News
This period's coverage reflects a sector caught between accelerating investment and mounting resistance on multiple fronts. Forecasts placing global data center capex above $3 trillion by 2030 and AI infrastructure spending at $31.6 trillion underpin a construction surge visible in projects from Finland to Norway to Louisiana, yet that expansion is colliding with documented resource constraints including grid strain severe enough to prompt Texas to halt new connections and Pennsylvania to project 19% annual demand growth. Water and power consumption concerns are driving regulatory responses at every level, from New York's permit pause and Maine's project moratorium to New Jersey's mandatory disclosure law and local zoning boards asserting new authority. Community opposition has simultaneously intensified, with lawsuits filed over noise and water contamination in New Jersey and Georgia, moratoriums advancing in Indianapolis and San Jose, and courts handing residents procedural wins in Birmingham, illustrating that the industry's infrastructure ambitions now face friction that is legal and political as well as technical.
Stories covered this period:
- Dowagiac Data Center Advances Expansion With New Land Purchase
- Michigan Poll Finds Residents Demand Transparency on Data Center Projects
- Three Utility Stocks Positioned Around Long-Term AI Data Center Power Contracts
- NC State Research Links Data Center Boom to Local Water Stress
- Virginia Business Examines Whether Public Backlash Can Halt Data Center Expansion
- Economic Barriers Explain Why Data Centers Rarely Recycle Cooling Water
- Crusoe Signs $13 Billion Deal With Trading Firm Jane Street
- PwC Projects $31.6 Trillion in Capex for AI Infrastructure Build-Out
- TVA Reports 2026 Record Electricity Demand During Ongoing Heat Wave
- EIA Begins Tracking Data Center Power as Maine Pauses 20MW Projects
- Local Zoning Boards Emerge as Unexpected Gatekeepers for AI Data Centers
- NIST Publishes Architecture and Security Standards for AI Data Centers
Legislation
A new federal bill, HB10169, was introduced this week and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill would bar federal financial benefits for data center construction, expansion, or substantial rehabilitation on prime farmland and certain other agricultural land. While still in early committee stages, the measure signals growing congressional interest in land use constraints tied to federal incentives, a development worth monitoring as the industry relies heavily on such incentives for siting decisions.
California dominated state-level activity this week, with four bills reaching advanced stages simultaneously. AB 2619, targeting water resources at data centers, and AB 2469, requiring water use disclosures, were both enrolled and presented to the Governor, while SB 887, a pro-industry bill streamlining CEQA review for data center projects, cleared the Assembly and moved to enrollment. Outside California, North Dakota SB 2406, a pro-development measure, failed decisively on second reading with a 15-32 vote, and Ohio introduced HB 999, which would eliminate property tax exemptions for data centers, a significant financial concern for operators in that state.
The overall legislative environment this week leaned restrictive. The majority of bills with significant momentum, particularly those reaching the Governor's desk in California, impose new environmental and disclosure requirements on the industry. The defeat of the North Dakota pro-development bill and the introduction of Ohio's property tax measure reinforce a broader pattern in which regulatory and fiscal constraints on data centers are advancing more readily than incentive-based or permissive frameworks.
Bills covered this period:
- California AB 2619: Water resources: data centers.
- California AB 1577: Data centers: reporting.
- North Dakota SB 2406: A BILL for an Act to create and enact chapter 44-04.1 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to prohibiting agencies from entering nondisclosure agreements concerning data centers and industrial projects; to provide a penalty; to provide an effective date; and to provide an expiration date.
- Ohio HB 999: Prohibit property tax exemptions for data centers
- California AB 2469: Data centers: water use disclosures.
- California SB 887: California Environmental Quality Act: environmental leadership development projects: data centers: geothermal powerplant projects.
- California AB 2383: Electricity: data centers.
- HB10169: To prohibit the provision of Federal financial benefit for the construction, expansion, or substantial rehabilitation of data centers on prime farmland and other certain farmland.
Investment
Capital this period concentrated heavily at the intersection of AI compute infrastructure and the physical systems required to power and cool it. Liquid and alternative cooling attracted significant funding, with ZutaCore raising $100M, the Polish AI data center cooling firm securing $176M, and the wave-powered ocean data center project drawing $1B, signaling investor appetite for non-conventional thermal and energy solutions. On the compute side, Starcloud ($250M), Crusoe, and Cerebras Systems ($5.6B public markets valuation) extended a pattern of AI-oriented infrastructure builds, while Ayar Labs ($700M) pointed toward optical interconnect as a bottleneck drawing serious capital. Consolidation ran parallel, with Equinix and CPP Investments acquiring atNorth, Vertiv absorbing UtilityInnovation Group, and Flex acquiring EPC Power, each pairing established operators with specialized capabilities across power conversion and colocation.
Deals covered this period: