Data Centre Watch

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88 entries matching · showing 46–60

1. 14 Oct 2026 World United Kingdom Reported

   Photonic-switch startup raises $125m to cut data-centre power

   Oxford's Salience Labs has raised $125m (£94m) — led by Bullhound, with AMD Ventures, Intel Capital and the British Business Bank — to scale silicon-photonic optical circuit switching, which keeps data as light to cut the energy spent moving it between chips. It follows a 64-port switch demonstration, with 128- and 256-port products on the roadmap.

   Why it matters: Power, not silicon, is the bottleneck — so money is flowing to anything that cuts energy per unit of compute.

   Source: City AM / Unite.AI [C]

2. 14 Oct 2026 World Oregon, US Policy

   Oregon pauses environmental permits for new data centres

   Governor Tina Kotek ordered the state's environmental regulator to stop approving new air- and water-pollution permits for data centres until next July — an effective moratorium on new builds and expansions, following a year-long pause on state land. It could hit Amazon's proposed Boardman hyperscale site; Amazon calls the move abrupt and says it will cost thousands of jobs.

   Why it matters: A US state braking the build-out through pollution permits, not planning — the same lever the UK debate keeps reaching for.

   Source: KOIN / Oregon Capital Chronicle [C]

3. 14 Oct 2026 World Japan Pre-application

   NYK consortium floats a port-based data centre concept

   Japanese shipping group NYK, with NTT Facilities, Eurus Energy and MUFG Bank, has developed a concept for data centres moored alongside quays in ports — running on local generation and offshore wind — pitched as a way around land, electricity-supply and construction-time constraints.

   Why it matters: As land and power run short on shore, the search for somewhere to put the compute heads onto the water.

   Source: NYK Line / Smart Maritime Network [C]

4. 13 Oct 2026 World County Clare, Ireland 200 MW Approved

   Ireland's Supreme Court clears the €1.6bn Ennis data centre

   Ireland's Supreme Court has refused leave to appeal against the approval of Art Data Centres' €1.6bn, 200MW campus outside Ennis, County Clare — ending a long legal challenge and clearing the scheme's last hurdle, after the High Court dismissed the judicial review in March 2026 and refused leave in May.

   Why it matters: A test of whether Ireland's planning system keeps saying 'yes' to 200MW campuses — as its grid tightens.

   Source: Data Centre Review [C]

5. 13 Oct 2026 World Singapore / Australia Reported

   AirTrunk delays its $1.5bn Singapore listing

   Blackstone-backed data-centre operator AirTrunk has postponed a planned $1.5bn Singapore REIT IPO into next year amid an AI-stock sell-off, higher interest rates and cautious investors — the latest AI-infrastructure listing to stall after Firmus scrapped its float.

   Why it matters: The money behind the build-out is wobbling again — the financing side, not the planning or the power.

   Source: WSJ / The Business Times [C]

6. 13 Oct 2026 World Batam, Indonesia 285 MW Reported

   Batam residents blockade a data centre over dried-up water

   Around 300 residents of the Sambau district blockaded Nongsa Digital Park on 5 Oct, saying their piped water had been cut for up to six months while the data centres next door kept running; tankers restored supply to only ~53% of households. Nine planned centres there would need ~285MW and ~29 million litres of water a day — about 8.4% of Batam's entire supply.

   Why it matters: The data-centre water fight made physical: two pipelines, two outcomes, same drought.

   Source: Startup Fortune / Jakarta Post [C]

7. 13 Oct 2026 World Osaka, Japan 500 MW Reported

   NTT Data nears Anthropic's first Japan data centre — ¥1tn, 500MW in Osaka

   NTT Data is reportedly near a deal to build Anthropic's first Japan data centre, in Osaka: construction alone up to ¥1tn (~$6.3bn), drawing up to 500MW, with a deal targeted by the end of March 2027 and part of the site opening as early as 2028. Power is the hurdle — 500MW from the grid would be slow, so on-site generation and fuel cells are the reported fallback.

   Why it matters: AI compute keeps following the power and the land — and Japan is now in the queue.

   Source: Nikkei Asia via TNW [C]

8. 12 Oct 2026 Updated 13 Oct World Netherlands 600 MW Reported

   Nebius signs as anchor tenant for Volt's €7bn Rotterdam 'AI gigafactory'

   Nebius has signed a long-term lease as anchor tenant for Volt's planned Rotterdam 'AI gigafactory' — 100,000 GPU slots and up to 200MW, the deal that unlocks the ~€7bn construction financing. The campus is planned to reach 600MW (with an 800MW ambition) on a Port of Rotterdam brownfield with its own 380kV connection; first capacity is targeted for late 2029–early 2030. It remains a construction project — no permit or build yet.

   Why it matters: Demand still has to come before the wires — even on a power-station-sized site, and even as the Dutch grid pauses new connections.

