state-owned IT infrastructure should the need arise. That's the message from President Vladimir Putin, with the aim of quickly unlocking additional data center compute capacity in the future if it becomes needed by the state, reports Reuters.

This comes as Russian data centers have become targets for Ukrainian drone attacks in recent weeks, causing huge amounts of damage and affecting state-owned internet services. In early October, drones struck Russia's largest data center in what was the second such attack in as many days. The huge 63-megawatt facility was so badly damaged that multiple modules had to be removed from service completely. At the time, users reported problems with Yandex Mail, Disk, Documents, Pay, and Market despite Yandex claiming that key services remained up and running. Two weeks later, Russia's finance ministry's data center was damaged after Ukrainian drones targeted the facility. It was reportedly home to Russia's tax databases as well as other state registry data.

Now, Putin has told the Digital Development Ministry to inventory all available data center capacity and floor space at privately owned facilities throughout the country. A new government commission will be given the power to order the release of reserved data center capacity. Once ordered to do so, third-party data center owners will have 24 hours to comply. The temporary use of data centers located outside Russia has also been mooted, pending the approval of Russia's Federal Security Service. (FSB)

It isn't just drones that have been targeting Russian data centers. On the same day that news broke of the country's plan to siphon data center capacity from third parties, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service admitted that its servers were hit by cyberattacks that saw 23TB of data stolen. It's reported that the haul includes new data on Russian wartime losses marked “for official use only.”

Data centers have become a target for Russia, too. It bombed Ukrainian facilities in September of this year, resulting in the loss of internet connectivity for 100,000 households. At the time, a government official noted that Ukraine's internet network is highly decentralized before admitting that users should expect local disruptions to service.

As more and more AI data centers are being built across the United States, the backlash is starting to gather pace. Following the recent news that Amazon canceled plans to build four new facilities after a public outcry, a new website seeks to detail how sour public sentiment on the subject has turned. American Sentiment is operated by Prophecy Gov, an AI startup based in San Francisco, and it has turned 10,202 public comments at 417 local government meetings from 2026 into a scrollable collection of facts and figures that will give data center builders nightmares, revealing that more than 90% of public comments on data centers are negative.

The website notes that, while public comments don't always match the country's true sentiment, it's clear that the discussion around data center buildouts has reached a "fever pitch" of late. That's something borne out by the data, which takes in 48 states and 417 local governments, with 906 public meetings tracked. Of the 10,202 comments, 90.5% were negative, with just 7% saying positive things about the potential for a new data center being built in their backyard. The remaining 2.5% simply asked questions about the subject. A staggering 73% of meetings had no data center supporters whatsoever. Even those who did support the prospect of a data center being built found themselves outnumbered 6:1, according to the stats.

Predictably, a range of concerns were raised in opposition to data centers, with water use being the most common. In May this year, it was reported that a single AI data center project had consumed 29 million gallons of water. It used so much water, in fact, that local residents noticed a drop in water pressure as a result. A month later, Microsoft claimed its new AI data centers use as little water annually as a restaurant. Beyond water consumption, the impact on local quality of life and the lack of transparency around the project made up the top three complaints. These concerns aren't offset by the benefits of building such facilities, with many people saying that they didn't believe that the claimed benefits would ever come to fruition. Perhaps surprisingly, AI and its potential negative effects weren't mentioned in 4/5 of the comments. Just 21% made any mention of AI as a whole.

Members of the public called out some of AI's biggest players when arguing against data centers, including Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Concerns also turned personal, with SpaceX/xAI CEO Elon Musk by far the most mentioned during meetings, followed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Notably, Palantir's Peter Thiel was third, ahead of Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos when discussing Amazon.

At a time when the United States may seem more divided than ever, the lack of desire for local data centers appears to be a thoroughly bipartisan issue. Red and blue counties oppose the prospect at almost exactly the same rate, although rural counties raised different issues than urban and suburban ones. The former most commonly worried about the impact on a community's character, farmland, and property rights. Commenters in urban and suburban areas raised the issues of transparency, government distrust, air pollution, and utility bills more often. Pollution is one issue that has been raised previously — a report earlier this month warned that U.S. data centers could wipe out 15 years of progress in greenhouse gas emissions.

There was one group of people largely in favor of new data centers, however. 79% of commenters who said they were union workers were in favor of data centers. Conversely, just 3% of property owners and 3% of residents agreed. Even just 40% of data center workers were in favor of actual data centers, according to the figures.

Google has secured approval for a proposed data center in Hermantown, Minnesota, following a unanimous vote by the city council, MPR News reports. The decision, reached on Friday, October 30, clears a major hurdle for the company following at least two postponed meetings and hours of public opposition, though the project still faces lawsuits and a separate inquiry into its electricity supply. The proposed development could cover just over 200 acres in a rural residential area outside Duluth with three data center buildings spanning approximately 1.66 million square feet.

