Iowa Data Center Intel

Recent Iowa data center news

• Mar 4, 2026

  Data Center Jobs: Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Sales, Field Service and Facility Tech Jobs Available in Major Data Center Hotspots

  Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, has posted the latest roundup of data center career opportunities on the Data Center Frontier jobs board.

  • Main announcement: Data Center Frontier and Pkaza published 13 current data center job listings across the United States (examples include Electrical Applications Engineer, Electrical Commissioning Engineer, Production Architect – Data Center Facilities Design, Director of Construction, and Data Center Facility Operations Director), with many roles offering remote options or multiple city locations (e.g., Pittsburgh, Dallas, New York, Ashburn, Columbus, Boulder, Chesterton, Augusta).
  • Background and details: Listings are provided by/for mission-critical and colo/hyperscale sectors and emphasize reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise; roles cover engineering design & commissioning firms, electrical contracting, general contracting and data center developers, and include positions supporting AI/HPC infrastructure and brownfield conversions.
• Feb 25, 2026

  CTA Official Says It’s Time to Reclaim and Auction TV Station Spectrum

  The Consumer Technology Association’s SVP Michael Petricone called on Congress to pursue an “Incentive Auction 2.0” to reclaim and auction spectrum licensed to TV station owners.

  • Main action: Michael Petricone (CTA SVP of Government & Regulatory Affairs) urged Congress to reclaim broadcaster-held spectrum via an “Incentive Auction 2.0”, to auction it openly and let the market allocate it to its highest value uses; he also called for removing regulatory advantages that favor legacy TV stations and criticized proposals to loosen ownership rules to permit more mergers and consolidation.
  • Background and other details: The National Association of Broadcasters (Grace Whaley) pushed back defending local stations and praising FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for modernizing rules; the article also references related telecom items including Akamai opposing a USF tax on CDNs, calls to protect CBRS from auction, four ISPs joining an open-access network in Los Alamos, a Florida bill to make Big Tech pay data center energy bills, and a Starlink–Microsoft partnership to serve developing nations.
• Feb 25, 2026

  US Roundup: FlexGen updates EMS, LandGate’s BESS site selection tool, ON.Energy-Shoals target data centres, Sunrun’s season of VPP dispatching

  Energy-Storage.news reports a roundup of recent industry announcements from FlexGen, LandGate, ON.energy & Shoals, and Sunrun.

  • FlexGen announced an updated HybridOS EMS with a new user interface, real-time and historical data, integrated market prices, mobile app access, an augmentation prediction and diagnostics dashboard, charge limit handler, and native CAN support; LandGate launched its Battery Storage Analysis tool to produce automated ‘Battery Storage Due Diligence Reports’ and assess interconnection, arbitrage, queue competition and environmental risks; ON.energy and Shoals agreed to deploy multiple GWs of critical power systems pairing ON.energy’s medium-voltage AI UPS with Shoals’ DC Recombiner; Sunrun completed a VPP dispatch season with PG&E totaling more than 1,200 dispatch hours across over 1,000 customers, with participants earning US$150 per battery.

  • Background and supporting details: FlexGen completed its acquisition of most assets and IP from Powin in August 2025 and supports over 25GWh of BESS across 10 countries; FlexGen recently put two utility-scale BESS totalling 700MWh into operation in Wisconsin and Iowa; ON.energy previously announced a 5GW transformer supply agreement with Prolec GE (late 2025); Sunrun’s Local PeakShift Power VPP operated as part of PG&E’s SAVE program (tests April–June 2025; dispatched July–October 2025); the article also references interconnection reform discussions and noise/permitting issues for BESS projects (Idaho Power case, Wärtsilä commentary).

• Feb 19, 2026

  Alliant Energy announces 2025 results

  Alliant Energy Corporation announced its consolidated 2025 financial results and reaffirmed 2026 ongoing earnings guidance.

  • Main announcement: Alliant Energy reported GAAP EPS of $3.14 in 2025 (vs $2.69 in 2024) and ongoing EPS of $3.22 in 2025 (vs $3.04 in 2024, 6% growth), and affirmed 2026 ongoing EPS guidance of $3.36 - $3.46. This is presented as an earnings/press release on the company’s investor site.
  • Background and other details: The company stated it renegotiated an electric service agreement with QTS tied to a new project location and referenced its two regulated utilities, Interstate Power and Light Company (IPL) and Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL); contact info for media relations and a link to the full investor news release were provided.
• Jan 30, 2026

  Climate Change Solutions - January 27, 2025

  The U.S. Congress has enacted the Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act of 2026 (H.R.6938), signed into law by the President.

  • Main action: The appropriations minibus (H.R.6938) was signed into law, providing FY2026 funding for agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, EPA (including ENERGY STAR®), NASA, and the Forest Service; bill summaries for Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment appropriations are linked in the newsletter.
  • Other legislative and policy items referenced:NFIP Extension Act of 2026 (H.R.5577) advanced in the House to extend NFIP authorization through September 2026; Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Initiative Reauthorization Act (H.R.2860) was reported out with $10 million annually through 2031 for the Northwest Straits Commission; the Advancing Cutting Edge (ACE) Agriculture Act (H.R.7142 / S.3637) was reintroduced to reauthorize the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority. The newsletter also announces an EESI briefing postponed (wildfire briefing) and lists upcoming briefings (dates, rooms, and RSVP links).
• Jan 30, 2026

  Top 20 countries by the number of data centers in 2025

  DevelopmentAid publishes an overview of the global data center market, trends, and investment forecasts.

