New Jersey Data Center News

Dec 23, 2025

‘We finally have a tool to at least shave some tenths of a degree off’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewable energy

Bill McKibben argues renewable energy now provides a practical tool to reduce warming by tenths of a degree and highlights China’s leadership in mass deployment of solar and wind.

Main announcement/action: McKibben presents the central claim that cheap solar, wind and batteries are now a realistic tool to “shave some tenths of a degree off“ global warming; he cites 95% of new generating capacity last year coming from clean sources and that China was building three gigawatts of solar panels a day (scale cited in May). Include concrete examples: Pakistan cancelled delivery of 27 cargoloads of LNG last month after widespread rooftop solar uptake; the author organised Sun Day in September with 500 events across the US.
Background and details: He attributes slowed transition partly to the fossil fuel industry’s influence, noting “a billion dollars” and “about half a billion” in donations/advertising/lobbying referenced for US politics; he also notes the Vatican plans to become the first fully solar-powered nation when it flips the switch on a new solar farm next year (2026). All items are factual claims made in the interview; no speculative outcomes are included.

Dec 18, 2025

AI Is Draining the Grid—and the Power Solution Is Sitting Idle Right Next Door

Daniel Domingues (founder and CEO of Planno) calls for deploying commercial and industrial rooftop solar and battery storage near data centers to meet AI-driven electricity demand while avoiding long transmission build timelines.

Main announcement/action: Advocate to prioritize C&I rooftop solar + storage adjacent to data center clusters to supply local load quickly; cites IEA projection of data center electricity reaching ~1,000 TWh by 2030, U.S. interconnection queues holding >2,000 GW, and transmission projects taking ~10 years (with permitting >50% of that timeline). Notes New Jersey Planno data: 13.5 GW total C&I rooftop potential, 7% adoption, leaving ~10.7 GW untapped; systems <2 MW can use streamlined permitting/interconnection and be built in months.
Background and details: Draws on NREL national assessment and a Deloitte study (82% and 92% statistics on innovation/investment focus), highlights benefits of proximity, speed, and private financing (PPAs/leases) for C&I solar; recommends pairing with batteries/microgrids to meet peaks and provide localized resilience.

Dec 16, 2025 · Tech Xplore

Transparency in AI companies falls to new low

Stanford, with coauthors at Berkeley, Princeton, and MIT, published the 2025 Foundation Model Transparency Index reporting a marked decline in corporate transparency across major AI developers.

Main announcement: The 2025 Foundation Model Transparency Index finds the industry average transparency score fell to 40/100, down from 58/100 in 2024; the Index assessed 13 companies and identifies three performance clusters (top ≈75, middle ≈35, low ≈15). Key score changes include IBM 95/100 (highest in Index history), xAI and Midjourney 14/100 (among the lowest), Meta 60→31, and Mistral 55→18. The 2025 edition adds four companies for the first time: Alibaba, DeepSeek, Midjourney, xAI.
Background and details: The Index evaluates companies on 15 areas (training data, risk mitigation, economic impact, etc.) and finds systemic opacity on training data, training compute, model use, and societal impact. 10 companies disclose no environmental-impact data (AI21 Labs, Alibaba, Amazon, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Midjourney, Mistral, OpenAI, xAI). The report notes delays/non-release of documentation by major firms (e.g., Google’s Gemini 2.5 model card delay; Meta did not release a technical report for Llama 4) and cites the Index as an input for policy interventions already under way in California and the European Union.

Dec 12, 2025

The friendliest type of energy generation: a conversation on agrivoltaics

The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) has launched a 42-panel agrivoltaics installation at its Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows in Virginia, designed to generate 100% of the farm’s electricity while maintaining active crop production between the panels.

Project details and goals: The 42-panel agrivoltaics system powers all farm operations, integrates rows of vegetables between panels, includes battery storage, and is engineered as a farm-forward, easily replicable design for other farmers and urban/built environments; PEC will measure energy and crop output, test soils for PFAS and heavy metals, and publish plans for panel recycling and responsible decommissioning.
Policy, grid and land-use context: PEC highlights that rising utility bills driven by data center demand increase the value of on-farm solar, and argues that widespread 1 MW agrivoltaic projects on Virginia’s 39,000 farms could yield 39 GW, exceeding current peak load in Dominion territory; the article stresses the need for easier local permitting and interconnection, protection of net metering, and expanded distributed generation and virtual power plant arrangements to reduce pressure on prime agricultural land and avoid building costly gas peaker plants.

Dec 11, 2025

New Nvidia software gives data centers deeper visibility into GPU thermals and reliability

Nvidia has released new open-source telemetry software that monitors GPU power, temperature, airflow and interconnect health across GPU fleets to help operators spot issues early and prevent throttling.

Main announcement: Nvidia’s release is an opt-in, customer-installed service that includes an open-source client software agent and provides read-only telemetry controlled by customers; it monitors power use, utilization, memory bandwidth, airflow, interconnect health, configuration and errors across entire GPU fleets to surface bottlenecks and reliability risks.
Background and details: The article notes modern AI GPUs now draw more than 700W per GPU and multi-GPU nodes can reach 6kW; a Princeton CITP report warns thermal/electrical stress can cut usable chip lifespan to one or two years. TechInsights’ Manish Rawat and Gartner’s Naresh Singh comment the tool enables thermally aware workload placement, faster adoption of liquid/hybrid cooling, detection of silent errors from firmware/driver mismatches, and improved MTTR and fleet stability.