The council approved a development agreement, a special use permit, and provisions for decommissioning the site if construction is abandoned or the facility eventually closes. The meeting, which was capped at 85 people and offered a livestream, ended shortly before midnight, with some criticizing the attendance restriction. Council member John Geisler, however, clarified the move, noting that the decision concerned local land use application rather than the wide debate over artificial intelligence or big technology companies.

“What we've done tonight is not about AI. It's not about big tech. It's not about software. It's about a project here in Hermantown, a land use application, and agreements that are associated with that,” Geissler said.

The approval comes at a hefty price for Google, with the company being forced to make several changes during the approval process. The company changed its initial plan of putting up four buildings to three, capped their height at 33 feet, and agreed to monitor nearby private wells —but each building would still be larger than six football fields. Google also agreed to withdraw an earlier request for up to $80 million in property tax breaks. The revised arrangement is now expected to generate about $3 million in annual property tax for the city, with a separate decommissioning agreement valued at $210 million in place.

Supporters point to those provisions as evidence that Google had responded to local concerns. Opponents, however, argue that the changes did not address the important questions of whether such a colossal development belongs in the area. The dispute echoes other data center battles within local communities, with Alabama residents being unable to halt a 50MW Bitcoin mining facility in August, despite local moratoriums, exposing gaps in the state's zoning rules. In September, a proposal for a 1,300-acre data center in Pennsylvania by NorthPoint Development also faced resistance despite its developer offering $10,000 to thousands of nearby households. Key issues raised mostly by residents in both cases have been about noise and water consumption by such facilities and property values.

It’s important to note, however, that Hermantown’s vote does not mean Google can immediately begin construction. Three lawsuits filed by The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Stop the Hermantown Data Center challenge the city’s zoning process and ownership of the land, and are also demanding the project’s environmental review. The project’s environmental needs are also another pain point, given it requires about 500 megawatts, comparable to the combined demands of homes in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, and Rochester, as per the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota. Google still needs approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on power consumption, despite its agreement with Minnesota Power.

The scale of demand is a recurring point of friction in data center proposals. Last year, the OpenAI Stargate facility in Michigan received approval for a 1.4-gigawatt power supply — construction, however, started in June 2026 despite objections from local residents. Google is also pursuing a separate data center project near Pine Island, close to Rochester. That proposal is now subject to a more extensive environmental review following a legal settlement.

SpaceX has suffered a setback after losing in a lawsuit aimed at stopping the Clean Air Act requirements on the turbines powering xAI’s Colossus 2 data center in Southaven, Mississippi. According to a report by CNBC, a judge rejected the company’s motion to dismiss the case on Friday, October 30, allowing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to proceed, rejecting xAI’s argument that its turbines fall under the ‘mobile sources’ category that exempts it from air permitting requirements.

The case, brought in April 2026 by the NAACP and represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) alongside Earthjustice, targets xAI’s operation of a gas-fired power plant to supply electricity to its facility in the Greater Memphis area. SpaceX owns and operates xAI, implicating Elon Musk's wider aerospace and technology company.

According to court documents, NACCP accuses xAI and its subsidiary, MZX Tech, of installing 27 gas turbines in Southaven last year without obtaining the required permits. The applicants also argued that the company’s equipment has been polluting the environment through nitrogen oxide emissions and fine particulate matter, which can contribute to breath-related hazards to residents. The SELC particularly says the plant could emit over 5,00 tons of nitrogen oxides, 400 tons of fine particulate matter, and 47 tons of formaldehyde — a cancer-causing chemical — annually.

The judge also rejected xAI’s attempted classification of the turbines as mobile equipment, holding that the company did not qualify for exemptions under applicable regulations and that the turbines were not exempt from Clean Air Act permitting requirements. Just two weeks earlier, SpaceX suffered another setback after the same court rejected a separate Department of Justice lawsuit that argued against the case proceeding.

“This decision is another important victory in our effort to hold xAI accountable. The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts by xAI and the DOJ to dismiss the NAACP’s Clean Air Act case, affirming our right to pursue justice for communities impacted by pollution. Our position has been clear: xAI cannot operate gas turbines without the required permits. Now that the motion to dismiss has been denied, we look forward to continuing to defend our position in court,” Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice, said. SpaceX is yet to comment on the ruling.

Colossus 2 installed 59 natural gas turbines in July, immediately sparking concerns from residents about emissions and the impact on nearby communities. The Memphis facility plans for about 860,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs across four Colossus buildings —but it could be more — with Musk stating, “There will be a total of around 1.2M Blackwells at Colossus 2 by end of year”

In August, the company stated that it would remove its unpermitted turbine generators and replace them with a larger permitted power plant — but that could take at least a year. The latest setback adds to a string of lawsuits surrounding the gas-powered infrastructure used to power xAI’s data centers. In June, the DOJ had asked the court to dismiss the NACCP’s lawsuit, arguing that Colossus 2 supports crucial national security operations. That request was, however, rejected. More recently, SpaceX started manufacturing turbine blades in-house to fast-track generator production for its xAI data centers.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has met with about 50 senior Samsung executives in South Korea, as the company seeks to expand its Artificial Intelligence and memory capacity, Bloomberg reports. Altman’s visit to South Korea follows his recent comments about how the world's limited memory supply should be allocated. In an interview on the Chick Pink podcast this week, the OpenAI chief argued that DRAM sitting inside personal computers is often underused, describing it as “quite terrible”. He suggested that data centers could make more intensive use of memory by sharing computer resources across AI workloads. The argument has drawn widespread criticism given OpenAI’s own services like ChatGPT rely heavily on centralized computing infrastructure.

