GoKawiil
Tech News
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of seven bills that shield residential utility customers from bearing the costs of AI data center growth. The laws create a new rate category for data centers through the state's Public Utilities Commission, mandate disclosure of water and energy use to local governments, and require efficiency benchmarks before facilities can get streamlined approval.
The U.S. House approved H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, which amends the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act to require state regulators and non-regulated utilities to consider adopting a federal standard within two years. Under the bill, data centers drawing 100 megawatts or more would have to cover the full incremental cost of generation, transmission, or distribution upgrades built to serve them, even if they later cancel their power contracts.
Anthropic and OpenAI are pursuing smaller data center deals in the 20-30 megawatt range, according to sources familiar with the discussions, even as both companies have already signed massive multi-hundred-megawatt and gigawatt infrastructure agreements. Anthropic has explored such deals in the UK and Nordics, while OpenAI has looked at similar opportunities in the Nordics, with talks also reportedly underway for smaller U.S. deployments. OpenAI confirmed it is building a 'diversified compute portfolio' but declined to discuss specific commercial talks; Anthropic did not comment.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul's administration released a Community Investment Framework advising local governments on negotiating with data center developers. The guide recommends towns demand roughly $1 million per megawatt of power demand in community investment, alongside plans covering long-term maintenance, site abandonment, and phased funding timelines.
Al Gore, speaking with TechCrunch alongside Generation Investment Management's Lila Preston, argued that AI data centers' emissions are far smaller than critics claim, comparing them to landfill emissions and global air conditioning use. He said what worries him more are warnings emerging from within the AI industry itself.
Startup Rune has deployed a modular data center in southwest Texas that connects directly to a solar farm rather than the electric grid. It runs on solar output that would otherwise go unused, avoiding the need to construct any new power generation to support it.
Activists in Philadelphia, led by Shawmar Pitts of Philly Thrive, are pushing for a moratorium on new AI data centers after city officials identified potential construction sites in Northeast Philadelphia and Grays Ferry, a neighborhood near a shuttered oil refinery. Pitts and his neighbors, many of whom suffered health problems linked to decades of industrial pollution, worry that data centers could bring similar environmental and energy burdens despite promises of jobs and growth.
A New York Times/Siena University poll of 1,503 likely voters conducted in early September found 61 percent opposed building data centers for AI, with only 14 percent strongly supportive. Opposition skewed heavily among Harris voters and non-voters, while 2024 Trump voters were nearly evenly split between support and opposition. Environmental and water-use concerns topped the list of reasons for opposition, followed by community impact and general distrust of AI.
Bloomberg forecasts that U.S. AI data centers will consume up to 15 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2035, more than double an earlier projection of 6.9 billion cubic feet. The surge stems from operators turning to onsite gas turbine generators as grid power buildouts lag behind AI compute demand, with data centers expected to draw roughly 194 gigawatts, or 20% of U.S. power, by that year.
President Trump used Truth Social to reject growing calls from AI executives for stronger oversight of the technology, singling out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for criticism after Amodei urged a coordinated industry slowdown, independent audits, and international safety standards. Trump argued that the only safeguard AI needs is a competent president, and characterized nationwide protests against AI data centers as a coordinated effort to undermine American tech companies.
Developers behind the proposed Frederick Digital Campus have pitched a $110 million package to Frederick County, Maryland residents to secure approval for the site, which would house tenants including Amazon and Aligned Data Centers. The package includes a $30 million elementary school, $40 million in recreational facilities, a $14.5 million workforce training center, $10.5 million for agricultural preservation, and up to $100 million toward a water reclamation system that would cut potable water use by 80%.
A group of former EPA officials, working through the Environmental Protection Network, released a report identifying 30 federal actions since January 2025 that they say weaken environmental protections to speed AI data center construction. They argue this has pushed data centers toward dirtier power sources, worsening pollution exposure even for people who don't live near the facilities, and are calling on Trump to adopt a 'Data Center Health Protection Pledge.'