Anthropic is negotiating a second multibillion-dollar agreement with UK-based cloud provider Nscale to lease computing capacity, according to a source who spoke to CNBC. The deal would cover a second 460-megawatt data center at the same West Virginia site as an earlier agreement reported in August, and could be worth roughly $45 billion. Anthropic declined to comment, and Nscale has not yet responded to requests for comment.
The Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa are being brought back online after years of shutdown, together expected to add 2.25 GW to the grid. Palisades, which had begun decommissioning, is furthest along and is projected to generate 800 MW by March 2027, while Crane's Unit 1 is expected to add 835 MW in 2027 under a 20-year supply deal with Microsoft. Each project relied on Department of Energy loans, with Palisades funded under a 2024 Biden-era program and the others under a 2025 Trump administration initiative.
In his book 'Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires,' journalist Paris Marx recounts visiting heavily secured data centers in Virginia and Ireland operated by companies including Microsoft. He reports that Amazon, Microsoft and Google together control 59% of hyperscale data center capacity, and that modern AI-driven facilities can require roughly triple the power of older large data centers, around 50 megawatts previously versus much higher now.
HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery told CNBC that AI is transformational and will boost productivity across the bank, but warned investors to be selective when backing data center infrastructure. He said quality of tenancy agreements and contract pricing vary widely, with some deals far less sound than others.
South Korean data-center startup Elice saw its stock fall as much as 36% in afternoon trading on its first day as a publicly listed company in Seoul. The sharp decline came despite the company's AI-infrastructure focus, an area that has generally drawn strong investor interest.
CNBC's Jim Cramer said investors should not chase Monday's tech rebound, which saw the Nasdaq Composite rise about 1.1% after last week's AI stock selloff pushed the index below its 50-day moving average. Cramer identified four conditions he wants met before turning bullish again on data center stocks: improved chart patterns, hyperscaler earnings reports, the election concluding, and Anthropic completing its IPO.
A new report from the Environmental Defense Fund and Atlas Public Policy finds that planned fossil fuel power capacity jumped from 5% of new US electricity projects in 2024 to 30% by mid-2026, even as electricity demand rises due to data centers, factories and EVs. The report notes solar and wind still generate more power than coal and that solar was the fastest-growing source added in 2024, but warns gas development could reach 68 gigawatts by 2030 if current trends hold.
Most bubble coverage mixes four different claims that have little to do with each other. Separating them is the difference between information and mood.
Google is seeking to build a 780-megawatt AI data center in Pine Island, Minnesota, under a deal with utility Xcel Energy in which Google would finance 1,400 megawatts of wind, 200 megawatts of solar and 300 megawatts of battery storage — more capacity than the data center itself is expected to use. Xcel says the added power will serve all local customers, not just Google, and the agreement includes minimum demand charges and exit fees requiring Google to keep paying even if it doesn't use all the power.
Several US nuclear power plants that had been shut down are being evaluated or prepared for restart, with utilities citing rising electricity demand. Data centers, particularly those supporting AI computing, are cited as a key driver of this increased power need.
Ahead of November's midterms, Democratic lawmakers are signaling plans to intensify oversight of AI companies if they regain control of one or both congressional chambers. Senior Democrats on key committees have pointed to data center tax credits and recent hacking incidents as areas they want to investigate, with committee control potentially letting them subpoena documents and call tech CEOs to testify.
A planned UK data center has been pushed back into the 2030s due to delays connecting to the power grid, and Microsoft has withdrawn from the project as a result. The delay reflects broader infrastructure bottlenecks facing large-scale computing buildouts in the UK.
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