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• Jun 18, 2026

  Fire and Rescue NSW mandates 240-minute fire resistance for lithium-ion battery storage rooms in data centres

  Fire and Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW) has announced new fire safety requirements for lithium-ion battery storage rooms and diesel generator structures in data centres.

  • Main announcement: FRNSW requires bounding construction (walls, floors, ceilings) for lithium-ion battery storage rooms to achieve Fire Resistance Level 240/240/240 for load-bearing elements and matching ratings for non-load-bearing elements; it does not support any reduction in these fire resistance levels, aligns sprinkler requirements with NFPA 855:2026, and recommends sprinkler designs be validated by representative large-scale fire test (LSFT) data for ESS groups exceeding 50kWh.
  • Background and additional detail: FRNSW cites gaps in existing test standards (noting UL 9540A and most tests are open-air) and states the performance of fire-resisting construction under battery compartment fires is “relatively unknown,”; it also argues vertically stacked diesel generators and tanks should be treated like Class 8 (industrial) uses rather than Class 10, and the statement arrives amid NSW’s data centre buildout including 15 projects worth AU$51.9 billion (US$36.41 billion) and projected data centre electricity demand reaching 12% of NEM demand by 2030.
• Jun 17, 2026

  Missouri Emerges as the Next Hyperscale Frontier Amid Growing Power Demands

  Amazon has announced plans to invest $10 billion in a new data center campus in Montgomery County, Missouri, following Google’s prior $15 billion Montgomery County announcement, bringing recent hyperscale commitments in the county to $25 billion.

  • Main announcement and project details: Amazon announced a $10 billion data center campus (Project Green) near New Florence on a roughly 1,000-acre site; the company said the project will create more than 400 full-time jobs and thousands of construction positions, pay 100% of utility infrastructure extension costs, not receive discounted electric rates, and design cooling to use water-based systems <7% of the year; construction activities reportedly began in April.
  • Background and implementation context: This follows Google’s $15 billion Montgomery County data center announcement (combined $25 billion); analysts cited power and economics as drivers as hyperscalers seek new markets; Missouri Governor Kehoe issued Executive Order 26-02 (Jan 2026) directing the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to review energy regulations and infrastructure planning with a report due Nov 30, 2026.
• Jun 17, 2026

  Google data center in Van Buren Township would destroy 13 acres of wetlands

  Michigan regulators are reviewing a wetland permit for Panattoni and Google’s planned 1-gigawatt “Project Cannoli” data center in Van Buren Township that would permanently destroy 13.55 acres of wetlands.

  • Project details and mitigation: The 282-acre project site would permanently impact 13.55 acres of wetlands, require six culverts, fill and abandon 573 linear feet of stream, and the developer proposed purchasing 20.6 acres of wetland mitigation bank credits in the Huron River watershed and creating 1,174 feet of new stream channel on-site; public comment on the wetland permit is open until June 26 (comments accepted via EGLE public notice site or email to jonesj71@michigan.gov).
  • Regulatory and background context: The project (developer: Panattoni Development Co) has preliminary approvals for a substation and needs soil erosion and utility installation approvals from the Wayne County Department of Public Services; the EPA will review under Section 404 and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will evaluate impacts to federally protected species. Panattoni evaluated seven brownfield sites (including McLouth Steel, the former Ford Wixom plant, and the Packard site) but said mission-critical schedule inflexibility prevents relocating to a brownfield, while local advocates urged denial given Wayne County has lost ~90% of its wetlands.
• Jun 16, 2026

  Google Invests $1.5 Billion in Alabama Data Center Expansion

  Google has announced a $1.5 billion expansion of its Jackson County, Alabama data center campus (announced June 16, 2026).