  • Main summary: The article provides a market overview noting the United States leads with 4,165 data centers (about 3,000 more being built/planned) and estimates the sector could reach US$22.7 billion by 2030 driven by generative AI, cloud services, 5G, and IoT. It cites major investment figures including Google >€5.5 billion (US$6.37 billion) in Germany and a €1 billion project involving Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom.
  • Background & details: The piece aggregates third-party reports and data (Statista, Axios, McKinsey, JLL, Datum, Baxtel, Global Data Center Hub) and provides regional details: McKinsey’s US$6.7 trillion capex by 2030 (US$5.2 trillion for AI-optimized facilities, US$1.5 trillion for typical IT), Latin America growth from ~US$5bn (2023) to >US$10bn by 2029, and capacity/footprint statistics for countries and hyperscale operators. It is an informational market overview, not a primary announcement of a single new project with implementation timelines.
• Jan 29, 2026

  Madison, Wis. Joins Growing List of Cities Pausing Data Center Development

  The Madison Common Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new large-scale data center development.

  • Scope & duration: The moratorium applies to new data centers and telecommunications centers larger than 10,000 square feet and will remain in effect for one year; existing facilities and smaller data centers are exempt. The city said the pause will allow staff to review zoning rules, electricity and water use, land use planning, and community benefits before approving additional projects.
  • Implementation & context: Planning Division Director Meagan Tuttle described the moratorium as a planning tool to develop clearer standards as demand for computing power (driven by artificial intelligence and cloud services) grows; the city plans to engage utilities, environmental experts, developers, and policymakers during the moratorium. The article also references similar moratoria in other U.S. jurisdictions (Coweta County, Douglas County, Clarke County, Springfield Township, St. Charles).
• Jan 28, 2026 · IT Brief Asia

  Microsoft unveils Maia 200 AI chip to power inference

  Microsoft has introduced Maia 200, a custom AI accelerator for inference workloads and has begun deploying it in its cloud data centres.

  • Main announcement: Microsoft introduced the Maia 200 accelerator built on a 3-nanometre process from TSMC with more than 140 billion transistors, 216 GB HBM3e (≈7 TB/s throughput), 272 MB on-chip SRAM, a 750-watt TDP, and performance claims of >10 petaFLOPS FP4 and >5 petaFLOPS FP8; Microsoft says it is already operational in U.S. Central (near Des Moines, Iowa) with rollouts planned to U.S. West 3 (Phoenix) and is deployed to accelerate services including Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and OpenAI’s GPT-5.2.
  • Background and details: Microsoft pairs Maia 200 with a two-tier scale-up Ethernet network supporting clusters of up to 6,144 accelerators with ~2.8 TB/s bidirectional bandwidth per unit for scale-up communication; the company is releasing an SDK preview with PyTorch integration, Triton support, optimized kernels, and a low-level programming language, and claims ~30% better performance per dollar for inference vs the latest fleet hardware while positioning FP4/FP8 performance relative to Amazon Trainium v3 and Google TPU v7.
• Jan 27, 2026

  Microsoft launches its second generation AI inference chip, Maia 200

  Microsoft has announced Maia 200, a first-party AI inference accelerator optimized for large reasoning and multimodal models and deployed initially in Microsoft data centers.

  • Main announcement: Microsoft unveiled Maia 200 as a breakthrough inference accelerator claiming 10,145 FP4 teraflops peak and 5,072 FP8 teraflops peak, 216GB HBM, 7 terabits/s HBM bandwidth, produced on a 3nm node, and delivering 30% better performance per dollar versus the company’s latest generation hardware.
  • Context and implementation details: Maia 200 is positioned for heterogeneous, multimodal inference, integrates with Azure, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft 365 Copilot, supports OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 family, has a preview SDK (PyTorch integration, Triton compiler, optimized kernel library), and is deployed in US Central (Des Moines) with next rollout to US West 3 (Phoenix); timing for additional regions not disclosed.
• Jan 26, 2026

  Microsoft Unveils Maia 200 In-House Inference Chip

  Microsoft has announced the Maia 200, a new in-house inference accelerator designed for large-scale AI workloads.

  • Main announcement: Microsoft introduced the Maia 200 inference accelerator built on TSMC’s 3nm process, tuned for FP4 and FP8 inference, featuring 217 GB of HBM3e at 7 TB/s, 272 MB on-chip SRAM, native FP8/FP4 tensor cores, and ~140 billion transistors; Microsoft claims >10 PFLOPS FP4, >5 PFLOPS FP8, and ~30% better performance per dollar vs the prior generation. Maia 200 is deployed in Microsoft’s US central data center near Des Moines, Iowa, with US West 3 near Phoenix to follow, integrates with Azure, and includes a preview of Maia’s SDK.
  • Background and details: Microsoft positions Maia for enterprise inference rather than training; the company compared Maia 200 to hyperscaler rivals (claimed 3x FP4 vs Amazon Trainium3 and FP8 performance above Google’s 7th-gen TPU). The article cites an SNS Insider projection of an AI inference market of $349.5 billion by 2032 and includes analyst commentary from Matthew Kimball (Moor Insights & Strategy).