The meeting, which took place at Samsung’s Resources Development Center in Yongin on Saturday, October 30, brought together chiefs from the company’s financial, electronics, and biotechnology businesses. Confirming the meeting, Samsung Korea said the discussion revolved around strengthening existing relationships between the two companies, particularly a letter of Intent signed in October 20225 to cooperate on global AI infrastructure, including supplying memory semiconductors for OpenAI’s Stargate project. “The Samsung executives and CEO Sam Altman discussed the direction of AI technology development and its potential applications, as well as new markets and business opportunities that will emerge from it,” Samsung stated.

Samsung, however, emphasized more on AI transformation and future business opportunities, rather than announcing a new memory supply agreement. Reportedly, Altman also presented Samsung’s AI Center head with a Codex Micro Keyboard, a device designed for use with OpenAI’s coding agent. The latest meeting comes as demand from AI centers continues to soar, with AMD forecasting DRAM revenue will jump 177% in 2026 to about $416 billion. Trendforce also estimates DRAM supply will fall 1% to 2% short of demand this year, with the imbalance expected to worsen in 2027. New manufacturing capacity may take time to come, which means the shortage could persist into 2028, as per a recent warning by Micron.

For now, demand for data centers is facing major competition, especially from PCs, smartphones, and other electronics, for limited memory supplies (and may be nowhere close to peaking). High-bandwidth memory (HBM), a specialized form of DRAM used in AI devices, has become particularly important as companies deploy increasingly powerful computing systems.

Samsung and SK Hynix are among the world's leading memory manufacturers, giving South Korea a central role in supplying the hardware behind the AI expansion. According to Counterpoint Research, both companies controlled about 63% of global DRAM revenues in the second quarter of 2026. Their influence is greater in HBM, where the two South Korean manufacturers accounted for roughly 83% of global revenue. This has prompted other technology executives to approach the country, with AMD CEO Lisa Su visiting earlier this month to discuss securing additional HBM supplies from SAMSUNG, saying, "It is important to plan three to five years ahead with our partners."

Meanwhile, Samsung and SK Hynix have been upgrading Chinese factories to meet the surging demand for AI-related memory and storage products. However, those particular upgrades concern NAND flash production, rather than DRAM — but they show just how manufacturers are adjusting capacity as demand shifts towards data center hardware.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has data centers full of memory, but seemingly it's the 32GB of RAM in your desktop that's the problem. In an interview over beers with the YouTube channel Cheeky Pint, Altman said that local inference, and, by extension, people having DRAM in computers at home, is "quite terrible."

When discussing local inference on home computers with open-source models, Altman discussed the assumption that people will be able to run local AI on their own computers, the ones they may already own or want to build. Then he explained why that's a bad idea (at the 29-minute mark):

"From a global allocation perspective, actually, it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used 5% of the time," Altman said. "You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment. And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that."

While OpenAI does have some open-source models, its primary business is in closed-source models that run in data centers, so he's really defending the company's business model.

OpenAI isn't exactly threatened by some laptops and gaming rigs just yet, but local AI could mean people one day paying less for subscriptions to models like GPT-6 Luna if they have the power to run them at home. Altman's talk suggests that the company would prefer that more RAM go to OpenAI's data centers rather than home computers, which also sparks enthusiast fears of not being able to own your own hardware or software, but rather rent an agent and a computer in the cloud.

Some of what Altman is saying is based on an idea that data center buildouts won't slow down. It also assumes that RAM being used in AI data centers 24/7 is more worthwhile than RAM that is used for spreadsheets, web browsing, gaming, and maybe even local AI occasionally.

The rest of the wide-ranging interview includes talk of this week's PHP vulnerabilities, sandboxing models in training, and OpenAI's research in mathematics.

A criminal investigation into the environmental damage caused by Google’s Finnish subsidiary has been launched. Tuike Finland Oy is being investigated after five complaints were received regarding the Muhos data center project, according to an official police statement published today [machine translation].

The police say that the investigation is backed by Finland’s Licensing and Supervision Authority (LVV). Google/Tuike Finland Oy is accused of suspected breaches of environmental law and environmental damage. Other lesser criminal offenses related to ambiguities and shortcomings in the drainage and water management are also being investigated.

Since Google representatives have previously publicly apologized for the unauthorized forest clearings near Muhos, which have turned 816 acres of forest into an expanse of mud, there seems little doubt it is guilty of some wrongdoing. Rather, it is the scale of the punishment and any proposed remedies that will probably be of most concern to execs from the tech giant now.

