California Data Center Intel

Recent California data center news

• Sep 23, 2025

  At Climate Week NYC, NVIDIA Details AI’s Key Role in the Sustainable Energy Transition

  NVIDIA is showcasing how accelerated computing supports the sustainable energy transition at Climate Week NYC, highlighting LLM inference energy-efficiency gains and publishing product carbon footprint summaries.

  • Main announcement/action: NVIDIA is presenting its climate and sustainability work at Climate Week NYC (through Sept. 26 in New York City), emphasizing that LLM inference energy efficiency improved 100,000x over the past 10 years, releasing product carbon footprint comparisons that show a 24% reduction in embodied carbon intensity between HGX H100 and HGX B200, and stating that all offices and operational data centers run on 100% renewable energy (with carbon-free electricity purchases covering 100% of leased data-center footprint).

    • Event: Climate Week NYC
      • Date: through Sept. 26 (year referenced: 2025)
      • Location: New York City (Nest Climate Campus referenced for a fireside chat)
      • Agenda / subject: sessions on AI and energy, AI for climate and weather research, panels including “AI: Powering a More Productive Energy Future” and multiple panels featuring Earth-2 work (Columbia University, AI for Energy, Google, AWS).

  • Partnerships, products, and implementation details: NVIDIA is collaborating with startups and internal programs—notably Emerald AI (an NVIDIA NVentures portfolio company and NVIDIA Inception member)—on an NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint / reference design for energy-efficient, grid-friendly AI factories aimed at maximizing energy-use efficiency; Emerald AI cites the design as capable of unlocking 100 gigawatts of grid capacity. NVIDIA also promotes the NVIDIA Earth-2 platform for high-resolution AI weather and climate modeling and will continue publishing product carbon footprint summaries for new products.

• Sep 19, 2025

  Schneider co-develops 2 reference designs to optimize ‘AI factories’

• Sep 19, 2025

  Schneider co-develops two reference designs to optimize ‘AI factories’

• Sep 16, 2025

  Policy Becomes Pivotal as AI Surge Tests Data Center Sustainability Goals

  The Uptime Institute has released its Annual Outage Analysis Report and Jay Dietrich (research director of sustainability at the Uptime Institute) says government policy is now a central lever for managing power availability and enabling sustainable data center growth.

  • Main announcement/action: The report and Dietrich emphasize that state governments, public utility commissions, and regional transmission system operators strongly influence power availability; recommended actions include standardizing and streamlining interconnection and permitting processes, addressing water-use permitting, and using policy incentives (e.g., tax breaks in Malaysia and Singapore; US states requiring contributions to grid upgrades and new generation) to secure long-term power and drive energy-efficient builds. The piece cites specific operational responses such as power purchase agreements for renewable energy, dry cooling, low PUE designs, and advanced workload placement tools.

  • Background and details: The article details technology and timeline targets: adoption of direct liquid cooling and software optimization for AI training clusters, and an ambition over the next decade to reach 80% carbon-free energy consumption at a data center meter and to reduce carbon content of materials like concrete and steel by half. It notes permitting and interconnection delays as concrete bottlenecks and highlights examples and sources from Data Center Knowledge and an image credited to Alamy.

• Sep 16, 2025

  Data centre future hinges on policy stability, not tax breaks

  The Government of India has issued a draft National Data Centre Policy offering fiscal and regulatory incentives to attract large-scale data centre investment and link capacity expansion to energy efficiency and skills outcomes.

  • Main action: The draft policy proposes a 20-year tax holiday for developers who meet targets on capacity addition, energy efficiency, and job creation; it also proposes extending input tax credit on GST to capital assets (construction materials, cooling systems, electrical equipment) and may grant permanent establishment status to companies leasing or operating at least 100 MW of capacity to provide operational certainty.
  • Background and details: The article cites the data centre industry’s 24% CAGR since 2019, a projected addition of 795 MW by 2027 taking total capacity to 1,825 MW, and reported occupancy rates of 75–80% (JLL, CBRE). The draft requests coordination with the Ministry of Power for reliability and stresses integration with renewable energy and training-linked incentives; it recommends states earmark land banks for data centre parks.
• Sep 12, 2025

  Which tech trends are rising to the top of the business agenda?

  McKinsey senior partners Lareina Yee, Sven Smit, and partner Roger Roberts discussed McKinsey’s research on 13 frontier technology trends on The McKinsey Podcast, focusing on agentic AI, robotics, semiconductors, the energy transition, and digital trust.

  • Main announcement/action: McKinsey leaders outlined concrete examples and early outcomes of agentic AI and automation in business—e.g., a sales use case that delivered an 11% increase in lead generation and conversion—while describing how organizations should onboard, train, and manage digital coworkers; they emphasized robotics examples (Schiphol wheelchair, logistics robots) and noted semiconductor and cooling innovations that reduce data-center power intensity (chips claimed to be ~1,000x more efficient in compute density over recent years).
  • Background and details: The discussion framed the energy transition as a demand challenge driven by AI and rising wealth, noting the need to double energy capacity with a mix of solar, wind, nuclear, storage, and grid build-outs; McKinsey cited rapid mega-installation build rates in China (“almost every week”), supply-chain and infrastructure constraints, and the need to balance speed and affordability in deployment.
• Sep 10, 2025

  Climate Change Solutions - September 9, 2025

  The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) published a newsletter highlighting recent climate solutions, Congressional activity, briefings, and an upcoming AI-and-energy event.

