AI power and chips
Irish data centers used 23% of the country's electricity, more than urban homes. In the US, the governors of Texas and Pennsylvania put new limits on data centers, and the House voted for a bill on data center grid costs.
The physical limits on the AI build-out: electricity, grid connections, water, land, chips and memory, pushback from local communities, and costs passed on to others.
October 2026
The stories
- Trump wants data centers to pay communities a dividend and make their own power, CNBC reports.
- Nvidia launches a containerized DSX POD that it says cuts deployment from six months to 14 days, with no cooling water.
- Samsung reportedly sells out 100% of 2027 HBM capacity, with HBM prices expected to rise up to 200%.
- CoreWeave could sell 100 MW in 18 seconds, the Financial Times reports.
- vLLM reports 8x MI355X gives 24.4% more throughput than HGX B300 on Kimi K3 at 50 tok/s per user, and 87.4% more tokens per dollar.
- SemiAnalysis reports Google TPUv7's first agentic inference benchmark submission at 1.67x better performance per dollar than GB300 NVL72 FP4, revised to 1.42x on an external cost basis.
- AA-AgentPerf shows NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 delivering up to about 5.7x GB300 throughput per MW on DeepSeek V4 Pro, and 906 tok/s per user on V4.1 Flash.
- AA-AgentPerf on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash shows GB300 serving about 261M tokens/s per MW at 100 tok/s per user, versus about 220M for B300 and about 193M for B200.
- SemiAnalysis InferenceX claims Rubin at 4.23x the perf per dollar of GB300 NVL72 on SGLang in a preview; vLLM, Inferact and NVIDIA report 7.2x better perf per TCO on GB300 NVL72.
- Bloomberg reports a 1-GW data center in Abilene costs about $30 billion, with memory costs up 5x in a year.
- Microsoft says it will scale its Maia chips to multi-gigawatt inference from 2027, promising 40% more tokens per megawatt than GPUs.
- Tom's Hardware reports US Xbox sales fell 33% to their lowest since launch.
- PCMag reports PC shipments dropped 20% in the worst Q3 on record.
- Counterpoint Research reports smartphone shipments fell 20% year on year to a 14-year low.
- Bloomberg reports China is planning a $3.9 trillion grid to stop wasting renewables that power cheap AI data centers out west.
- Entergy in Mississippi warns it will curtail Amazon data centers at peak times; AWS answers with Project Falcon, letting the utility switch sites to backup power.
- Erin Brockovich launches a map of AI data centers crowdsourcing power, water, and noise complaints.
- AMD's CEO says the company plans to substantially increase supply in 2027.
- Oracle is trucking gas to European data centers at 4x the hub price, The Next Web reports.
- Google locks in a 3.6 GW power deal with Constellation Energy, Reuters reports.
- San Francisco passes a data center moratorium, Bloomberg reports.
- Taylor, Texas negotiates $69 million a year in taxes, plus school and animal-care funds, for a data center.
- The US Department of Energy invests nearly $2 billion across 26 states to boost grid capacity for AI data centers.
September 2026
The US House voted for a bill on data center grid costs. Texas ordered a pause on data center permits until an audit is done.
18 stories in the AI newsletters I read.
The facts
All 18 stories
- NorthPoint offers $10,000 to each of 4,500 Pennsylvania households if a data center is approved; many call it a bribe.
- The US Senate blocks the Ratepayer Protection Act on data center costs.
- Amazon pledges $1 billion to data center communities.
- Amazon signs a nuclear deal for 690 MW at Constellation's Maryland site.
- Micron earns $37.7 billion in a quarter and sees memory shortages through 2028.
- Texas freezes data center permits, putting nearly 50 GW at risk.
- Samsung will double HBM4 output next year, per sources.
- SK Hynix's Solidigm unit weighs a NAND memory fab in New York.
- Google and NVIDIA form an energy alliance to fast-track data centers that curtail power on demand.
- SK Hynix is in talks to make memory chips at Intel's Ohio site.
