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California Data Center Intel

Latest data center news, projects, power and policy across California — updated daily.

California · Construction & power moves · 1

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Land, power, and interconnection moves across California — each traced to primary filings.

Top JUST IN — California

  • Aug 2, 2026 · interconnection filing

    Intra-Cluster Prioritization process enables acceleration of over 3 GW of Generation projects

    Source: California ISO · Feb 18, 2026

    CAISO said its “Intra-Cluster Prioritization process enables acceleration of over 3 GW of Generation projects,” under which it “adopted a process to accelerate as much generation as possible within an interconnection cluster” so some projects can come online while others await Reliability Network Upgrades. The ISO reported that “This Intra Cluster RNU Process enabled 2,720 MW (8 projects) to advance their completion dates by two or more years” and that “Another 1150 MW (4 projects) will receive a priority over other projects in their cluster but will still need to request a limited operations study.” CAISO also said the study was done “In accordance with the FERC-approved CAISO Tariff Generator Interconnection and Deliverability Allocation Procedures (GIDAP) Appendix DD.”

    Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.

  • Aug 2, 2026 · interconnection filing

    PG&E Restricted Substations Clarifications

    Source: CAISO · Nov 01, 2024

    CAISO’s notice on “PG&E Restricted Substations Clarifications” says PG&E will review interconnection requests during the “cluster application/resubmission window” to confirm the point of interconnection, and the California ISO will tell customers whether “The interconnection is acceptable” or “The interconnection is not acceptable” (CAISO, 2024-11-01). It also states that “Interconnections may not add new elements to the substations in Tables G2 and G2-A. Entry to the substations must be via existing facilities.”

    Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.

  • Aug 2, 2026 · interconnection filing

    Large Loads Considerations: Comment deadline on information session moved to 2/25/26

    Source: California ISO · Feb 12, 2026

    California 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.

  • Aug 2, 2026 · interconnection filing

    2025 Draft Participating Transmission Owner Per Unit Cost Guides Posted

    Source: California ISO · Apr 03, 2025

    CAISO said it “has posted the Draft Per Unit Cost Guides” and that “participating transmission owners update and publish per unit costs annually as part of the current interconnection study cycle for estimating the cost of facilities required to interconnect resources,” with written comments due by April 30, 2025, according to the California ISO notice.

    Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.

  • Aug 2, 2026 · interconnection filing

    Contract development

    Source: CAISO

    CAISO’s contract-development page says that after study and transmission plan deliverability, a resource must sign interconnection and market agreements and install metering/telemetry before market participation: “After a resource has completed the study phase and transmission plan deliverability of the interconnection process the customer must sign contracts and install metering and telemetry equipment” and “To participate in the market, generators must enter into a Generator Interconnection Agreement (GIA), Participating Generator Agreement (PGA), and a Meter Service Agreement (MSA) with the ISO.” The page also flags regulatory change: “The ISO has filed Tariff Amendments to Comply with Order No. 2023” and the draft language is “pending FERC approval.”

    Backed by 1 primary filing — sign in or book a call to see all sources.

Recent California data center news

  • Sarvam Ropes In Mistral AI Founding Team Member Devendra Chaplot As Advisor

    Sarvam has announced the appointment of Devendra Singh Chaplot as an advisor and the opening of a new San Francisco office. - Devendra Singh Chaplot was named advisor at Sarvam’s first developer conference, Epoch 2026, as the company pushes to build frontier AI models in India.

    • Sarvam said it plans a foundational model with more than one trillion parameters; Chaplot said a 3 Tn parameter model could be trained in India using 10,000 Blackwell GPUs over four to six months.
    • The company also announced a San Francisco office as part of its expansion.
    • The article says Chaplot was a founding team member at Mistral AI, worked at Thinking Machines Lab, and previously led pre-training at xAI.
  • Sarvam To Build Trillion-Parameter AI Model, Launches India-Hosted Inference Service

    Sarvam has announced plans to build a trillion-plus parameter frontier AI model in India and launched Sarvam Inference, a domestically hosted inference platform.

    • Pratyush Kumar said Sarvam is building a trillion-plus parameter model “right here in India,” from scratch, for coding, cybersecurity, simulation, science and more.
    • The company launched Sarvam Inference, which currently supports Sarvam 105B, GLM 5.2 and Gemma 4, and said it aims to keep inference workloads within India for data residency needs; Sarvam also announced a San Francisco office and named Devendra Singh Chaplot as an advisor.
  • The Truth About Data Centers: What’s Really Behind Your Electricity Bill

    DataBank has published an explanatory article arguing that data centers are not the main driver of rising electricity bills and highlighting grid, fuel, and infrastructure factors.

    • The article says data centers do not set electricity prices; regulated utilities charge state-approved commercial or industrial rates, while deregulated markets use negotiated rates like other large businesses.
    • It cites natural gas prices rising 56% in 2025, PG&E projecting data center growth could lower household bills by up to 2%, and DataBank saying its own PUE improved from 1.81 in 2020 to 1.5 by end-2025.
    • It also notes Texas rates rose about 3.8% in 2025, California rates rose 2.1%, and DataBank says power infrastructure construction starts rose 21.2% in Q1 2026 and are projected to finish the year more than 30% above 2025 levels.
  • Climate Change Solutions - July 28, 2026

    Environmental and Energy Study Institute has published a Climate Change Solutions newsletter highlighting climate data access, data center health impacts, nuclear energy, and several congressional bills.