As well as the awful mess Google has made near Muhos, it seems to have also jumped the gun and plowed ahead with data center development by clearing 500 acres of forest near Otanmäki.

Though the horse has already bolted, Reuters reports that a Google rep said the company would cooperate with the ⁠police investigation and continue to focus on maintaining compliance at its sites. Maintaining?

Last week we reported that wolves had descended on Finnish villages after their habitats had been destroyed to make way for the Google AI data centers. Data center developments were already a thorny issue with locals. Potential construction and operating noise, pollution, utility competition, and environmental damage concerns were overshadowed – for some – by the presence of wild animals that had moved out of the forest.

Google sees Finland as an attractive location for data center development with its cool climate, affordable power, and government endorsement of AI projects. It has also benefitted from being able to develop in low population density areas and from a populace with a low propensity for protest. However, Google is testing the Finnish public with its trampling of the environment. The wolves, pollution, potentially 40% higher electricity bills, and other impacts weren’t helping its case, even before this criminal investigation.

Finnish government representatives have yet to comment on the case.

SpaceXSI, Elon Musk’s data center business powering Grok, is reportedly buying 418 properties in Colonial Hills, Southaven, which sits about half a mile from the powerplant that the company will use to power its data centers in the area. According to The Guardian, real estate agents have been going door to door, offering owners deals on behalf of the company provided that they do not join a class-action lawsuit over the noise pollution coming from the gas turbines that power its GPUs.

MZX, the SpaceXSI subsidiary that operates the Colossus II site, circulated an open letter to nearby residents, saying that it “requires property for its business purposes,” with Southaven mayor Darren Musselwhite saying that they will be used to house SpaceXSI staff that the company will need as it expands operations. Musk himself is reportedly staying in the area in an Airstream trailer four nights per week to personally oversee the data center build-out needed to power Grok AI.

The bigger issue here, though, is the requirement that sellers must sign an agreement that prevents them from joining the ongoing case against the company for noise pollution. The Colossus 1 and 2 sites have been in hot water since they started operating, primarily for their use of unpermitted turbines and the air pollution that they bring. SpaceXSI has since promised that it will remove all its unpermitted turbines in a year, especially as its 1.2-gigawatt powerplant comes online. However, this apparently hasn’t resolved the noise pollution issue that the community has been complaining about.

“It sounds like an airplane engine but it’s continuous, it’s incredibly loud. I’ve been woken up at 2am by it, I’ve been woken up at 3am by it. I sometimes have to just get away from it because it makes me so angry,” piano teacher Elizabeth Rose, who lives a couple of miles from the site, told the publication. One of the plaintiffs in the class-action, Jason Haley, also said to The Guardian, “There’s a high-pitched hum and then another sound like an airplane over your house. It’s been so torturous I can’t sleep; I just leave the house or turn on some music until I fall asleep completely exhausted. It drives you insane. You also lose hope because you’re being ignored or dismissed. There’s no escape.”

The company has denied all the allegations against it, saying that it has adjusted its power output and installed sound-dampening walls to reduce the impact on the neighborhood. Musselwhite also said that city monitors have not detected the site breaching the local ordinance limit of 70 decibels, although some experts say that persistent noise as low as 50 decibels could have adverse health impacts.

Opposition against the noise pollution and Musk’s purchases aren’t unanimous, though. Some residents aren’t as affected by the noise pollution, while local businesses are experiencing increased activity. Other people have also agreed to sell just so they could get away from the noise. The mayor says that the buyout isn’t intended to turn Colonial Hills into a company town. “The buyout has multiple purposes which are to provide homes for some employees and a goodwill gesture from a good corporate citizen for those who perceive the industrial development near them as negative,” Musselwhite said.

Concerns have been mounting everywhere about the environmental impact of data centers, with alarms ringing at various environmental think tanks. The Sierra Club, one of the oldest environmental preservation organizations in the U.S., has now put forth an estimate that by 2030, U.S. data center buildouts will be outputting as much carbon dioxide as the entirety of Mexico, pushing back progress on greenhouse gas reduction by 15 years, Bloomberg reports.

The Club's principal advisor for climate and energy, Jeremy Fusher, puts it plainly: "the numbers continue to sort of boggle our minds." He's referring to an estimate that with the output from pending data center builds, the output from the U.S. power sector is set to put 2.1 billion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere by the end of the decade, an uptick of 42% compared to 2025 figures. The researchers' previous estimates were between a quarter and half of the current projections.

An increasing number of countries and states are enacting laws demanding that new data center builds have a large portion of their power generated by green sources. However, those laws rarely apply retroactively, and oftentimes have a phase-in period. Even the Irish law on the matter demanding that new data centers be fed by 80% of renewable power only requires that that happens six years after they're powered up.