- The House votes 417-3 to let states bill big data centers for grid upgrades.
- Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle sweeten offers to municipalities and side with consumers against utilities over ratepayer costs.
- Ten states cancel data center tax breaks.
- Massachusetts demands local approval before data centers can be built.
- The US Department of Energy backs a $1.9 billion loan to restart an Iowa nuclear plant for Google.
- Data center land buys reach $6 billion in the first half, up 79%, and nine states weigh moratoria.
- Musk warns the G20 of a 15-gigawatt power shortfall by 2027.
- OpenAI's Jalapeno inference chip, built with Broadcom, shows 1.9x work per watt versus NVIDIA in its own tests.
August 2026
Two governors put new limits on data centers. Texas's governor paused new data center connections to the power grid, and Pennsylvania's governor ordered that data centers get local approval first.
21 stories in the AI newsletters I read.
The facts
Texas's governor paused new data center connections to the power grid.1
Pennsylvania's governor ordered that data centers get local approval first.2
All 21 stories
- SpaceX lays groundwork for its own turbine-blade factory to ease the data center power crunch.
- Google sets Android memory limits as AI demand for DRAM squeezes supply.
- A Fox News poll finds voters reject local data centers 70 to 30.
- Ypsilanti Township passes a moratorium on electrical infrastructure to stall a $1.2 billion nuclear-weapons-research data center.
- Texas Gov. Abbott says the data center industry basically dug its own grave amid public backlash.
- Nvidia's biggest customers are notified of server price hikes above 15%.
- Pennsylvania's governor orders data centers to get local approval and pay their own power bills.
- DDR5 prices are up 485% year over year as hyperscalers lock up 2027 capacity.
- Residents of a dozen towns move to recall officials over data center deals, starting September 1 in Independence, Missouri.
- CoreWeave's first silicon numbers show Vera Rubin NVL72 generating up to 10 times more tokens per megawatt than Blackwell.
- SpaceXAI will recycle 10 million gallons of Memphis water daily, ending its aquifer draws.
- Projections show data center energy and water use rising sharply by 2030.
- SK Hynix commits $720 billion to the world's largest memory buildout.
- PJM proposes curtailing unsupplied data center loads before any household.
- A report projects global data center electricity use will double from 485 terawatt-hours in 2025 to about 950 by 2030.
- Local data center bans top 500 as New York and Texas join, with 150 towns restricting in July.
- Memory prices have roughly quadrupled in a year amid the AI chip shortage.
- SK Hynix will spend $38 billion on two new Korean chip fabs.
- Texas freezes new data center grid connections after requests queue up 474 gigawatts, five times its record demand.
- Major PC makers begin buying Chinese CXMT DRAM.
- London data centers compete with housing for power, leaving new homes waiting 15 years for a grid connection.
July 2026
Irish data centers used 23% of the country's electricity, more than urban homes. ASML raised its full-year sales forecast after very strong orders.
21 stories in the AI newsletters I read.
The facts
ASML raised its full-year sales forecast after very strong orders.1
Irish data centers used 23% of the country's electricity, more than urban homes.2
All 21 stories
- Crusoe and Aalo Atomics partner to deploy the first nuclear-powered AI factory.
- Amazon retires most Nova models to give scarce compute to Pieter Abbeel's new lab.
- Microsoft stock is down 24% as it rations Azure customers behind frontier labs despite $190 billion of capex.
- Support for nearby data centers falls to 27%.
- 23 governors and 187 firms join a voluntary ratepayer protection pledge against AI data centre power costs.
- OpenAI's Project Camellia plans 3.2 self-built gigawatts in Georgia with rate protections and public audits.
- TSMC tells clients chipmaking prices rise 5 to 10% from 2027.
- SK's chairman says customers want up to 100% more AI memory in 2027 and calls prices abnormal.
- 142 protests across 42 states mark the first coordinated national demonstration against AI infrastructure.
