California Data Center Intel

Recent California data center news

• Apr 2, 2026

  New Data Center Developments: April 2026

  Data Center Knowledge published a monthly roundup of global data center developments and investments.

  • Key highlights and announced projects: The roundup summarizes multiple announced projects and financing moves, including Moody’s projection of ~$700 billion hyperscaler capex in 2026, Crusoe’s 900 MW AI data center in Abilene, West Texas (to support Microsoft workloads), Meta’s revised $10 billion investment targeting 1 GW capacity in El Paso with a planned 2028 launch, Penzance Management’s planned $4 billion investment for a 600 MW High Impact Intelligence Center in West Virginia, Aligned Data Centers’ $2.58 billion credit facility for US expansion, Digital Edge’s $665 million green loan for phase I of a 500 MW Bekasi campus, Pure DC’s 110 MW microgrid in Dublin, Prime Data Centers’ €6 billion campus plan for 550 MW, and Datagrid’s approval for a 280 MW hyperscale campus in New Zealand.
  • Context and supporting details: The article emphasizes energy and grid constraints and on-site/clean power solutions (e.g., Google + AES onsite clean energy, Concord New Energy + Bridge Data Centers barge-based hydrogen plant, Pure DC microgrid), highlights subsector partnerships (EdgeConneX + Kilimo water-efficiency program; MANTA consortium selecting MDC Data Centers for two cable landing hubs in Mexico), notes regional regulatory shifts (Australia’s new approval framework tying data center approvals to energy/resource commitments), and provides firm-level capital and timeline details where stated (e.g., Meta 2028 launch; Vietnam 200 MW AI data center construction starting end of April).
• Apr 1, 2026

  Schneider Electric Maps the AI Data Center’s Next Design Era

  Schneider Electric outlined a systems-driven, simulation-first approach to AI data center design at NVIDIA GTC 2026.

  • Main announcement: Schneider Electric (Marc Garner and Jim Simonelli) presented a push to make digital twin and simulation central to AI data center design and operations, integrating AVEVA, ETAP, and NVIDIA Omniverse to model electrical, thermal, and operational interactions before construction; emphasis on modeling at gigawatt scale, reference designs aligned to NVIDIA compute roadmaps, and use of BESS/UPS for load smoothing, fault ride-through, and ramp-rate management.
  • Background and details: Schneider framed cooling as a solved engineering problem relative to power delivery, advocated higher-voltage DC at extreme rack densities (as densities approach ~400 kW+), described gas turbines as the near-term onsite generation solution with storage enabling future renewables integration, and positioned its work as practical reference architectures rather than speculative R&D.
• Apr 1, 2026

  Six Emerging Environmental Entrepreneurs Selected for National Fellowship

  E2 and 1 Hotels have announced the 2026 E2 1 Hotels Fellows, awarding six early-career environmental entrepreneurs funding and support to implement projects advancing sustainability, clean energy, and environmental policy.

  • Main announcement: The 2026 E2 1 Hotels Fellows were announced on April 1, 2026, with six fellows each receiving $10,000 to execute projects addressing urban solar, community microgrids, K-12 climate and clean energy workforce development, data center siting and policy toolkits, and the environmental/social impacts of AI. The fellows named are Alex Hill, Alexis Cureton, Danielle Lee, Jolie Villegas, Nathaniel Burola, and Sonali Anderson.
  • Background and details: The fellowship is in its eighth year, started with a donation from 1 Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht and the Sternlicht Sustainability Fund; fellows also receive mentorship from E2 members and membership in E2’s Emerging Leaders program. The press release notes E2 members have collectively managed more than $100 billion in venture and private equity capital and supported over 2,500 companies.
• Apr 1, 2026

  Contracts keep many facilities safe from near-term energy shocks

  Marcus & Millichap and building energy management executives warn the downstream impacts on commercial real estate from the Iran conflict are mainly still to come.

  • Main announcement: Marcus & Millichap CEO Hessam Nadji and industry experts say that if the Iran conflict continues six more months, the resulting effect on interest rates and inflation could start to disrupt commercial property; energy-price impacts on facility operating costs are expected to be delayed due to multi-year energy contracts and utility regulatory processes. Key names and timelines: Hessam Nadji (Marcus & Millichap); Paul Krugman: oil transit takes four to six weeks through the Strait of Hormuz; Tom Flynn (Budderfly) on regulatory pass-through delays.
  • Background and details: Energy price moves cited include gas up about $1 per gallon in the past month and diesel up more than $1.50 per gallon (diesel reported surpassing $5.38/gal); many deregulated-state facility contracts run two to three years, New England has longer-term gas arrangements, and analysts cite the growth of data centers supporting AI and reshoring manufacturing as drivers of rising electricity costs. Flynn estimates many small/midsize businesses use ~30% more energy than necessary and older rooftop HVAC units can be ~50% less efficient than new units. The article is reporting analysis and expert interviews rather than announcing a new program or transaction.
• Mar 30, 2026

  Rebellions Raises $400M to Scale AI Inference, Targets US Expansion

  Rebellions has announced a $400 million pre-IPO funding round led by Mirae Asset Financial Group.

