Minnesota Data Center Intel

Recent Minnesota data center news

• Jan 14, 2026

  Environmental groups protest proposed natural gas power plant near Edisto River

  Dominion Energy has proposed building the Canadys Station natural gas power plant on the retired coal site in Colleton County, South Carolina.

  • Main announcement: Dominion Energy proposes the Canadys Station natural gas plant on the retired coal-fired site ~40 miles northwest of Charleston in Colleton County; the company states the site was chosen for its established footprint, strong transmission connectivity, and that the facility would use advanced air-cooling and about 90 percent less water than the retired coal plant. The project includes a planned pipeline to supply natural gas that protesters say would run near the ACE Basin. The South Carolina Public Service Commission is expected to issue a final decision on April 14.
  • Background and other details: Local environmental groups (including the Charleston Climate Coalition) protested outside Dominion Energy headquarters, citing pollution, health risks (residents have experienced higher rates of asthma and cancer) and threats to downstream drinking water and protected lands. Activists say the plant could operate 30 to 40 years and questioned whether it is intended to meet data center demand; Dominion disputes attributing the need to data centers and says a proposed Colleton County data center is not in its service area.
• Jan 13, 2026

  Six Stony Brook University Faculty Mentor Regeneron STS Scholars

  Stony Brook University announced that ten high school students mentored by six Stony Brook faculty were named among the top 300 semifinalists in the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS).

  • Main announcement: Ten Simons Summer Research Program fellows, mentored by six Stony Brook faculty, were named among the top 300 Regeneron STS semifinalists; each semifinalist and their high school will receive $2,000. The article lists faculty mentors (Benjamin Hsiao, Mohammad Javad Amiri, Yuefan Deng, Zhenhua Liu, Howard Sirotkin, Nengkun Yu) and student projects such as stormwater remediation of 6PPD, AI-enabled drug discovery for oncogenic eIF4E, and Carbon-Aware Reserve Allocation and Checkpoint Scheduling for GPU Sustainability.
  • Background and details: The semifinalists were selected from >2,600 applicants representing 46 states, Washington, D.C., Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries; 40 finalists will be announced on January 21 to compete for over $3.1 million in awards during a week-long event in Washington, D.C., March 5–11. The piece references the Society for Science administration of Regeneron STS and notes that since 1997 about 600 semifinalists have been mentored by Stony Brook faculty.
• Jan 9, 2026

  What impacts could new data centers have in Wisconsin? Environmental expert weighs in

  WUWM published an interview with Amy Barrilleaux, communications director at Clean Wisconsin, warning about environmental impacts of proposed hyperscale AI data centers in Wisconsin.

  • Main announcement / findings: Clean Wisconsin cautions that proposed hyperscale AI data centers in Wisconsin could be extremely large (campuses up to 2,000 acres) with power demands over a gigawatt, meaning some facilities may use more energy than all homes in Wisconsin combined; local impacts called out include diesel generator emissions (hundreds to ~1,000 generators tested monthly), large water withdrawals for cooling and power-plant cooling, and potential use of PFAS in closed-loop cooling systems.
  • Background and context: The article notes tax incentives (WEDC data center sales/use tax exemption) have encouraged development; Clean Wisconsin links approved projects to new gas-plant proposals (some sited to serve data centers), cites Wisconsin household counts (~2.6-2.8 million homes) for scale comparisons, and recommends mitigation measures such as demand response, battery storage instead of diesel backups, renewable energy procurement, wetland preservation, and water reuse practices.
• Jan 9, 2026

  Environmental AI Governance: U.S. and China Have Different Roads to developing Green AI Systems

  Jianyin Roachell argues that the United States and China are pursuing divergent approaches to govern AI’s environmental footprint: the U.S. relies on bottom-up, market and state-level measures, while China uses top-down national planning such as EWCRT and mandates for renewable energy in data centers.

  • Main announcement/action: The article contrasts U.S. decentralized, market-driven responses with China’s top-down EWCRT (East-West Computing Resources Transmission) strategy that directs new data centers to western provinces (Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia) to leverage cooler climates and abundant wind/solar; China projects data centers could consume 400 TWh annually (~3.2% of electricity) and the NDRC issued guidelines in March 2025 requiring increased renewable electricity shares for big data hubs. The piece cites concrete projects and deals: Meta’s 20-year PPA for a 1.1 GW nuclear plant in Illinois, local proposals for gas-fired plants by Entergy to power Meta, and the $226 million Lin-gang underwater data center project in Shanghai combining renewables and deep-sea cooling.
  • Background and other details: The U.S. relies on state tax exemptions (as many as 42 states) and state-level rules (e.g., Virginia 2024 PUE bill; Oregon 2025 water reporting), plus third-party verification like LEED; grassroots protests and state regulatory drafts (Texas, California, Michigan, Minnesota) are shaping policy. Research cited estimates the East-West Data Project could reduce 11,500 Mt CO2 between 2020 and 2050, but China’s grid remains ~60% coal, posing a continued emissions risk unless renewables scale faster.
• Jan 9, 2026 · Textile South Asia

  INDA and AFS invite abstract submissions for the advances in filtration conference.

  INDA, in partnership with AFS (American Filtration and Separations Society), announced a call for presentations for the Advances in Filtration Conference as part of FiltXPO 2026.