  • Main announcement: Google will invest $1.5 billion to expand its Jackson County, Alabama data center campus on the former Widow’s Creek coal plant site, repurposing existing infrastructure and electrical lines; the company has contracted to bring 300 MW of new power capacity to the Tennessee Valley region and will cover full costs of the power and infrastructure driven by its operations in line with the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge.
  • Background & complementary actions: Google is launching a $2 million Energy Impact Fund (in partnership with TVA and the Community Action Agency of Northeast Alabama) to support weatherization and energy-efficiency services for local schools and income-qualified households primarily in Jackson County; the company also plans to train more than 130,000 Alabamians in digital skills in collaboration with 150+ organizations. The article is an active announcement by Google and references a prior 2025 partnership with Kairos Power and TVA to supply up to 50 MW of advanced nuclear power to data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.
• Jun 16, 2026

  Energy Dome, Invinity Energy Systems advance non-lithium LDES projects in the US

  Energy Dome and Invinity have announced new long-duration energy storage projects in the United States.

  • Main announcement: Energy Dome will develop a 19MW/190MWh CO2 Battery project in St. Johns, Arizona, co-located at SRP’s Coronado Generating Station; the project was announced 15 June, will be developed under a 20-year tolling agreement with SRP (Energy Dome owning and operating, SRP dispatching), selected via SRP’s 2024 LDES RFP, partially funded/partnered by Google, will be monitored with EPRI, and is expected online in 2029.
  • Related announcement & context: Invinity Energy Systems announced the sale of a 32MWh VRFB to be installed at Pacific Steel Group’s Mojave Micro Mill in Kern County, California (announced 15 June, expected commissioning in 2027); the California Energy Commission awarded US$14 million in 2025 for deployment, Invinity says the batteries will be manufactured in the US, and the project will integrate with the plant’s on-site microgrid and solar PV system.
• Jun 15, 2026

  Adani Group Partners With Jabil To Build AI Data Infrastructure

  Adani Group has partnered with US-based Jabil Inc to build vertically-integrated AI and data centre manufacturing capacity in India.

  • Partnership announcement: Adani Group and Jabil Inc will set up multi-gigawatt manufacturing capacity in India to produce AI-ready hardware (liquid-cooled AI racks, servers, storage, networking) and supporting infrastructure components (power distribution units, coolant distribution units, transformers, switchgears, thermal management). The companies are finalising operational frameworks and formal documentation, with no definitive timeline announced.
  • Background and related commitments: Adani previously committed $100 Bn to develop renewable-energy-powered hyperscale AI-ready data centres by 2035. The article also cites a projected $3 Tn global AI compute infrastructure market over the next seven years, Amazon’s $12.7 Bn cloud investment in India by 2030, Reliance–Meta’s 168 MW AI-enabled data centre in Gujarat within two years, OpenAI’s planned 1 GW data centre in partnership with TCS, and an Uber–Adani data centre expected to become operational later this year.
• Jun 15, 2026

  APAC data centres risk a fossil fuel dependency long-duration energy storage can help end

  Pavina Adunratanasee of ArkTerra Partners argues APAC’s AI data centre buildout risks locking the region into long-term coal and gas dependency without long-duration energy storage solutions.

  • Main announcement/argument: ArkTerra Partners warns that 24.2GW of announced data centre capacity (2025–2030) across nine APAC markets could drive ~166 million tonnes CO2e/year by 2030 on a business-as-usual grid; cites hyperscaler commitments including Microsoft’s A$25 billion (US$18 billion) pledge to Australia through 2029 and Amazon’s A$20 billion commitment, and highlights recent deals (Meta–Noon: up to 1GW/100GWh with a 25MW pilot by 2028; Bloom–Oracle: up to 2.8GW on-site fuel cells with 1.2GW deployed; Google–Voltus: 100MW BYOC VPP over three years).
  • Background and concrete constraints: Points to regulatory and resource risks (Johor state deferring water-cooled approvals until mid-2027; ~9GW AI-ready capacity with legacy cooling could use ~18 billion litres/year), explains that gas peakers (~US$30/MWh marginal cost) and long coal retirements extend fossil lock-in, and concludes the core barrier is a project development capital gap at pre-feasibility for first-of-a-kind storage projects.
• Jun 12, 2026

  What Google&amp;#039;s Discom licence tells us about the future of energy in India

  Google has been granted a Deemed Distribution Licence (DDL) to directly source and distribute electricity for its Andhra Pradesh data centre campus.