  • Main announcement: EESI summarizes new content and events including articles on passive and sustainable cooling, grid resilience to heat waves, and a new Nature4Communities tool from U.S. Nature4Climate; it also hosted a briefing with the Ohio River Basin Alliance as part of its Resilient and Healthy Rivers series. Key figures and policy items cited include $57.3 billion in FY2026 discretionary funding in H.R.4553 (Energy and Water appropriations), a noted reduction of $766.4 million from 2025 levels, an authorizing proposal of $10 million to DOE under H.R.4490 (Wildfire Grid Resiliency Act), and $30 million annually directed to local officials under H.R.5154 (REACT Act).
  • Background and upcoming actions: The newsletter catalogs Congressional bills and hearings, media coverage, and events; it also announces an EESI briefing on AI and energy.
    • Event: “Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Energy and the Environment”
      • Date: Thursday, September 25
      • Time: 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
      • Location: Rayburn House Office Building, Gold Room (Room 2168) and online (livecast/RSVP link provided)
    • Other details: Highlight notes available for the 28th Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy Forum and EXPO; a cited statistic: every $1 invested in transit generates $5 in economic returns.
• Sep 9, 2025

  NVIDIA Partners With AI Infrastructure Ecosystem to Unveil Reference Design for Giga-Scale AI Factories

  NVIDIA unveiled a plan to transform traditional data centers into fully integrated AI factories by publishing reference designs and an NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint for high-performance, energy-efficient infrastructure.

  • Main announcement / action: NVIDIA is releasing reference designs and an NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint to build AI factories that integrate IT and OT (power, cooling, on-site generation, energy storage, AI agents). Jacobs is named as the design integrator; partners shaping the infrastructure include Schneider Electric, Siemens, Siemens Energy, Vertiv, and GE Vernova. The blueprint targets gigawatt-scale facilities and is expected to be complete next year, enabling partners to connect via APIs and use simulation-ready digital assets.
  • Background / implementation details: The initiative emphasizes system-level optimization using digital twins, OpenUSD, and simulation-ready assets to model power, cooling, networking and grid integration before build-out. Integrations mentioned include Cadence, ETAP, PTC, Delta, plus specialist partners (Emerald AI, E Tech Group, phaidra.ai, Vertech). Event call-to-action: NVIDIA GTC Washington, D.C. — location: Washington, D.C.; agenda/subject: explore AI infrastructure breakthroughs, expert sessions, hands-on training, partner showcases.
• Sep 3, 2025 · Tech Xplore

  Solar-boosted system turns wasted data center heat into clean power

  Rice University reports a study introducing a solar thermal-boosted organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system that adds rooftop flat-plate solar collectors to data center liquid-cooling loops to raise coolant temperature and recover waste heat as electricity.

  • Primary announcement/action: The study by Laura Schaefer and Kashif Liaqat models a solar thermal-boosted ORC integrated with a representative liquid-cooling loop and rooftop flat-plate collectors; modeled in Ashburn, Virginia and Los Angeles and validated with industry tools. Key measured outcomes: 60–80% more electricity recovered annually (60% in Ashburn, 80% in Los Angeles), >8% higher ORC efficiency during sunny peak hours, and reductions in cost of recovered electricity of 5.5% (Ashburn) and 16.5% (Los Angeles). The paper DOI is 10.1016/j.solener.2025.113893 and was published in the journal Solar Energy (2025).
  • Background and next steps: The authors note this avoids added plug-loads from electric heat pumps because solar thermal provides the temperature lift; the system uses off-the-shelf low-profile rooftop collectors tied directly into liquid cooling. Recommended next actions include piloting the hybrid system at an operational site, exploring thermal storage to bank solar heat for night use, and evaluating other collector types for colder regions. The article is an announcement/report of peer-reviewed research from Rice University, edited by Gaby Clark and reviewed by Robert Egan.
• Aug 28, 2025 · Hensel Phelps

  Building Energy Resilience: How Hensel Phelps is Powering the Infrastructure of Tomorrow

  Hensel Phelps is delivering sustainable, resilient energy solutions across multiple municipal, federal and research projects to reduce reliance on the national grid and enable operational independence.

  • Project deployments and technical details: Sunnyvale Civic Center microgrid integrates a 680 kW photovoltaic array paired with 250 kWh battery storage (able to sustain essential services for multiple days); SSA NSC is the first federal data center to achieve Uptime Tier III with a 1 MW solar PV system feeding a bi-directional metering system; CARB Southern California Headquarters is powered by a 3.8 MW PV system and 1.5 MWh BESS targeting LEED Platinum and Zero Net Energy (ZNE) goals; Caltech CNRB operates independently via a Bloom hydrogen fuel cell energy system with a diesel emergency generator providing 16 hours of fuel-backed power; Contra Costa County EOC includes a 750-kW generator (underground fuel tank), 50,000-gallon potable and 35,000-gallon fire water tanks, a 12,000-gallon sanitary sewer holding tank, and expanded PV/battery capacity to 162 kW offsetting ~70% of the building’s energy cost.

  • Context, drivers and cited statistics: The piece cites the U.S. Department of Energy warning of retirement of 104 GW of firm power capacity and rising outage risk, and Deloitte’s projection of up to $1.4 trillion in capital investments needed from 2025 to 2030; it also references estimated business costs of outages at $150 billion annually (Pew Research Center).