Getting your news
Attempting to reconnect
Finding the latest in Climate
Hang in there while we load your news feed
California Data Center Intel
Latest data center news, projects, power and policy across California — updated daily.
California · Construction & power moves · 1
full tracker →Land, power, and interconnection moves across California — each traced to primary filings.
Top JUST IN — California
-
CAISO posts Large Loads Initiative draft final proposal and tariff language for comment (Large Loads Initiative)
Source: California ISO · Sep 24, 2026CAISO says its Large Loads Initiative draft final proposal and draft tariff language would add rules for large loads, including “Procedures to improve large load information visibility,” a “Framework to prevent cost-shifting,” and a “Framework for a flexible interim load interconnection (FILI) service to expedite interconnection.” CAISO also says the proposal adds detail on “operational requirements for the FILI framework” and “interactions between load interconnection studies and the transmission planning process,” while deferring a permanent flexible load interconnection option to future stakeholder processes.
Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.
-
CAISO schedules Large Loads Initiative stakeholder meeting and draft final proposal comment period
Source: California ISO · Sep 10, 2026According to CAISO, the ISO will host a hybrid stakeholder meeting on Oct. 1, 2026 for the Large Loads Initiative, post a draft final proposal on Sep. 24, 2026, and open comments due by Oct. 15, 2026. CAISO also says stakeholders will review the proposal before it goes to the Board of Governors and before the ISO files tariff language with FERC, indicating an active regulatory process for large loads in California.
Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.
-
Large Loads Initiative: Additional discussion of operational and technical requirements, call on 8/24/26
Source: California ISO · Aug 17, 2026California ISO said it scheduled an additional stakeholder meeting for the Large Loads Initiative “to provide additional time, if needed, to discuss the operational and technical requirements” in the Large Loads Straw Proposal and Large Loads Technical Requirements Straw Proposal, with topics including “Operational requirements” and “Technical requirements” (California ISO, Aug. 17, 2026). The notice also says the Aug. 24 meeting was contingent and ultimately unnecessary because “We were able to cover all of the material and will no longer need the meeting on 8/24.”
Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.
-
Large Loads Initiative: Straw proposal posted, meeting on 8/19/26
Source: California ISO · Aug 12, 2026California ISO says that, following the FERC “June 18, 2026, Order to Show Cause,” its Large Loads Initiative is the “primary forum” for possible “tariff, policy, and process enhancements” affecting large-load integration on the ISO-controlled grid, including “planning, interconnection, transmission service, reliability, and operational considerations.” CAISO also says the straw proposal will address “Cost Shifting Risk Among Transmission Customers,” “Co-Location Arrangements and Load with Behind the Meter Generation,” and “Interconnection Customers Serving Electrically Proximate Large Load and Co-Located Load.”
Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.
-
Large Loads Considerations: Comment deadline on information session moved to 2/25/26
Source: California ISO · Feb 12, 2026California ISO said it “has moved the deadline for written comments on the Large Load Considerations issue paper and Feb. 5 meeting discussion to Feb. 25, 2026,” and asked stakeholders to submit comments by end of day Feb. 25, 2026. The notice also says the “issue paper, presentation, and meeting recording are available” on CAISO’s Large Load webpage.
Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.
Recent California data center news
-
Google supersizes PJM virtual power plant to more than 1 GW
Google has announced an expansion of its virtual power plant agreement with Voltus in PJM Interconnection, increasing the contract by 1,070 MW on top of an initial 100-MW deal signed in June.
- Under the agreement, Google will pay Voltus to aggregate distributed resources from residential, commercial and industrial customers, including batteries, smart thermostats, on-site generation and industrial process adjustments; Voltus will offer the combined resources into PJM’s market when the grid is strained.
- Voltus said it expects to ramp up to full capacity over three to four years and then run the contract through 2040; the article also notes Voltus has about 8.5 GW under contract across North America and aims for 20 GW by the end of the decade after raising $225 million in its latest funding round.
-
Peak XV-Backed AI Startup Blacksmith Nets $66 Mn At A Unicorn Valuation
Blacksmith has announced a $66 Mn Series C funding round led by Sequoia Capital at a $1 Bn valuation.
- The round included Premji Invest, Peak XV Partners, Google Ventures, and Y Combinator; total funding raised reached $125 Mn.
- Blacksmith said it currently manages nearly 10 MW of compute footprint across data centers in the United States and Europe and plans to expand capacity by 5X in 2027; its blog said weekly CI jobs rose to over 90 Mn from 5 Mn in January and ARR increased 17X.
- The article references a prior $45 Mn Series B in August at a $550 Mn valuation and says the startup serves more than 10,000 corporate customers worldwide.
-
AI networks drive SONiC boom
The article says SONiC is gaining enterprise adoption and expanding beyond hyperscale data centers, while citing market forecasts and vendor/startup activity around the open-source network operating system.
- 650 Group forecasts SONiC-based data center switching revenue will exceed $5 billion in 2026 and enterprise SONiC adoption will grow more than 25% year-over-year through 2027; Dell’Oro Group expects SONiC-based switch sales in AI scale-out networks to grow more than 50% a year through 2030.