  • Main announcement: Google has secured a Deemed Distribution Licence to directly source and distribute electricity for its $15 billion, 1 GW data centre hub in Andhra Pradesh, enabling the company to build and operate private distribution infrastructure and meet 24×7 reliability requirements outside conventional state utility channels. This article is an analysis/opinion piece authored by Anil Rawal, MD & CEO, IntelliSmart, interpreting the licence as a structural shift rather than a simple transaction.
  • Background and details: The piece explains implications for Discoms and the distribution ecosystem, warns of cross-subsidy and revenue forecasting pressures if hyperscalers move to private distribution, and calls for investment in grid intelligence, smart metering, renewable integration, and storage to serve expected data centre growth of 5–8 GW by 2030.
• Jun 12, 2026

  Amazon claims its data centers are 7x more water-efficient than the industry average

  Amazon has published new water-efficiency figures for its global data center operations, positioning the company ahead of rivals on WUE and disclosing methods and regional practices.

  • Main announcement: Amazon says it achieved a 52% improvement in water efficiency over the last 5 years, reporting a WUE of 0.12 L/kWh in 2025 (compared with an industry average of 0.84 L/kWh), claims its data centers are 7x more water-efficient than the industry average, and reports returning 3 US gallons to communities for every 4 gallons used, stating it is 75% of the way to a water-positive 2030 goal. It attributes gains to free air cooling (~90% of the time), evaporative cooling, raised operating temperature thresholds (85° F), and use of reclaimed water across 130 facilities (26 using reclaimed water exclusively).
  • Context and background: The figures were published amid increased disclosure pressure and two days after Seattle imposed a one-year freeze on new large data centers citing water concerns; the article references competitor WUE figures (Microsoft 0.27 L/kWh in 2025, Google ~1.15 L/kWh, Meta ~0.20 L/kWh) and highlights industry discussion on metrics (WUE, PUE ~1.15 for Amazon), regional disclosure commitments, and emerging dynamics due to AI infrastructure and location-specific water constraints.
• Jun 11, 2026

  Google Cloud outage after Delhi facility fire raises questions about India’s digital resilience

  Google Cloud reported service disruptions across parts of India following a fire at a third-party facility that forced an emergency power shutdown.

  • Main action: According to Google Cloud’s incident report, the disruption began on June 9, 2026 at 11:22 PDT (23:52 IST) after a fire at a third-party facility forced an emergency power shutdown, isolating a non-compute local Point of Presence (PoP) in Delhi, reducing local network capacity, and causing elevated latency and packet loss across Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai; Google implemented traffic mitigation and Internet Edge peering augmentation and reported “There is currently no available workaround.”
  • Background & context: The article highlights India’s accelerating data centre expansion (installed capacity ~1.5 GW today, projected 6.5 GW by 2030), projected ~0.5% national electricity consumption and 150 billion litres of water use annually, concerns about geographic concentration in water-stressed regions, scrutiny of a hyperscale Google site in Tarluvada, Andhra Pradesh (Human Rights Forum requested suspension of its environmental clearance), and the DPDP Act implementation phased through 2026 and 2027 with unresolved data localisation and infrastructure-resilience gaps.
• Jun 11, 2026

  Andhra govt develops roadmap for 15 GW power transmission infrastructure by 2034

  The Andhra Pradesh government (via APTRANSCO) has announced a phased transmission roadmap to support more than 15 GW of data centre load by 2034 and related demand growth through FY 2036-37.