Dec 11, 2025 · Tech Xplore

AI's $400 bn problem: Are chips getting old too fast?

The tech industry has spent about $400 billion on specialized chips and data centers this year, prompting warnings that rapid chip obsolescence could sharply reduce profitability and raise capital costs.

Main announcement/action: The article reports industry-wide spending of about $400 billion on specialized AI chips and data centers and highlights analyst warnings that realistic chip lifespans may be 2–3 years (vs. the industry assumption of 4–6 years). Key specifics: Nvidia announced the Rubin chip for 2026 with 7.5× the performance of Blackwell; analysts (Gil Luria) estimate chips can lose 85–90% of market value within 3–4 years; a Meta study reported a 9% annual failure rate for its Llama model.
Background and details:Nvidia defended the industry’s 4–6 year lifespan estimate in November; Princeton’s Mihir Kshirsagar and investor Michael Burry argued the six-year assumption is unrealistic. The piece flags financial risks for specialists (e.g., Oracle, CoreWeave) that are heavily indebted and notes some loans use chips as collateral. Analysts suggest resale or repurposing older chips for second-tier tasks or as backups as mitigation.

Dec 10, 2025

Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2026 Highlights Surging Demand for Data Centers and Senior Housing

PwC and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) have released Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2026, the 47th edition of the annual industry forecast covering the U.S. and Canada.

Report details and scope: Draws on responses from more than 1,700 investors, developers, lenders, and advisors, is the 47th edition, and provides market rankings, data tables, and interactive analyses across the U.S. and Canada; full report available from PwC and the Urban Land Institute (link in article).
Key sector findings and specifics:Data centers: national vacancy is below 2%, with power availability now a primary site-selection constraint as AI and cloud demand outpace supply; Senior housing: the first baby boomers turn 80 in 2026, driving rising occupancy and limited new supply; also highlights self-storage, student housing, and a split recovery in office markets.

Dec 10, 2025

Top Environmental Victories of 2025

The Sierra Club announces a roundup of its top environmental victories in 2025.

Major announced actions: The article catalogs specific legal, legislative, and advocacy wins including: stopping a proposed public-lands sell-off after Congressional withdrawal; passage of the Climate Change Superfund Act in New York (following Vermont in 2024) and introduced bills in California, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Maine; legal victories blocking Commonwealth LNG (coastal use permit terminated) and two lawsuits creating guardrails on data centers in Kansas and Michigan; NEVI program restart unlocking $2.7 billion for EV charging; and a $744 million jury verdict against Chevron for coastal damages in Louisiana.
Background and additional details: The piece lists species and land protections (Northern Rockies wolves, Colorado bison, Rice’s whales), closure of Merrimack Station (final New England coal plant) and repeal of an Ohio coal-bailout that would have cost nearly half a billion dollars, passage of Utah’s balcony solar law allowing small plug-in systems without utility approval, a coalition delivering ~500,000 public comments to defend the Roadless Rule (including 40,000 from Sierra Club advocates), and a world-record origami action sending more than 86,000 paper fish to oppose Enbridge’s Line 5.

Dec 5, 2025

The top 10 Capital Region business stories of 2025

Business Report published a year-end roundup summarizing Baton Rouge’s major 2025 business, energy and political developments.

Main announcement/action: The piece catalogs several large, confirmed projects and transactions including CF Industries’ Blue Point low-carbon ammonia complex (a multibillion-dollar, green‑fuel project) supported by Linde’s $400 million air separation unit, the Hut 8 large data center proposal in West Feliciana, and the sale of H&E Equipment Services after a bidding war (accepted offer ~$5.3 billion from Herc). It also reports the Oak View Group tie to a $15 million DOJ settlement and an indictment tied to bid-rigging.
Background and other details: The roundup lists state policy and fiscal changes including a new 5.5% flat corporate rate and phased elimination of the corporate franchise tax beginning in 2026; retail and real estate transactions such as Towne Center at Cedar Lodge sold for $81 million; and leadership changes at LSU (President William Tate departed, Wade Rousse named system president and Jim Dalton named chancellor).

Dec 2, 2025

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, posted a monthly roundup of active data center job openings on the Pkaza jobs board.

Main announcement: Data Center Frontier and Pkaza published a list of open roles (examples: Data Center Facility Technician, Electrical Commissioning Engineer, Construction Project Manager, Electrical Engineer, Critical Power Sales Associate, Sr Mechanical Engineer, Site Selection Manager/Director/VP, Electrical Project Manager, MEP Superintendent, Mechanical Commissioning Engineer, Engineering Design Director, Navy Nuke Facility Technician) posted on Pkaza’s jobs board; positions are available across many US cities including Ashburn, VA; Atlanta, GA; Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Montvale, NJ; Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; New Albany, OH; Phoenix, AZ.
Background and details: Roles are for mission-critical data center employers (developers, colo providers, contractors, commissioning firms) and frequently emphasize reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design / LEED expertise and commissioning; some listings explicitly accept Navy Nuke / military veterans and many positions list multiple alternative locations or hybrid/remote options. Author: Kathy Hitchens (Data Center Frontier).

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