In the current AI-driven market, speed of construction is king. Roughly 40% of U.S. data centers are fed by natural gas turbines, and the situation doesn't look like it'll be changing much. It'll likely get worse, as the addition of green sources almost assuredly won't keep up with demand. Much like RAM, GPUs, and storage, turbines were all slurped up by data centers. Their prices have risen by 50%, and production is backlogged for years, with one maker stating it's opening slots for production in 2032.

Having said all that, Brendan Pierpont from Energy Innovation, another climate-concerned organization, points out that although the current path looks dangerous for the environment, it's hard to make a hard prediction of how the situation will play out. He justifies his position with common data center roadblocks: the availability of turbines, delays in grid connections, and other delay factors.

Truth be told, at this point it's hard to predict how many data centers will actually reach completion, given that requests for permits far exceed available grid capacity across the U.S., and a sizable number of buildouts are encountering strong opposition. Plus, although the AI bubble is still alive and well, concerns started to arise about the economics of hyperscalers, indicating some may go the way of the dodo — and their projects along with them.

Fujifilm plans to boost production of magnetic tape by as much as 5x as it works to keep up with demand for the data storage medium that has seen a jump in popularity amid ongoing global AI data center buildouts. The Japanese firm will spend 10 billion yen ($63.3 million) to increase capacity at its Odawara plant throughout its fiscal year 2028. The move will enable it to produce more advanced tapes with capacities of up to 100TB each, Nikkei Asia reports. The expansion of production capacity will mark the company's largest investment in tape-based storage in around 20 years. Fujifilm first began working on magnetic tape technology back in 1954 when it was used for television broadcasting equipment.

Nowadays, magnetic tape is the go-to storage option for data centers everywhere as a form of long-term data backup. While tapes lag behind solid-state drives and traditional spinning hard disks in terms of performance, tapes are hard to beat when it comes to their durability and relatively low cost for storing huge amounts of data. Magnetic tape storage can cost as little as one-quarter that of hard disks, and even less when compared to faster SSDs. That makes them the perfect solution for so-called cold data, information that is rarely accessed but could be considered mission-critical and must be stored safely. Tape storage isn't just cheaper, either, with research showing that it's also less polluting than hard disks and SSDs.

While Fujifilm will produce 100TB tapes, the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) roadmap allows for considerably larger capacities, all the way to 365TB per cartridge. By comparison, SSDs top out at around 256TB and cost considerably more.

Fujifilm is far from the only storage company looking to take advantage of the AI data center boom. Toshiba announced earlier this month its plans to double hard disk production capacity amid shortages, and the company, alongside Seagate and WD, is working towards ever-increasing capacities. Kioxia and SanDisk are also getting in on the act after detailing 332-layer 3D NAND flash in August. The pair hope to bring higher storage capacities to SSDs for data center use.

The demand for AI data center storage is so high that it's at the heart of a global shortage that shows little sign of improving anytime soon. Scarcity has seen prices skyrocket, while manufacturers have chosen to divert resources away from consumer-focused products, instead focusing on the more lucrative enterprise market.

Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX closed $40 billion in debt financing for graphics processing units (GPUs), with the chips expected to arrive in the first half of 2027. He disclosed the deal on X, October 25 (embedded below) while responding to investor Chamath Palihapitiya, who had warned that mounting financing pressures and delays in data center construction could leave AI computing capacity sitting idle next year.

Musk agreed with that assessment, but argued that SpaceX is better positioned than many of its competitors because it can borrow against revenue from businesses outside AI. “Pretty much,” Musk replied to Palihapitiya on X explaining that debt markets had largely shut off funding for companies without substantial revenue independent of AI data centers.

He further said SpaceX had closed $40 billion in debt for GPUs because it has investment-grade status and revenue from its Starlink satellite internet and space businesses. “That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but not many,” Musk wrote.

It is still, however, unclear what Musk meant by “closed” or whether investors had agreed to the final debt pricing. The disclosure comes as SpaceX prepares for another enormous spending period. CFO Bret Johnsen had stated during SpaceX’s Q3 2026 earnings call that the company expects capital expenditure of $35 billion to $40 billion in Q4 “because of the additional capacity coming online this quarter.”

Musk also clarified that the borrowing was primarily callable debt for GPU purchases expected to arrive in the first and second quarters of 2027. “This is primarily callable debt for GPU purchases that will arrive in Q1 and Q2. Not a major factor this quarter,” Musk wrote.

Earlier this month, it emerged SpaceX had proposed a $40 billion debt package for Nvidia hardware, estimating that the proposed funding could cover roughly 360,000 Rubin GPUs across 5,000 Nvidia NVL72 racks. The proposed package reportedly included $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt. Musk has now said the financing has closed, but has not confirmed the specific GPU models or quantities covered by the deal.

The spending fits into Musk’s broader push to expand AI computing capacity. In August, xAI outlined plans to increase its data center capacity sevenfold by 2027, targeting 10 gigawatts. In September, the publication also reported that SpaceXAI planned to add another 660,000 Nvidia GPUs during 2026, potentially bringing its total to around 1.44 million if the planned deployments proceed.

