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California Data Center Intel
Latest data center news, projects, power and policy across California — updated daily.
Recent California data center news
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Broadcom Announces VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9 to Drive Greater Hardware Efficiency for Sovereign-Ready Telco Infrastructure
Broadcom Inc. announced VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9 at Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona on March 02, 2026.
Main announcement:Broadcom (VMware Cloud Foundation Division) unveiled VMware Telco Cloud Platform 9, a unified, AI-native private cloud for telco data centers built on VMware Cloud Foundation 9; claimed benefits include five-year cumulative TCO savings of 40%, 25–30% lower power consumption, 38% lower memory and server TCO, and 38% storage TCO reduction. Planned platform capabilities include Private AI-as-a-Service (Model Store, Model Runtime, Vector Databases), GPU Virtualization, GPU-as-a-Service, Enhanced GPU Monitoring, Automated LCM, and an Agent Builder Service.
Background & details: The product emphasizes AI-assisted operations and energy-efficient infrastructure through features such as Advanced NVMe Memory Tiering, vSAN ESA Global Deduplication, support for high-core-count CPUs and Intelligent Resource Scheduling, ESX Live Patching, Unified GitOps automation (ArgoCD), and sovereign/cloud compliance tooling (cryptographic authority, audit-grade evidence, OPA-based policy manager). Customer/partner endorsements included BT, Nokia, and Canonical. Estimates cited are from Broadcom internal engineering tests and an ACG Research report; engineering estimates note March 2025 as the basis for some figures.
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Building-to-Building Connectivity in Campus Environments: Technologies, Standards, and Next-Generation Approaches
Patrick McLaughlin (Cabling Installation & Maintenance) provides an overview of building-to-building campus connectivity technologies, standards, and next-generation power/data delivery approaches.
- Main coverage: Examines ANSI/TIA-758-C guidance for customer-owned outside plant, media choices (singlemode and multimode fiber, twisted-pair copper, wireless, free space optics), and hybrid/composite cables (e.g., CommScope FiberREACH) with specific product details such as 12- or 16-AWG copper conductors and up to 12 singlemode or multimode optical fibers; notes PoE standard channel limit of 100 meters and hybrid solutions to extend power/data reach (PoE Extenders: IP68, available with 1 or 2 ports, using SFP transceivers).
- Implementation details and systems: Describes hybrid powered fiber cabling with centralized UPS backup, fault-managed power (FMP) for safe long-distance DC delivery that isolates faults and reduces need for new conduit/trenching, and design principles including redundancy/mesh topologies, standardized pathways (conduits/handholes/vaults), and standards references ANSI/TIA-568, ANSI/TIA-569, and IEEE.
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FiberLight Invests $500M in West Texas AI, Data Center Infrastructure
FiberLight LLC announced a $350 million capital investment in high-capacity network and AI infrastructure for West Texas, expanding an earlier $150 million commitment to bring total regional investment to $500 million.
- Main announcement:FiberLight LLC announced a $350 million new capital investment in West Texas to expand high-capacity network and AI infrastructure, bringing the total investment to $500 million when combined with the $150 million commitment announced Oct. 28, 2025; the initiative will install ~1,400 route miles and 1.2 million new fiber miles and add a third route into Abilene to support AI and data center growth.
- Background and details: The company said the investment aims to provide fiber diversity, high fiber counts, and scalable capacity to accelerate data center deployment and support rural connectivity; the announcement references a November 2025 study identifying Texas as the leading AI cluster and cites commentary from Texas Royalty Brokers on the region’s computing facility buildout.
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Making data centers grid friendly – Preventing the next blackout by improving the grid’s stability and resilience
Schneider Electric announces Galaxy V Series UPS engineered for Fault Ride‑Through (FRT) compliance.
- Main announcement: Schneider Electric introduces the Galaxy V Series UPS as a grid‑friendly UPS engineered to meet emerging Fault Ride‑Through (FRT) requirements and enable controlled, standards‑aligned behavior during transmission faults (no specific commercial deployment timeline provided in article).
- Supporting facts and context:Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects U.S. data center demand rising from 176 TWh (2023) to 325–580 TWh by 2028; the article cites real events: Ireland (May 2025) saw 387 MW of data center load drop—52% of all data center demand at that moment, and Northern Virginia (July 2024) had 60 data centers disconnect, creating a 1,500 MW power surplus. TSOs are introducing FRT requirements for large loads including data centers.
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Northvolt’s resurrected factory in Sweden will supply BESS cells to new owner this year, add 1GW data centre development
Lyten has announced the completion of its acquisition of Northvolt’s business operations in Sweden and that operations are resuming at the Northvolt Ett battery plant in Skellefteå.
- Main action: Lyten completed the acquisition of Northvolt Sweden assets and resumed operations at Northvolt Ett in Skellefteå; the deal values Northvolt’s total manufacturing assets at around US$5 billion, includes 16 GWh of battery production capacity and over 160 hectares of land. Lyten says Northvolt Ett NMC cells will be supplied commercially to Northvolt Dwa for BESS from H2 this year, and Lyten may hire over 600 additional employees across Västerås and Skellefteå within 12 months after union discussions and a rehiring programme.