    • The newsletter spotlights a new online platform, Climate.us, and an interview with Rebecca Lindsey, who discusses filling the gap left by the now-defunct Climate.gov.
    • It also summarizes recent legislative activity, including the House passage of the Next-Generation Geothermal Research and Development Act (H.R. 8790) and Senate movement on the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 (S.4949) and the Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act of 2026 (S.5045).
    • A separate article in the newsletter discusses data center health impacts, noting emissions from on-site diesel generators and from natural gas and coal power plants used to power data centers.
  • Q2 2026 earnings call: Remarks from our CEO

    Alphabet has reported strong AI-driven growth across Search, YouTube, and Cloud, while also highlighting new model launches, platform adoption, and infrastructure advances.

    • Alphabet revenue grew 24% year-over-year; Search and Other revenue grew 17%, YouTube Ads grew 13%, and Cloud revenue grew 82%.
    • The company said Cloud backlog reached $514 billion, Gemini app has 950 million monthly active users, and more than 9 million developers build each month with its models.
    • Alphabet also said it launched Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, while starting pre-training for Gemini 4; Isomorphic Labs raised over $2 billion.
  • Patented: Cardio Voyage Innovations’ Dual Heart Valve Device and 172 More Inventions Across North Texas

    Dallas Innovates reports that Dallas-Fort Worth ranked No. 8 in U.S. patent production for the week of June 23, 2026, with 173 patents granted.

    • 173 patents granted across the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area; the region ranked No. 8 among 250 metros for the week of June 23, 2026.
    • The article is a news roundup/commentary on granted patents, not a first-time product or funding announcement; it highlights patents spanning medical devices, AI, transportation, energy, HVAC, networking, and manufacturing.
    • No contact emails or phone numbers are provided in the text.
    • The story references multiple local inventors and assignees, including Cardio Voyage Innovations, DFW International Airport Board, BNSF Railway, Texas Instruments, Toyota, Halliburton, and Lennox.
  • Lawsuit Tests Water Strategy Behind California’s Lithium Valley

    Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing has sued the Imperial Irrigation District after IID denied its request for Colorado River water for a planned 330 MW AI data center in Imperial County.

    • The company sought about 260 million gallons per year (roughly 750,000 gallons per day) to cool a proposed 950,000-square-foot campus on 160 acres of farmland it says will be retired from production.
    • IID rejected the request on May 1; the dispute is tied to Imperial County’s Lithium Valley Specific Plan and a new Water Supply Assessment that assumes industrial projects could be served by shifting water from retired farmland.
    • The assessment says current agricultural use in the planning area is about 149,000 acre-feet per year, while projected industrial demand would be 63,243 acre-feet per year after 20 years and 77,776 acre-feet per year after 30 years.
    • The county’s current plan assumes increasing water recycling by industrial facilities, from about 20% to 80% by 2055, and proposes a regional backbone conveyance system, 12 water storage facilities, and a special district.
  • “Just give me my damn data center”: Strip club owner-turned-developer faces pushback on SoCal desert project

    Sebastian Rucci is pushing forward a proposed 950,000-square-foot data center in California’s Imperial Valley, despite opposition and a county moratorium on data projects.

    • The project is described as a $10 billion data center that would use 330 megawatts of power and has received preliminary approvals.
    • The Imperial County Board of Supervisors imposed a 45-day freeze on data projects and later extended it to one year; the Imperial Irrigation District rejected Rucci’s plan to buy farmland and use its Colorado River water allocation for cooling.
    • Rucci said he has invested $5 million of his own money; the story also notes lawsuits he filed against officials, the utility, an activist, and a public television station, with several claims recently dismissed.
  • Time to Power: Sage Geosystems CEO Cindy Taff on Geothermal’s AI Infrastructure Moment

    Data Center Frontier published an interview-style article in which Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, argues that next-generation geothermal can help meet AI data center power demand.

    • Taff says the industry has shifted from focusing on low emissions to securing enough energy and that time to power is now the most important metric for AI data centers.
    • She says Sage’s hot dry rock geothermal approach could be built where needed, and that a 5 GW geothermal buildout would require about 500 wells annually, compared with roughly 30,000 wells per year drilled by the U.S. oil and gas industry.
    • The piece frames geothermal as a dispatchable, firm baseload resource and notes that AI campuses may increasingly rely on behind-the-meter generation, storage, and dedicated infrastructure.
  • Roundup: Pennington / Judge blocks media merger / BlackRock backs data center

    BlackRock is seeking to sell more than $12 billion in bonds to finance Meta’s AI-focused data center campus in El Paso, Texas.

    • Debt financing: BlackRock plans to issue more than $12 billion in bonds through a holding company that owns 80% of the project, while Meta owns 20%.
    • The El Paso data center is expected to open in 2028; the article says Meta has used a similar financing model for its Hyperion data center project in Louisiana.

    The piece also reports that LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center received a five-year grant renewal, and that a federal judge temporarily blocked Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

    • Grant renewal: LSU’s center received a five-year, $5.66 million renewal of its Nutrition Obesity Research Center grant from the NIH institute NIDDK, extending support through 2031.
    • Merger pause: A federal judge blocked Paramount’s proposed $81 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery for at least 14 days; a hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Aug. 3.

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