And GPUs are only part of the bill. Data centers need power, cooling, networking equipment, and physical infrastructure before those accelerators can do useful work, which underscores SpaceX’s latest move.

SpaceX, meanwhile, has begun selling access to its own infrastructure. In May, Anthropic secured access to SpaceX’s Colossus 1 supercomputer, which includes more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and over 300 megawatts of computing capacity. Later in June, SpaceX struck a separate deal with Google, which agreed to pay $920 million per month for access to approximately 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related hardware, with payments scheduled to run from October 2026 through June 2029.

Russia has lost another data center in its ongoing conflict with Ukraine after drones hit a government data center in the suburbs of Gorodets, some 230 miles east of the Kremlin and over 600 miles away from the frontlines. According to Data Center Dynamics (DCD), the freshly drone damaged data center is operated by the Russian Ministry of Finance and was said to hold several state registries, including the Federal Taxation Service’s tax database.

“The facility is one of two key data processing centers of the Federal Tax Service of Russia operating in a geo-distributed mode,” DCD reported, citing a Russian media outlet. “The damage to this facility could potentially affect the operation of state information systems of the Russian Federation.” Ukraine has targeted Russian data centers multiple times since the start of October, which it started doing after Moscow escalated the conflict by striking Ukrainian data centers. While the Russian finance ministry reportedly operates two other data centers — one at the Federal Data Processing Center in Dubna, Moscow Region, and another in Yerzovka, Volgograd Region — losing a third of its data centers could have a major impact on government services that it provides.

A modern society’s reliance on digital services means that data centers are now critical infrastructure and have become major targets in conflict. Russia’s Yandex bot traffic collapsed after the Ukrainian drone strikes, but its disinformation bot network simply migrated to unaffected data centers to continue operating as normal. Another recent instance of a civilian data center getting caught in a conflict was in the Middle East, after Iranian forces hit AWS sites in the UAE and Bahrain in response to the United States’ bombing campaign that began in February. This has led to disruptions to many digital services in the area, which is why Amazon has advised many of its clients to move to other regions to avoid further disruptions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in 2014 when it forcibly occupied the Crimean Peninsula, but the current situation started when Moscow escalated the situation and attempted to take Kyiv in 2022. But what makes this 12-year conflict especially deadly is the new technologies and strategies that are being implemented in the front lines, including the widespread and innovative use of drones.

Nvidia is collaborating with German energy firm PreussenElektra GmbH (PEL) to explore converting old nuclear power plants into AI data centers. In an official announcement on October 21st, the U.S. chipmaker and the German firm entered a preliminary partnership to assess whether the latter's decommissioned nuclear power plant sites in Germany can be converted into high-performance AI data centers. The plan does not involve using nuclear power to power any future data centers. Instead, the project is focused on leveraging the existing power, water, and other infrastructure already present at the sites.

“Our former power plant sites have valuable industrial infrastructure and offer opportunities for new, future-oriented uses. Together with NVIDIA, we intend to conduct a sound assessment of whether and how these conditions can be leveraged for AI factories. In doing so, we are combining the responsible reuse of our sites with new economic opportunities for the regions,” says Guido Knott, Chairman of PEL’s Management Board.

The open-ended exploration will assess existing energy grid links, available land, and industrial infrastructure at the former nuclear sites to see if they meet the strict operational requirements of “AI factories.”

The move aims to find alternatives to building massive data centers from scratch amid the unprecedented AI infrastructure buildout. New data centers require well-located land, industrial-zone approvals, proximity to water infrastructure for cooling, and high-voltage grid connections, things nuclear plants already have. By repurposing these facilities, Nvidia hopes to significantly reduce cost and development timelines.

“AI factories require access to power, land and high-capacity infrastructure, and former industrial sites could provide a strong foundation for this next generation of computing,” said Markus Hacker, senior regional director at Nvidia. Together with PreussenElektra, we will assess how its sites could meet the technical and operational requirements of AI factories and contribute to Germany’s high-performance AI infrastructure.”

Germany permanently shut down its last remaining operational nuclear power plants in April 2023, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and is dismantling about 30 nuclear power plants across the country. PreussenElektra is currently responsible for decommissioning and dismantling eight of the plants, which are likely the sites to be assessed. The company, alongside Nvidia, has made it clear that the data center assessment initiative is strictly in an experimental feasibility phase.

No investment amounts, approved development plans, or definitive construction agreements have been finalized yet.

Texas has suspended the construction permits of 17 data center projects and disabled a web portal that automated filing for new permits after it was discovered that they were still being issued a month after calls for the process to be paused. Governor Greg Abbott asked for new permits to be halted in September 2026, but watchdog groups FracTracker Alliance and Public Citizen both published reports detailing more than two dozen permits issued to Texas data center projects, reports 404 Media.

Now, the portal that previously automatically authorized permits is unavailable. “TCEQ’s electronic filing application used for automatic authorizations has been temporarily shut down to ensure all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers," a message on the website reads.