- The article also notes that Gartner estimates 2,500 organizations are running SONiC in production, about one-third of them enterprises; examples include Cisco extending SONiC support to its N9000 Series and startups such as Aviz Networks, Hedgehog Networks, and Upscale AI using SONiC for enterprise and AI networking.
-
The hidden opportunity in the next $2 trillion of US–Latin America trade
McKinsey has published a research report analyzing the US–Latin America trade corridor and proposing an integrated ecosystem to scale Latino-owned businesses and corridor value creation.
- The report estimates that systematically addressing barriers could add $170 billion to $295 billion in incremental trade over the next ten years, expanding corridor growth by 18 percent and creating up to $2 trillion in cumulative added trade over the next decade.
- It argues for five levers: capital, market access, institutional coordination, commercialization, and ownership/reinvestment; examples cited include Nopalera, Quirch Foods, Félix Pago, Source Logistics, and Laredo as corridor-linked businesses and hubs.
-
What happened to Pennsylvania’s hydrogen hubs?
Inside Climate News reports that U.S. hydrogen hub projects MACH2 and ARCH2 are facing uncertainty and possible funding loss under the Trump administration.
- MACH2 and ARCH2 were originally backed by $750 million and $925 million in Department of Energy awards, but both now face stalled progress and unclear federal support.
- The story says ARCH2 has gone dark while MACH2 is in a holding pattern; it also notes 45V tax credits could offer up to $3 per kilogram of hydrogen, and mentions a revised deadline of December 31, 2027 for starting work.
-
OPC Global Summit: News spans AI-optimized hardware, cooling equipment
The article summarizes announcements made at the OCP Global Summit in San Jose, California, by multiple companies on AI data center hardware and infrastructure. It is a news roundup/commentary piece, not a standalone primary announcement.
- Nvidia submitted Vera Rubin rack and compute tray designs to the Open Compute Project via its MGX architecture, aiming to give suppliers a shared design foundation for AI systems; the designs are liquid cooled with no fans or cabling.
- Arm published a white paper on evaluating CPU performance in agentic AI systems, Kioxia unveiled LD4 Series SSDs for hyperscale and high-density servers and said they are sampling to select customers, Cooler Master highlighted a 2,500 kW liquid-to-liquid CDU with mass production targeted for Q4 2026, and Flex expanded its modular data center portfolio with 800 VDC power racks and liquid cooling, with its cloud and power infrastructure business planned to spin off as Axiom Solutions International in Q1 2027.
-
Midterms Could Change the Politics of AI
Broadband Breakfast reported on a panel discussion about how the Nov. 3 midterm elections could shape future U.S. AI policy and broadband politics.
- Panelists said major federal AI legislation is unlikely before the election, but post-election narratives could influence both parties’ approach to preemption, data centers, and AI regulation.
- The discussion cited the $42.45 billion BEAD program, Texas’s freeze on new data center grid connections, the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, and bipartisan bills including the AI LEAD Act and FRONTIER Act.
- The article is an analysis/commentary based on a BroadbandLive session, not a first-time corporate announcement; it also references prior actions such as the July 2025 Senate vote 99-1 and Trump’s December executive order.
-
Grid Forward Releases 100th GridPulse Podcast Episode Tackling the Big Questions for Today’s Electric Grid
Grid Forward has announced the release of the 100th episode of its GridPulse podcast.
- The episode, titled “Our Big 100th Episode Tackles the Big Questions for Today’s Grid,” features Jigar Shah, Audrey Zibelman, and Herman Trabish, with Bryce Yonker guiding the discussion over a 50-minute episode.
- The podcast launched in May 2020 and the episode covers AI and distributed energy resources, grid planning, rate structures, public trust, and domestic energy supply chains; the release also notes sponsors and past guests across utilities, technology firms, data center developers, universities, and government organizations.
-
Research@ 2026: Novel capabilities and intelligence
Google Research has announced a roundup of its latest AI and research milestones, highlighting new capabilities across health, public health, scientific review, and space-oriented hardware research.
- The post says these updates were shared at Research@ in Mountain View and include Deep Review, Google Earth AI, AMIE, and Project Suncatcher.
- It also notes that Deep Review has already been used in 15,000+ submissions at STOC, ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR, and that Project Suncatcher is testing hardware survival for space and cooling systems for AI chips.
- The article is a company blog roundup/commentary rather than a single standalone product launch, and it links out to several related Google Research and Google Blog posts.
-
Samuel Williams Honored with E.O. Lawrence Award
The U.S. Department of Energy has announced Samuel Williams as a 2026 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award recipient in the category of Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences.
- Williams, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the AMCR Division and NERSC, is being recognized for contributions to performance modeling, hardware/software optimization, and computer architecture for HPC.
- The award ceremony is scheduled for November 13, 2026 in Washington, D.C.; the article also highlights his Roofline Performance Model, work on Perlmutter, and collaborations under DOE X-Stack, ECP PROTEAS-TUNE, and hardware evaluation efforts.