  • Main announcement: APTRANSCO has prepared a comprehensive, phased power transmission strategy to reliably support more than 15 GW of data centre load by 2034, covering 16 major data centre projects in the Visakhapatnam region; APTRANSCO will develop a 765 kV, 400 kV, and 220 kV transmission network connecting substations at Pendurthi, Maradam, Achyutapuram, Palasa, Padmanabham, and Makavaripalem and will establish a new 400/220 kV substation and dedicated transmission corridors for the Rambilli Data Centre Cluster.
  • Background and details: The article notes the projects currently generate 9.1 GW of IT power load with total demand expected to reach nearly 15 GW by FY 2036-37; the state is following an “infrastructure-first” approach to expand transmission capacity ahead of full demand realization and has attracted interest from Google, Reliance, Tata Consultancy Services (HyperVault), CtrlS, and GMR for hyperscale data centres, AI infrastructure, and cloud services.
• Jun 11, 2026

  China, US To Control 69% Of Global Data Center Capacity By 2030, Forecasts GlobalData

  GlobalData forecasts that China and the United States will together account for about 69% of global data centre capacity by 2030, based on its latest market report.

  • Main announcement: GlobalData’s report titled “Powering Data Centers Market Report: Power Consumption, Capacity, PUE and Project Pipeline Analysis and Country Ranking Forecast to 2030” projects global data centre power consumption to triple between 2024 and 2030 at a CAGR of 21.1%, with China’s installed share rising (e.g., 27% to 35% in installed capacity) and the US share falling (e.g., 42% to 34% in installed capacity), resulting in China + US ≈ 69% of capacity by 2030.
  • Background and details: The report cites drivers such as AI-driven high-density GPU workloads, cloud and hybrid adoption, and hyperscale/colocation expansion; it gives 2024 power-consumption shares of US 38% and China 24.2%, and forecasts China’s power share to ~30.1% (rising toward 33.6% by decade end). It references policy actions (US Executive Order, July 2025; China national strategy, Feb 2022) and highlights growth markets including India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
• Jun 10, 2026

  Behind-the-meter data center gas plants will raise US energy bills

  Energy Innovation authors Jeffrey Rissman and Eric Gimon argue that data centers building on-site natural-gas power plants will raise energy prices for U.S. households and businesses and that policymakers should require data centers to supply their own clean on-site electricity.

  • Main announcement/action: The authors call for a “bring your own clean energy” mandate so data centers do not rely on on-site natural-gas plants; they cite concrete capacity examples including a Richland Parish, LA facility using ~2.2 GW, a Cheyenne-area project with a 1.8 GW first phase designed to scale to 10 GW, and a BloombergNEF finding that ~100 GW of on-site gas capacity is planned for U.S. data centers. The piece urges that data centers instead deploy wind/solar + batteries and enhanced geothermal to provide firm, fuel-free power.
  • Background and supporting details: The article documents that combined-cycle gas turbines are back-ordered 5–7 years, forcing use of inefficient turbines that increase pollution (citing an xAI Clean Air Act lawsuit), and describes policy tools to implement the proposal including “permit-by-rule”, pre-authorized renewable zones (Texas CREZ, Nevada Solar Energy Zones, Arizona Renewable Energy Incentive Districts), and mentions state laws that streamline permitting (Michigan HB 5120, Illinois HB 4412). It also gives examples of companies already using clean on-site supply (Google: 1.6 GW wind+solar with 300 MW battery; Amazon: 1.2 GW solar + equal battery storage).
• Jun 10, 2026

  OpenAI weighs Nvidia-backed lease for 10 GW Ohio data center campus

  OpenAI is reportedly in advanced talks to lease a proposed 10-gigawatt data center campus near Piketon, Ohio, with Nvidia potentially providing hardware and guaranteeing lease and developer financing; the lease would give OpenAI control of computing equipment under a 20-year term and the first phase is expected in 2028.

  • Main announcement: OpenAI is negotiating to lease a 10-gigawatt campus in southern Ohio, control the compute equipment under a 20-year lease, begin payments when the site starts operating, and the first phase is expected in 2028; Nvidia may supply hardware and guarantee OpenAI’s lease obligations and the developer’s financing.
  • Background and details: The campus buildout is reported to cost at least $500 billion at current chip/power/construction prices; the site aligns with a U.S. Department of Energy partnership where SB Energy (SoftBank Group) committed to build 10 GW of new generation (at least 9.2 GW natural gas) plus billions of dollars in transmission infrastructure; the negotiations are reported and remain unresolved on financing, permitting, and timelines.