   Source: De Telegraaf / FD via TechTimes [C]

   Changes (2)

   1. 13 Oct 2026 — Added the deal scale: lock-in of 100,000 GPU slots and up to 200MW, the ~€7bn financing it unlocks, the 600–800MW build-out and the late-2029/early-2030 first phase.
   2. 12 Oct 2026 — First filed.
9. 10 Oct 2026 Updated 13 Oct World Kaluga, Russia 63 MW Reported

   Drone strikes knock out three Yandex data centres

   Ukrainian drones hit Yandex facilities at Sasovo, Kaluga (~63MW) and now Vladimir within four days; the strikes took the ru-central1-b and ru-central1-a cloud zones offline, and Yandex says some are unlikely to be restored soon — a second cloud provider lost to drones this year, after AWS's Bahrain site. By 13 Oct, 80+ Yandex services (ride-hailing, payments, maps, AI APIs) had been disrupted, the company had declared an emergency operating mode and its shares had fallen about 4%.

   Why it matters: Data centres are now targets in war — the physical fragility behind the cloud.

   Source: Tom's Hardware / TASS [C]

   Changes (2)

   1. 13 Oct 2026 — Added the wider fallout: 80+ Yandex services disrupted, an emergency operating mode, and a ~4% share-price drop.
   2. 10 Oct 2026 — First filed.
10. 12 Oct 2026 Updated 13 Oct World Thailand Policy

    Thailand approves 750bn baht of data centres — and tightens screening

    Thailand's Board of Investment has approved 42 data-centre projects worth 750bn baht (2024–26) under a new four-pillar screening framework covering national benefit, energy security, water and environment; Gulf Development separately plans $4.3bn to reach 2GW, with Microsoft, Google Cloud and Singtel. It has now paused approvals on 166 projects pending the new standards, against a US$15.9bn investment boom, with US$3.1bn of further projects just approved. Google has confirmed a $1bn data centre at Chonburi plus a Bangkok cloud region (projected ~14,000 jobs a year to 2029), and Microsoft has opened its first Thai regional data centre.

    Why it matters: Countries are racing for the investment and, at the same time, writing the rules to manage its power and water.

    Source: Thai Times [C]

    Changes (2)

    1. 13 Oct 2026 — Added the pause on approvals for 166 projects, the US$15.9bn boom, US$3.1bn of further approvals, and the Google/Microsoft commitments.
    2. 12 Oct 2026 — First filed.
11. 12 Oct 2026 Updated 13 Oct World Texas, US 17000 MW Submitted

    Project Matador: a 17GW energy-and-AI campus in the Texas Panhandle

    The planned campus (also called the Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus) has cleared a federal environmental review milestone for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors (~4GW of baseload), alongside natural gas, solar, batteries and grid power. Initial phases are estimated at $3bn+; full 17GW depends on tenants, financing and phased build. AMD has now signed credit support for the first 222MW phase, with a framework for expansion to 650MW.

    Why it matters: Gigawatt-scale compute is now being planned as a power station first — nuclear included.

    Source: Construction Review [C]

    Changes (2)

    1. 13 Oct 2026 — Added AMD's credit support for the 222MW first phase, with a framework for expansion to 650MW.
    2. 12 Oct 2026 — First filed.
12. 12 Oct 2026 World United States Policy

    Big Tech promises its AI data centres will ride out grid faults

    Google, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia published a grid-interface specification through the Open Compute Project: during a voltage dip a site's compute load (about 70–90% of its draw) must stay connected and climb back to 90% within two seconds, rather than dropping off and shocking the grid. It follows events in which 1,500MW and more shed in an instant (2024, and a larger one on 22 July 2026). Cooling is excluded and the commitments are voluntary.

    Why it matters: AI data centres are now big enough to destabilise the grid everyone shares — and the industry is writing its own rules before regulators do.

    Source: madrobot / OCP [C]

13. 12 Oct 2026 World Ontario, Canada 320 MW Pre-application

    C$3.5bn, 320MW AI campus proposed where the town has halted data centres

    BUZZ High Performance Computing proposes a C$3.5bn / 320MW campus in Oakville, Ontario — privately funding the connection, transformers, grid works and fibre — but Oakville has a one-year moratorium on data centres running to August 2027, which it may extend to two, against the company's H2 2027 target.

    Why it matters: A scheme announced into a place that has just said 'not while we think' — the same collision as here.

    Source: Compute Forecast [C]

14. 12 Oct 2026 World Texas, US Submitted

    Crusoe files two more West Texas data centres, with Meta floated as tenant

    Crusoe has filed for two Jayton buildings totalling ~1.5m sq ft and $4.8bn, alongside its Project Hyper/Childress campus — where Meta is reported as a prospective tenant. Linked regional investment reaches ~$12bn; construction could start January 2027, first building online May 2029.

    Why it matters: Compute is sited by the gigawatt where the power is — in the same Texas grid that has just frozen new permits.

    Source: TechRadar [C]

15. 12 Oct 2026 World Finland / South Korea / India Reported

    Three more gigawatt-scale plans — Finland, Korea, India — on paper only

    Sesterce plans a '€10bn' AI campus at a former Finnish paper mill (200MW first, then 600MW, aiming past 1GW); Sejong signed an MOU for a 360MW AI data centre (₩7tn through 2029); ReNew signed an MOU for a 750MW 'green' park near Mumbai. None shows financing, land, a grid deal or permits — all are announcements or MOUs.

    Why it matters: A headline number is not a built data centre: the gap between the press release and the energised site is the whole story.

    Source: TSN Media [C]