The portal, called STEERS, is used to rubber-stamp construction approvals. But despite Governor Abbott's call for no new permits to be approved, it seems that nobody thought to take STEERS offline. Sam Law, a researcher at FracTracker, says that it's been happily approving new projects, including those for OpenAI and Amazon that went through the system earlier this week. All 17 of the suspended permits are for stormwater construction, a process that sees construction companies raise and level the ground. It's also a process that is a vital part of the approval process for all construction projects in Texas.

Governor Abbot put the brakes on 1,800 data center projects while work was done to audit them. Concerns were raised about their power use and generation, how much water they would consume, and the impact that they would have on their communities. “Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Abbott wrote in a statement provided at the time. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”

The situation in Texas follows New York's year-long ban on data center projects larger than 50 megawatts that came into force earlier this year. The Responsible Data Center Development Act was signed into law as Senate Bill S10642 by New York Governor Kathy Hochul in July. It was another instance of a change in stance on data centers that is gathering momentum in the United States. While President Trump announced an "AI Action Plan" to accelerate adoption of AI tools and infrastructure rollout in July 2025, he announced a mandate forcing AI data centers to pay dividends to communities in October 2026. In Northern Virginia, Amazon bowed to a community backlash to plans to build four new data centers — going so far as to offer its land up for housing instead.

While the continued focus on AI tools helps drive demand for more capacity and more data centers, communities and local officials are increasingly concerned about the impacts they have on their surroundings. Water shortages and deforestation have become key issues affecting the communities in which data centers are being placed, as has the increase in the cost of energy.

Amazon will no longer build four new data centers on the site of the George Washington University's campus in Loudoun County, just outside of D.C., and will instead repurpose the majority of the 122-acre space for mixed-use and residential development following significant pushback from the local community. It will also donate 25 acres of the property to Loudoun County to be used for a community arts center and new recreational facility. On top of all that, it'll even give $5 million to the county's fund for housing, reports The Washington Post.

That's quite the turnaround compared to plans to build in a county that is already dubbed "Data Center Alley" because it has the largest concentration of data centers on the planet. But residents' concerns about the noise generated by such data centers and the incredible amount of power that they require to function have seen the county's approach to new data center buildouts change of late. Amazon first submitted its proposal to build the new facilities in July, and Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis J. Randall and Amazon met in September, where it was put to the company that it may be better to find an alternative use for the land.

Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president in charge of data center development, said the company had jumped at the chance to purchase the former university campus when the opportunity arose, but added that the company considered the county’s “pointed concerns about data center development at this particular site.” Weissman added that “While we see the property’s legal development potential differently than the County does, we concluded that the best outcome for all is to come together on a shared vision for this campus rather than engage in costly litigation.”

The building of new data centers has always been a necessity given our growing use of cloud-based services and storage systems. But the recent boom in AI use has seen demand for additional, and larger, facilities ratcheted up to new levels. But with that demand comes opposition, with local communities wary of the impact these mammoth facilities can have on the areas in which they live, including spikes in the price of electricity. Officials have begun taking steps to try to grease the wheels of data center construction. Just days before this news broke, President Donald Trump called for data center builders and AI hyperscalers to pay local communities a dividend amid energy-related price increases. In a social media post, Trump went on to say that data centers would be required not only to make their own electricity but also to give or sell excess energy back to the local community. Water shortages and deforestation have also become key issues affecting the communities in which data centers are being placed.

Back in Loudoun County, officials pointed to what could be achieved when choosing dialog over confrontation. “By choosing dialogue over reflexive disagreement, Loudoun County and Amazon created an opportunity for the County,” Randall reportedly said via statement. “This agreement provides new places for our Loudoun residents to gather, create, and play. And, most importantly to me, we will provide more attainable homes for working families.”

Lava, an Israeli security firm, says that it has been able to identify 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 chips within the network of China Telecom, a state-owned company that provides telecommunications services within the country. These same chips have already been barred from export by U.S. export controls, a report by The Information notes, which begs the question of how they have turned up in a Chinese data center. Such chips can only be sold to whitelisted buyers who agree not to export them to sanctioned parties, including those in China.

However, banning companies from buying Nvidia's high-performance GPUs and AI data center chips hasn't always worked. In 2025, it was reported that Chinese companies smuggled $1 billion worth of Nvidia AI chips into the country in three months. At the time, the B200 chips were the most sought-after, but some distributors were already gearing up to sell B300-series chips when they became available.

While the latest finding shows that the proliferation of export-controlled chips into China continues to be an issue, Nvidia has downplayed the report but didn't deny the findings. "Governments, researchers, and media have all found insignificant diversion of controlled US products, less than one half of one percent in recent court cases — a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has," an Nvidia spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. "With tens of millions of GPUs in service in approved countries, this report again demonstrates that smuggling is a nonfactor, blocked by governments on both sides of the globe."