- TSMC adds $100 billion and four fabs to its US buildout, reaching $265 billion and ten fabs.
- ASML raises full-year revenue to €43-45 billion and pledges 30% more EUV capacity in each of the next two years.
- Google buys the entire output of Arkansas's largest solar farm.
- Australia says large data centres must fund new power and put as much into the grid as they draw, and opens an Office of AI.
- Smartphone shipments hit their worst second quarter in 13 years as the memory shortage bites.
- New York becomes the first state to pause new hyperscale data centers for a year while it studies power, water and cost impacts.
- Irish data centres use 23% of the country's electricity, more than all city households combined.
- SK Hynix's chief forecasts the worst-ever memory shortage in 2027, with scarcity lasting past 2030.
- Meta builds a custom bridge chip to reuse old RAM in new servers.
- GridMarket and Deployable Energy sign a $145 billion, 40-year deal for 3 GW of microreactors by 2035, aimed at data centers.
- Samsung forecasts a 19-fold jump in Q2 operating profit on record memory prices.
- Nvidia's Kyber rack slips to 2028 because its 78-layer circuit board outruns factory capacity.
June 2026
Opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 data center projects from January to March. New York lawmakers passed a one-year pause that still needs the governor's signature.
17 stories in the AI newsletters I read.
The facts
New York lawmakers passed a one-year data center pause that still needs the governor's signature.1
Opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 data center projects from January to March.2
All 17 stories
- Google throttles Meta's access to Gemini after Meta asks for more capacity than Google can spare.
- AWS raises reserved Nvidia compute prices by 20%.
- Unconventional AI's Un-0 generates images on a simulated lattice of coupled oscillators, chasing 1,000x better energy efficiency.
- Apple raises Mac and iPad prices by $200 or more to pass on memory costs.
- Chevron signs a 20-year deal to power Microsoft's Kilby data center, which reaches 2.67 GW by 2028.
- CCS Insight expects smartphone shipments to drop about 15% as memory flows to server chips.
- Nothing's Carl Pei warns phone prices will keep rising because AI data centers pushed memory past half a handset's cost.
- Opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 data-center projects worth about $130 billion in Q1, the most since tracking began in 2023.
- Google courts Samsung to help build a future AI chip as capacity tightens beyond TSMC.
- Seattle passes a moratorium on new big data centers, the largest US city to do so.
- Ireland ends its data center moratorium with a rule that new sites must bring their own power.
- New York's legislature passes a one-year permit freeze for data centers above 20 MW, pending Hochul's signature.
- TSMC's CEO warns chip supply will trail AI demand for years as hyperscalers spend about $725 billion in 2026.
- Google pledges to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030, backed by $500 million.
- Kevin O'Leary halves his 40,000-acre Utah data center, cutting 19,430 acres after backlash.
- NVIDIA develops a water cooling system that sharply cuts water use in data centres.
- An instrumental-variables study finds data centers nudged US power rates down from 2015 to 2024.
May 2026
The stories
- The EU prepares emergency powers to override chip contracts during shortages.
- Lombardy raises data center construction fees up to 200% in green and farm zones.
- Epoch AI estimates a possible inference compute crunch as demand grows faster than serving capacity.
- The memory chip crunch squeezes Chinese automakers from BYD to XPeng.
- Handset shipments are projected to fall 13% in 2026 as data centers absorb memory.
- St. Charles City, Missouri, votes to effectively ban large-scale data centers.
- Seagate's CEO says new factories would take too long to meet AI demand.
- A Texas county passes the state's first data-center moratorium.
- Data centers drive a 76% rise in Q1 electricity prices on the PJM grid.
- Box Elder County, Utah approves the 40,000-acre Stratos AI data center, planned for 9 gigawatts, over local protests.
- NV Energy moves to cut power to 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents after May 2027 to supply data centers.
November 2025
The board, once a month, by email.
It comes on the first Monday of the month.
By subscribing, you agree to get the board by email.See the Privacy Notice.