Data Centres Briefings

Global data centres, power & grid briefing (UTC 2026-02-21)

Top news (3)

• US grid: new transmission rebuild proposals in Virginia. Dominion proposes 230 kV line rebuilds near Charlottesville, Gordonsville covering ~22.3 miles (Dooms–Charlottesville) and ~20 miles (Charlottesville–Gordonsville), framed as responding to regional demand from data centres.
• UK social licence: waste-heat reuse materially improves sentiment. Two-thirds of Brits favor local data centres using waste heat reports 66.8% would view nearby data centres more favourably if waste heat is used for local heat networks.
• Energy security focus: governments linking demand growth to data centres/AI. [Japan

Global data centres & digital infrastructure briefing (UTC 2026-02-20)

Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers focused on data centres, power, and grid infrastructure.

Top news (3)

1. India: hyperscale + subsea scale-up – Google announces $15B India AI infrastructure investment in Vizag, centred on a “full-stack AI hub” in Visakhapatnam with gigawatt-scale compute and an international subsea cable gateway.

2. Firming power: commercial enhanced geothermal at meaningful size – Enhanced geothermal systems could expand U.S. geothermal power generation details Fervo Energy’s 53 MW Cape Generating Station (first large-scale commercial EGS

Top news (3)

1. Large India build-out signal: Google announces AI investments and partnerships at India summit including $15bn for foundational AI infrastructure and new America–India Connect fibre routes linking the U.S., India and Southern Hemisphere locations.

2. Big-ticket power for AI data centres: Japan and U.S. agree first Strategic Investment Initiative projects includes a gas-fired power project for AI data centers (~$33.3bn) as part of the first tranche.

3. Virginia gas + transmission line controversy: Tenaska gas plant proposal threatens Virginia communities, data centres — Tenaska is appealing a c

Top news (3)

1. Cybersecurity focus is moving “full‑stack” as AI raises the threat level — At the Munich Security Conference, Google called for a collaborative, end‑to‑end approach and highlighted adoption of Google Distributed Cloud (Air‑Gapped) by NATO, the U.S., Germany, the UK and Australia. See: Google calls for full-stack cybersecurity at Munich Security Conference.

2. Compute and energy constraints are becoming a visible limiter on AI scaling — A January 2026 “AI Frontiers” digest from Ukraine’s cybersecurity coordination bodies flags rising focus on efficiency/monetization, intensifying US–China competition in semiconductors/compute infrastructure, and infrastructure + energy constraints as key bottlenec

Top news (Global)

1. GPU platform efficiency claims are rising sharply. NVIDIA says its new Blackwell Ultra system offers major throughput-per-megawatt and cost-per-token gains, and it is already being deployed by several large cloud providers: NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 boosts agentic AI performance and efficiency.

2. Storage vendors are pushing “AI-scale” architectures and third-party validation narratives. Dell argues its PowerScale discrete, scale-out design delivers predictable linear scaling and sustained bandwidth, citing NVIDIA Cloud Provider (NCP) validation and Dell internal testing: Dell PowerScale: Discrete Architecture for AI-scale Storage and Efficiency.

3. **Liquid cooli

Global data centres & infrastructure briefing (UTC 2026-02-16)

Scope: Global (stories available: Egypt)
Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers focused on data centres, power, and grid infrastructure.

Top news (3)

1. Egypt accelerates near-term power additions: The government directed delivery of 3,000MW of solar plus 600MW of battery storage before summer 2026 to secure seasonal supply (Egypt to add 3,000 MW solar and 600 MW battery storage).
2. Saudi Arabia–Egypt interconnection milestone targeted: Egypt plans to energize the first 1,500MW phase of the Saudi Arabia interconnection in time for summer 2026, signalling incremental cross-border capacity availabilit

Top news (3)

1. Canada–Germany move to build “secure compute” capacity: Canada and Germany sign AI declaration, launch Sovereign Alliance. The partnership is positioned around expanding secure compute infrastructure, accelerating AI R&D/commercialization, and strengthening talent development.

2. Smart-city digital infrastructure budgets are being framed in clear tiers (pilot to scaled rollouts): Smart City Platform Costs: Pilots, Scale, and Long-term Budgets outlines pilots at $100k–$500k and multi-department programs at $1M–$10M, with lifecycle budgeting emphasis.

3. Annual O&M expectations are being explicitly benchmarked for smart-city deployments: [Practical cost breakdown

Top news (Global)

• NCCETC’s 2025 Power Decarbonization Annual Review flags data-center-driven “large-load” electricity tariffs as a major US trend, alongside big planned additions across solar, gas, storage and wind.
• Dell and NVIDIA’s workstation-to-rack platform push highlights how rack-scale GPU systems (GH200/H200/GB200) and unified memory architectures are accelerating multiphysics simulation workloads—tightening the link between AI/HPC demand and data center compute density.
• Azerbaijan positions itself as a connectivity and AI hub with stated plans spanning electricity cables, fiber-optics, data centers and AI, tied

Top news (3)

1. South Africa puts grid reform and new transmission investment front-and-centre. In his SONA messaging, President Ramaphosa pointed to >R1 trillion public infrastructure investment over three years and reiterated reforms aimed at ending load reduction and scaling renewables (target >40% by 2030) (South Africa charts unity, growth and reform in SONA).

2. US political risk around data centre build-out is rising. Jefferies flags bipartisan scrutiny (including moratoria calls in six states) plus potential federal and state policy levers that could slow AI/data centre expansion; a key near-term catalyst is the Prince William Digital Gateway court hearing Feb 23–24 ([Bipartisan political scrutiny th

Top news (3)

1. Behind-the-meter gas generation is scaling quickly for US AI/HPC loads: INNIO to supply 1.5 GW behind‑the‑meter power to VoltaGrid via 300 Jenbacher gas engines (25MW blocks) delivered by 2028.

2. Virginia’s data center policy debate is intensifying: a statewide coalition is pushing “comprehensive reform,” while multiple bills have already failed committee and others remain live: Virginia coalition urges statewide data center reform in Richmond.

3. The EU is moving toward stronger ICT supply-chain controls that could affect data center operators and critical digital infrastructure procurement: [EU proposes ICT supply chain security framework under CSA2](https://telborg.

Global data centres, power & grid briefing (UTC: 2026-02-11)

Top news (3)

• Demand is running ahead of financing and grid capacity. In its 2026 outlook, DataBank said enterprise colocation demand should remain strong, but warned that financing and grid capacity will be strained by AI-scale infrastructure; it cited 15 GW leased in 2025 and noted that most capacity is expected online in late 2026–2027 (Data center industry outlook for 2026: power, funding, AI).
• Energy constraints are now shaping the AI supply chain and M&A. Jefferies argued the AI cycle is shifting pricing power toward memory suppliers (SK Hynix, Micron) with memory prices up ~50% last quarter, while flagging energy as a binding constrain

Top news (3)

• maincubes confirms EU Taxonomy alignment for BER01 (Berlin), following its earlier FRA02 alignment (2024). This is a notable signal for EU-focused capital seeking taxonomy-aligned digital infrastructure exposure.
• OVHcloud backs University of Strasbourg’s bgproutes.io BGP research, providing compute, hosting, Bare Metal and network-engineering support for large-scale route collection, real-time visualisation and anomaly detection.
• Cipher Mining sets date for Q4 and full-year 2025 results (release before market open on 24 Feb 2026; call/webcast at 8:00 a.m. ET). For investors, this is a near-term catalyst for disclosure on

Global Data Centres Briefing (UTC 2026-02-07)

Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers (data centres, power, grid)

Top news (3)

1. New utility tariff structures proposed to accelerate clean power for data centres

• An RMI insight brief recommends Bring-Your-Own (BYO) and Clean Transition Tariffs to speed up clean energy procurement for large loads (including data centres) while insulating other ratepayers. Examples cited include PJM’s Bring Your Own New Generation Program (>250 MW), Evergy Kansas’s Clean Energy Choice Rider, NV Energy’s Clean Transition Tariff (used by Google), and Georgia Power’s Customer-Identified Resource option: [Bring-Your-Own and Clean Transition Tariffs for Data Centers](https://telborg.com/data

Top news (3)