It's unknown how B300 chips found their way into China Telecom's server racks, nor can Lava confirm exactly where within the company's network they are located. But they are there, with Lava identifying them via Nvidia's own DCGM Exporter tool. The software can be installed by data center operators and is used to monitor server health and performance, and while designed for internal use, it can oftentimes be accessed beyond the data center's network. Oddly, it doesn't always require password authentication, either. Nvidia previously confirmed it was working on a tool that would allow its chips to be located, but it is yet to be released.

It's easy to see why Chinese firms are keen to get their hands on the Blackwell Ultra B300. Announced in March of last year, the data center GPU is one of the most powerful on the planet, offering huge performance gains with 50% more memory and FP4 compute than the previous-generation B200. At the time, Nvidia touted that the chip was "built for the age of reasoning," while name-checking more sophisticated AI LLMs like DeepSeek R1. At the time of its announcement, the B300 was expected to ship by the end of 2025, and it didn't take long for it to become hot property. In August 2026, nine people were indicted in Taiwan over the illegal export of B300 GPUs to China. This came just days after Supermicro confirmed that it had fired several employees following an investigation into smuggling. The complicated smuggling process included the use of a Taiwanese server trading firm called Flying Tiget Tech — a firm with whitelisted status for GPU purchases.

Nvidia's chips have proven so vital to AI data centers that demand for even its older silicon has caused skyrocketing prices. The company's A100 servers have tripled in price, despite being five years old, and can cost up to $82.,000. The ongoing crackdown on Nvidia chip smuggling has even seen some resort to retooling gaming GPUs to run AI workloads where possible.

Google’s Finland country manager has apologized for unauthorized forest clearings near Muhos, which have turned 816 acres of forest into an expanse of mud. The American search and AI giant has also been told to cease work where it has cleared roughly 500 acres of forest, 55 miles southeast of the village of Otanmäki. Now The Guardian reports that wolves, who used to live in the forests, are roaming into villages neighboring these man-made muddy wastelands.

Local anger continues to simmer over the damage done to Finnish forests, as Google seems to have ridden roughshod over regulations in the hurry to build new AI data centers in Finland. However, the report suggests that it isn’t just environmentalists who have a beef with Google. Some families say wolves and other wild animals have entered the countryside villages. This would be a serious human safety concern.

“We had wolves coming into the village because all the wild animals moved out of the forest,” explained Anni Ranta, 53, whose family has lived in Otanmäki for generations. Ranta also fears the U.S.-owned data centers will make Finland an even juicier target for Russian aggression.

Finland is far from the first place targeted by AI data center developers to complain about environmental effects. This latest report also cites locals grumbling about construction/factory noise, streams turning brown, and rare birds being pushed out, among other unwanted side effects. We’ve seen similar concerns voiced across the U.S. and in other countries.

Google’s flouting of environmental policy has been unprecedented and clear, a representative of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (SLL) indicated to The Guardian. The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority (LVV) seems to agree, as it issued an order for Google to stop development near Muhos and Otanmäki. Nevertheless, a Google spokesperson was upbeat. “We will fully comply with LVV’s requests in this matter,” they said. “We look forward to maintaining an active, open dialogue with all authorities to strengthen our partnership with Finland and local organizations.” Google must be hoping the touted business benefits of the data centers will sway the government and/or regulators.

We last reported on these in-development data centers in Finland earlier this month, after the Finnish government (LVV) gave notice to Google to stop its construction activities in Muhos and Kajaani (near Otanmäki).

President Donald Trump has issued a call for data center builders and AI hyperscalers to pay communities a dividend in order to overcome energy-related price hikes, or even to reduce prices, in order to make data centers more palatable to local communities. In a post on Truth Social post, he warned that data centers would be mandated not only to make their own electricity, as he has previously stated, but also to give or sell excess energy back to the local community.

Local communities all over the United States have protested against AI data centers, often owing to their outsized impact on local communities. Rising electricity costs, noise pollution, water shortages, air pollution, deforestation, and more are the things that small communities have to deal with because of these companies.

To ease the pain of local communities, Trump is demanding that these large companies provide the communities they affect with something that will hopefully make their presence more acceptable. The Trump Administration is keen to stay ahead of China in the AI arms race and is looking for solutions to win back some favor by making the data centers pay something back to the affected communities; how that will practically transpire is yet to be seen. Considering the electricity-focused post, the dividend might be in the form of partially paying rising electricity costs to alleviate a pain point that directly affects many homes within the vicinity of data centers. The Trump Administration had ordered these companies to make their own electricity, as we’ve covered previously. Excess electricity from their generation could be used to further lower the electricity cost for the locals, including a recently passed act that orders data centers to shoulder the cost for grid upgrades to avoid taking it from the taxes of local communities.

“Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck.” Trump further says in his post, aiming to have more data centers built, “MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!!," the President said in closing.

Whether the dividends will be enough to win over communities is yet to be known, as the economic aspect is only one facet of the problem. There are still plenty of problems to face; enormous water consumption, ecological damage, and pollution are still major challenges that make AI data centers a hard sell anywhere they’re located.