  • Main announcement: INDA and AFS are soliciting abstract submissions for the Advances in Filtration Conference to be held October 28–29, 2026 as part of FiltXPO 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; abstracts must be received by April 3, 2026, and submissions are accepted via the AFS submission portal (links provided).
  • Event details:
    • Date: October 28–29, 2026
    • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
    • Submission deadline: April 3, 2026
    • Agenda/subjects: Artificial Intelligence in Filtration and Data Center Applications, e-Mobility and Battery Technologies, Nonwoven Media for Water Treatment and PFAS Filtration, Sustainability and Environmental Considerations in Filtration
    • Program format: peer-reviewed oral presentations and technical posters, assigned by the Conference Planning Committee.
• Jan 8, 2026

  Data Center Compliance in 2026: What Changed, What’s Next, and How to Prepare

  Data Center Knowledge published a 2025 overview distilling the current compliance environment for data centers, highlighting cumulative regulatory tightening across cybersecurity, AI governance, and sustainability, and noting distinct federal-versus-local dynamics in permitting and operations.

  • The overview’s primary action: it synthesises 2025 regulatory changes and their operational implications, emphasising transparency for AI workloads (EU AI Act), stricter incident reporting and third-party controls under DORA and NIS 2, and enhanced sustainability reporting under the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) (EED revised in 2023; requires reporting of PUE and WUE). It also documents U.S. actions: a July 2025 federal executive order to accelerate permitting, FedRAMP 20x introduced in early 2025 to streamline agency procurement, and Oregon’s POWER Act enacted in August 2025 establishing a special electricity rate for large power consumers.

  • Background and concrete details: the piece records tightened audit expectations from ISO 27001 and SOC 2, notes local constraints such as land-use rules, water rights, and grid interconnection queues, and cites specific regulatory outcomes (e.g., Minnesota Public Utilities Commission denied Amazon’s request concerning 250 diesel backup generators). It stresses that permitting simplifications at the federal level coexist with material local approval risks and supply-chain pressures from tariff-driven cost increases.

• Jan 7, 2026

  Patented: Making a Degradable Ice Straw and More North Texas Inventive Activity

  Prive Products of Dallas has received a newly granted U.S. patent for a system and method to make degradable drinking straws from ice, invented by Thomas Surgent (Patent No. 12484726).

  • Main announcement: Prive Products, LLC — Patent No. 12484726 (Application No. 17609970 filed 05/16/2020; 2026 days app to issue) — describes a system with tubes extending into a reservoir, a connecting bar delivering hot and cold fluid into the tubes, and a resulting hollow ice straw that can cool a beverage as liquid passes through the straw. The abstract states: “A system and method for making degradable drinking straws made of ice (or other frozen liquid(s)).”
  • Background & roundup details: Dallas-Fort Worth was ranked No. 9 among 250 metros for the week of 12/2/25 with 134 patents granted. The article is a patent roundup (announcement/summary) listing top assignees (e.g., Texas Instruments Inc. — 15 patents), notable grants (Bank of America, Dell, IBM, Verily, Lennox, Halliburton, etc.), and includes patent abstracts, assignees, inventor locations, application numbers and days from application to issue. For partnerships or deals, the article provides assignee and patent filing/issue dates but no implementation timelines beyond application and issue dates.
• Jan 5, 2026

  Eight Trends That Will Shape the Data Center Industry in 2026

  Data Center Frontier (Matt Vincent) publishes a 2026 forecast outlining eight trends that reposition AI-driven power, cooling, site selection, and capital discipline as the central constraints for data center development.

  • Main announcement/action: The piece presents eight defining trends for 2026 that—collectively—argue AI factories and general‑purpose data centers are distinct classes; AI factories will routinely plan for hundreds of megawatts of firm power, push onsite generation (near‑term: natural gas, mid/long term: nuclear/SMRs), and require liquid cooling, standardized modular designs, and utility co‑architecture to meet compressed timelines.
  • Background and details: The article documents a shift toward power co‑design with utilities, greater capital discipline (phased campuses, modular delivery, optional expansion), and operational emphasis on reuse, volatility planning, and O&M; it cites analysis from CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Reuters and coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg as context (timeline: trends framed for 2026).
• Jan 4, 2026

  Big Tech's Expanding Plans for Data Centers are Running into Stiff Community Opposition

  Associated Press reports tech companies and developers increasingly losing local fights over data center projects.

  • Main announcement: Data Center Watch (a project of 10a Labs) counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion in 11 states that were blocked or delayed between April and June, representing two-thirds of the projects it was tracking; the article notes major firms (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook) are collectively spending “hundreds of billions of dollars” on data centers globally.
  • Background and details: Community opposition is driven by concerns about energy use, water consumption, zoning, and loss of open space/farmland; local examples include East Vincent Township (Larry Shank), Matthews, NC (Mayor John Higdon: “999 to one against”), and Hermantown/Duluth, MN (Mortenson developing for an unnamed Fortune 50 company — Mortenson says it is considering changes). Developers and industry sources (Maxx Kossof, Dan Diorio) report zoning defeats, the prospect of selling sites after securing power, and calls for earlier community engagement.
• Jan 3, 2026

  Big Tech’s fast-expanding plans for data centers are running into stiff community opposition

  Communities across the United States are increasingly blocking or delaying proposed data centers intended to serve AI and cloud computing workloads.

  • Major local defeats and delays: Data Center Watch (a project of 10a Labs) counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion across 11 states that were blocked or delayed between April and June; opponents have also forced rezoning losses in states such as Indiana and pulled projects from city agendas (e.g., Matthews, NC). The article cites Microsoft’s securities filing acknowledging “community opposition, local moratoriums, and hyper-local dissent” as operational risks.
  • Project and developer details / background: Developers and trade groups such as The Missner Group, JLL, Mortenson, and the Data Center Coalition are adjusting strategy—considering selling power-secured sites or increasing early community engagement; one Mortenson project in Minnesota is on hold after internal emails revealed officials knew of the plan a year before public disclosure, and a Matthews, NC proposal reportedly would have funded half the city’s budget.