- Background and other details: The Västerås R&D labs will continue developing NMC cells and will collaborate with Lyten’s Silicon Valley team to scale lithium–sulfur cell tech; Lyten previously acquired Northvolt Dwa in Poland and is seeking to close on Northvolt operations in Germany. Lyten plans a Lyten Industrial Hub at Skellefteå with access to nearby hydroelectricity, and data centre developer EdgeConneX intends to acquire a data centre site at the hub with potential to scale to a 1 GW campus; funding for the acquisitions will come via equity investments and EdgeConneX capital. The article references Northvolt’s bankruptcy in late 2024 and a prior Lyten financing signal of US$650 million from EXIM in 2024.
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AI ‘Virtual Residents’ Offer Early Read on Data Center Sentiment
The University of California, Riverside is piloting an LLM-powered AI agent framework to simulate community sentiment early in the data center planning process.
- Pilot announcement & approach: The UC Riverside team built a polling framework that generates representative “virtual agents” from county-level demographic data and polls them using LLMs (including GPT-5, Gemini-2.5-Pro, Qwen-Max) on hypothetical data center proposals to surface likely concerns and perceived benefits early in planning.
- Study findings & context: The experiment ran in two US counties with existing data center infrastructure, finding top concerns of water consumption, utility bill increases, and electricity demand, and perceived benefits of tax revenue and economic development; researchers and industry experts (Shaolei Ren, Sean Farney, John McWilliams) emphasized this is a preliminary screening tool and recommended testing alongside real surveys before broader deployment.
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Google and Xcel Energy to Deploy 300MW / 30GWh Form Iron-Air Battery in Minnesota
Google and Xcel Energy have announced a definitive agreement to deploy a 300MW / 30GWh Form Energy iron-air battery system in Pine Island, Minnesota.
- Main announcement: Google and Xcel Energy will deploy a 300MW / 30GWh iron-air battery (Form Energy technology) to support a new Google data centre in Pine Island, Minnesota; the package also includes 1,400 MW of new wind, 200 MW of new solar, and Google will make a USD 50 million investment into Xcel’s Capacity*Connect programme. The Electric Service Agreement will be submitted to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for approval in the coming weeks.
- Background and project details: Industry sources describe the deal as a USD 1 billion commitment by Google to Form Energy; batteries will be manufactured at Form Factory 1 in Weirton, West Virginia (scaling toward 500MW annual production capacity by 2028) and the facility is eligible for up to USD 150 million in federal support; Form Energy previously raised USD 405 million in Series F (2024).
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Swiss data centre operator NTS Colocation pilots iron-sodium battery tech from US startup Inlyte
Inlyte Energy and NTS Colocation AG have announced a partnership to deploy 2MW of iron‑sodium battery capacity by 2028, beginning with a 600kWh pilot at NTS’s Bern data centre targeted for commissioning by the end of this year.
- Pilot and scale: The companies will install a 600kWh pilot in Bern (commissioning targeted by the end of this year) to provide a technical and operational validation in a live data centre; the pair aim for successful validation by end-2026 to enable wider roll-out across NTS’ portfolio and a total of 2MW by 2028.
- Background and supporting details: Inlyte completed a UK factory acceptance test (modules >300kWh) in the presence of representatives from Southern Company, and in June 2025 the US DOE OE awarded Inlyte US$4.1 million for an iron-and-sodium LDES demonstration at the Alliance Redwoods site in Occidental, California; the article also cites Li-ion fire/permitting challenges, diesel backup disadvantages, and Swiss constraints such as high grid fees and strict permitting.
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Why do data centers need so much water?
Andy Patrizio reports on data center freshwater consumption and industry cooling responses.
- Data center freshwater demand and scale: The article cites the IEA finding that a typical 100-megawatt hyperscale data center consumes around 530,000 gallons of water per day (equivalent to 6,500 homes); it highlights local resistance in drought-affected western U.S. states to large fresh-water draws.
- Industry response and technologies: Interviews with Matt Green (president of Brucker) describe the prevalence of evaporative/open cooling towers, note that chilled water-cooling costs about 10%–15% more than evaporative systems, and detail shifts toward air-cooled chillers, closed-loop liquid cooling, and hybrid heat rejection as lower-evaporation alternatives.
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$12B Amazon data center build will rely on surplus water
Amazon has announced a $12 billion multi-site data center campus across Caddo and Bossier Parishes in Louisiana.
- Project scope & funding: Amazon will invest $12 billion to develop interconnected campuses in Caddo and Bossier Parishes, including $400 million allocated for local water infrastructure (using only verified surplus water) and a $250,000 community fund for STEM and local projects. Construction is expected to start in the coming weeks; STACK Infrastructure will lead development and Southwestern Electric Power Company will be the local utility partner with Amazon paying 100% of new energy infrastructure expenses.
- Context & related projects: The announcement follows other multibillion-dollar data center projects in Louisiana, including Jacobs starting phase one of a $10 billion Hut 8 project (Hut 8 expects operations to begin Q2 2027) and a $10 billion Meta data center near Monroe being built by Turner, DPR and Mortenson. The article is an announcement summarizing Amazon’s commitment and situating it within recent regional data center investments.