• Virginians lobby for statewide data center reform in Richmond: A 50+ organization coalition is pushing the Virginia General Assembly to advance multiple “data center reform” bills (oversight, transparency, ratepayer protections, and tax incentive reform).
• Minnesota calls for tighter utility planning and tariffs for new data center load: Fresh Energy urges the Public Utilities Commission to require better load forecasting, targeted rate design, and transparency as 1,120 MW of new data center capacity is planned in the state.
• UK Environment Agency permits Amazon’s Linmere Island Data Centre: An environmental permit un

Global data centres & digital infrastructure briefing (UTC 2026-02-05)

Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers focused on data centres, power, and grid infrastructure
Scope: Global

Top news (3)

1. Hyperscaler spend reset higher: Alphabet CEO Highlights Gemini 3, AI Growth and CapEx Plan sets 2026 CapEx guidance of $175–$185bn, tied to AI growth across Search/Cloud/YouTube, and plans to acquire Intersect for data centre and energy infrastructure solutions.

2. Large-scale DC/HPC financing in Texas: Cipher Mining prices $2.0B senior secured notes for Black Pearl — subsidiary Black Pearl Compute LLC priced $2.0bn of **6.12

Global Data Centres & Power Infrastructure Briefing (UTC 2026-02-04)

Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers focused on data centres, power, and grid infrastructure.

Top news (3)

1. $2.0bn debt financing for a Texas HPC build: Cipher proposes $2.00B senior secured notes for Black Pearl to complete its Black Pearl high-performance computing data center in Wink, Texas (notes due 2031; first‑priority liens on substantially all assets/equity; includes reimbursement of ~$232.5m prior equity contributions).

2. Public/private-backed AI compute platform expands: Stony Brook joins Empire AI SUNY partnerships to expand access. Empire AI is backed by **>$

Global data centres & AI infrastructure briefing (UTC 2026-02-03)

Audience: Institutional asset managers and infrastructure fund managers focused on data centres, power, and grid infrastructure.

Top news (3)

1. Hardening the enterprise AI supply chain + enabling offline deployment: Dell Enterprise Hub strengthens AI supply chain security and deployment highlights multi-layer image integrity and scanning (daily Amazon Inspector scans, Cosign-signed images, SHA-384 manifest hashes, and model malware/pickle scanning) alongside support for fully offline, on‑prem deployments.

2. Inference energy and cost can swing by orders of magnitude on the same GPUs: [LLM Inference Efficiency: Quantization, Batching, and Serving Strategies](h

Top news (Global)

• Cross-border grid fault triggers Moldova emergency shutdown; restoration underway. Moldova began gradually restoring electricity after an emergency shutdown linked to faults in Ukraine’s grid, reconnecting 110 kV and 10 kV lines and restoring critical services in Chisinau. The disturbance began at 10:42 after a voltage drop on the 400 kV Isaccea–Vulcanesti–MGRES line; Moldelectrica is coordinating with the Ukrainian operator to restore full connections within hours: Moldova gradually restores electric supply after emergency shutdown.

• Taiwan advances “sovereign AI” with a domestic LLM (TAIDE) targeted at local use cases. Taiwan’s NSTC developed TAIDE, a Taiwan-centric generative

Top news (global)

• Hyperscalers signaled another step-up in AI data-centre spend: Microsoft and Meta earnings reveal AI data center buildout highlighted Microsoft’s US$37.5bn quarterly capex (two-thirds toward chips) and Meta’s US$72.22bn 2025 capex guidance and US$115–135bn for 2026, with constraints called out around power, silicon, supply chains, and financing/ownership models.

• A major US AI-campus-scale build was disclosed in Mississippi: xAI to build $20 billion MACROHARDRR data center in Southaven described >$20bn of corporate investment, a retrofit of a purchased building near a newly acquired Southaven power plant site, and a target to boost computing

Global data centres briefing (UTC 2026-01-30)

Top news (3)

• A new 1 GW renewable AI campus announced in India. AM Green to build $25bn 1GW green AI data centre plans a $25bn, 1 GW fully renewable-powered AI data centre in Uttar Pradesh, designed for large-scale AI workloads using solar, wind, and potential energy storage, with emphasis on advanced cooling and HPC infrastructure.

• Gas-fired power capacity tied to data centres continues to scale in Texas. Texas regulators issued a major air permit for Pacifico Energy’s 7.65 GW “GW Ranch” gas complex in Pecos County, authorizing up to 33 million tons/year of greenhouse gases and **>12,000 tons/