  • Main announcement: Rebellions raised $400 million in a pre-IPO round led by Mirae Asset Financial Group with participation from the Korea National Growth Fund, bringing total funding to $850 million and valuing the company at ~$2.34 billion; the company reported $650 million raised in the last six months.
  • Background and details: The South Korea–based AI hardware startup (products: Rebel-Quad, Atom, RebelRack, RebelPOD, Rebel100 NPU) is expanding into the United States (Santa Clara, CA), targeting government agencies, neocloud providers, and large enterprises, with multiple proof-of-value deployments underway and expectations to convert these into production deployments in 12–18 months; the strategy emphasizes inference efficiency, retrofit-friendly systems for existing data centers, and integration with open-source frameworks (vLLM, PyTorch, Triton, Hugging Face, OpenShift) on Kubernetes.
• Mar 29, 2026

  ESG Today: Week in Review

  The Trump administration has paid TotalEnergies $1 billion to end offshore wind projects in the U.S.

  • Main action:Trump administration pays TotalEnergies $1 billion to terminate U.S. offshore wind projects; this is presented as the opening headline and primary item for the week. Other major announced deals include Microsoft’s 1 million-ton carbon removal deal with U.S. biochar company Liferaft, and Brookfield and La Caisse’s $6.5 billion acquisition of clean energy platform Boralex.
  • Other highlights and context:
    • Policy:Germany adopted a 2030 climate action plan; India approved cautious 2035 climate/clean energy goals; EU Commission approved a €5 billion Danish offshore wind program.
    • Finance/deals:LaSalle raised $370 million for real estate decarbonization; Zelestra secured $600 million green financing backed by PPAs with Meta; KKR earned 15x on sale of data-center cooling provider CoolIT to Ecolab; multiple startup capital raises (amounts and names listed in price_information).
• Mar 27, 2026

  Equinix launches AI platform to simplify control of distributed AI resources

  Equinix has announced the Distributed AI Hub powered by Equinix Fabric Intelligence.

  • Core announcement: Equinix is launching the Distributed AI Hub (powered by Fabric Intelligence) with an AI-ready backbone, a global AI Solutions Lab across 20 locations in 10 countries, and integration with AI orchestration tools to provide real-time awareness, automation, dynamic routing and segmentation for distributed AI and multicloud workloads. The Hub is presented as a reference framework allowing customers to run virtual instances at Equinix, deploy in their own colocation, or adapt the framework to their needs. The article references Equinix’s earlier Distributed AI infrastructure announced last fall as the physical network underlying this platform.
  • Partnerships and availability: Equinix said the Hub will integrate security from Palo Alto Networks (Prisma AIRS) to provide real-time AI security and centralized policy enforcement, and that the Prisma AIRS package will be available on Equinix Network Edge. The company cites about 3,000 cloud and IT service providers accessible through Equinix as part of the connectivity fabric.
• Mar 27, 2026 · IT Brief Asia

  Ferveret study says waterless cooling lifts AI efficiency

  Ferveret announced that a benchmark study with UCLA’s ICON Lab found its waterless Adaptive Phase Cooling solution improved compute efficiency by 15% compared with direct-to-chip liquid cooling.

  • Main announcement: The company reported a 15% improvement in compute efficiency (measured in TFLOPs per kilowatt of server power) using Nvidia H200 GPUs as the reference platform; the benchmark recorded zero water consumption and a facility-level PUE of 1.03 for its Adaptive Phase Cooling Solution.
  • Background and details: The cooling approach uses subcooled boiling (a technique drawn from nuclear thermal management) to sustain higher clock speeds and reduce ML training times; Ferveret is San Jose-based, founded in 2021 by MIT alumni, has investor backing from TO VC, Aramco Venture, Cerberus, Y Combinator, Baruch Future Ventures, Verso Capital, Acclimate Ventures, Cathexis Ventures, Valkyrie, E14 and Climate Capital (investment size not disclosed). The article cites US Department of Energy figures that US data centres consume up to 4.5% of electricity (projected to rise to 12% by 2028) and could use more than 700 billion gallons of water a year under current cooling approaches.
• Mar 27, 2026

  Form Energy signs 12GWh agreement to supply multi-day iron-air batteries to new US AI data centres

  Form Energy has signed a 12GWh supply agreement with Crusoe for iron-air batteries, announced at CERAWeek 2026.

  • Main announcement: The agreement secures 12GWh of iron-air battery capacity for Crusoe with secured volumes, pricing and delivery terms beginning in 2027; Form Energy said the batteries will be manufactured at its Form 1 factory in West Virginia.
  • Background and details: The article references Form Energy’s other 2026 commitments including a 30GWh element in the Google–Xcel Energy multi-technology supply deal (enabling 100-hour dispatch of 300MW) and a planned 10MW / 1,000MWh project with FuturEnergy Ireland expected online in 2029; the Crusoe agreement is significant but prospective until first projects are underway, and questions remain about round-trip efficiency (RTE) of iron-air technology.
• Mar 27, 2026

  California Dems float bill to revive industry environmental reviews

  State Sen. Catherine Blakespear introduced amendments to SB 954 to narrow the CEQA exemption for advanced manufacturing on March 26, 2026.

  • Main action: Blakespear filed amendments to SB 954 on 03/26/2026 to narrow the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption for “advanced manufacturing facilities,” which the article specifies range from data centers to lithium mining. The change seeks to roll back part of the exemption granted last year in SB 131.
  • Background/details: The original exemption was added in last-minute budget negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of SB 131; it drew immediate opposition from environmental and labor groups. The amendments are an announced legislative action (introduction of bill amendments), not a retrospective analysis of completed projects.