The website describes the map as “work in progress” that includes data centers reported by members of the surrounding community. In a Substack post, Brockovich said that after putting out a call for reports of data center-related issues in April, she received nearly 4,000 submissions in the first month alone.
“The single most common concern — more than noise, more than water usage, more than rising utility bills — is the one word that keeps appearing in submission after submission: transparency,” she wrote.
Brockovich added that she’s not making a “making a blanket argument against data centers” or AI, but rather against “the pattern our map documents: projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don’t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.”
The website describes the map as “work in progress” that includes data centers reported by members of the surrounding community. In a Substack post, Brockovich said that after putting out a call for reports of data center-related issues in April, she received nearly 4,000 submissions in the first month alone.
“The single most common concern — more than noise, more than water usage, more than rising utility bills — is the one word that keeps appearing in submission after submission: transparency,” she wrote.
Brockovich added that she’s not making a “making a blanket argument against data centers” or AI, but rather against “the pattern our map documents: projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don’t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.”
#Erin #Brockovich #takes #aim #data #center #secrecy #TechCrunchdata centers,erin brockovich">Erin Brockovich takes aim at data center secrecy | TechCrunch
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has a new mission: Bringing more transparency to data center construction and the impact those data centers have on nearby communities.
The website describes the map as “work in progress” that includes data centers reported by members of the surrounding community. In a Substack post, Brockovich said that after putting out a call for reports of data center-related issues in April, she received nearly 4,000 submissions in the first month alone.
“The single most common concern — more than noise, more than water usage, more than rising utility bills — is the one word that keeps appearing in submission after submission: transparency,” she wrote.
Brockovich added that she’s not making a “making a blanket argument against data centers” or AI, but rather against “the pattern our map documents: projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don’t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.”
The tech company has said that by 2030 it intends to match 100% of its hourly energy use with clean power on the same grid. But Microsoft’s rush to build AI data centers has apparently sparked debate within the company about whether the pledge has become an impediment to its ambitions.
Microsoft declined to comment on the internal debate over the hourly matching goal. Instead, a spokesperson told TechCrunch the company continues “to look for opportunities to maintain our annual matching goal.”
Hourly targets like the kind Microsoft has set for itself are more rigorous than annual targets. Because the grid is a balanced system — the supply and demand of electrons needs to be matched on a near-instantaneous basis — hourly matching helps develop clean energy sources that more closely align with a company’s usage patterns.
Annual targets are more lenient. They are effectively accounting tricks that could, for example, let a company buy more solar power than it might use at midday. Other customers on the grid use that energy, but the company that paid for the solar panels gets to claim the renewable power they make. It’s a tidy arrangement that has sped the deployment of wind, solar, and batteries. But on its own, annual targets won’t eliminate fossil fuels entirely. Hourly targets help foster renewable development that more closely mimics how a true net-zero world would be powered.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Apple have generally led on emissions reductions, setting aggressive net-zero targets. Many have eliminated their carbon emissions on an annual basis. Microsoft, for instance, said it met that goal last year.
But as data centers grow in size and number, those same companies are turning to natural gas. Microsoft is included in that list; last month, the company said it was working with Chevron and Engine No. 1 to build a massive natural gas power plant in West Texas that could eventually generate up to 5 gigawatts.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
Despite the West Texas project, Microsoft is widely viewed as a leader among tech companies pursuing net zero emissions. By 2030, Microsoft intends to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than its operations produce.
Part of the company’s renewable push has been driven by an internal carbon tax. The Microsoft spokesperson did not reply to questions about the company’s carbon tax. If it remains in place, some of the internal debate surrounding hourly matching might revolve around a cost-benefit analysis of the shift.
If Microsoft were to abandon its hourly-matching target, the company would also lose some leverage in efforts to sell the public on its on its data centers.
As data centers have proliferated, the general public has begun to push back against them, citing concerns over pollution, power prices, and water use. When Microsoft brings its own clean power to a project, it can plausibly say it has addressed two of those concerns. Without it, new data centers might be harder to sell to the public.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
The tech company has said that by 2030 it intends to match 100% of its hourly energy use with clean power on the same grid. But Microsoft’s rush to build AI data centers has apparently sparked debate within the company about whether the pledge has become an impediment to its ambitions.
Microsoft declined to comment on the internal debate over the hourly matching goal. Instead, a spokesperson told TechCrunch the company continues “to look for opportunities to maintain our annual matching goal.”
Hourly targets like the kind Microsoft has set for itself are more rigorous than annual targets. Because the grid is a balanced system — the supply and demand of electrons needs to be matched on a near-instantaneous basis — hourly matching helps develop clean energy sources that more closely align with a company’s usage patterns.
Annual targets are more lenient. They are effectively accounting tricks that could, for example, let a company buy more solar power than it might use at midday. Other customers on the grid use that energy, but the company that paid for the solar panels gets to claim the renewable power they make. It’s a tidy arrangement that has sped the deployment of wind, solar, and batteries. But on its own, annual targets won’t eliminate fossil fuels entirely. Hourly targets help foster renewable development that more closely mimics how a true net-zero world would be powered.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Apple have generally led on emissions reductions, setting aggressive net-zero targets. Many have eliminated their carbon emissions on an annual basis. Microsoft, for instance, said it met that goal last year.
But as data centers grow in size and number, those same companies are turning to natural gas. Microsoft is included in that list; last month, the company said it was working with Chevron and Engine No. 1 to build a massive natural gas power plant in West Texas that could eventually generate up to 5 gigawatts.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
Despite the West Texas project, Microsoft is widely viewed as a leader among tech companies pursuing net zero emissions. By 2030, Microsoft intends to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than its operations produce.
Part of the company’s renewable push has been driven by an internal carbon tax. The Microsoft spokesperson did not reply to questions about the company’s carbon tax. If it remains in place, some of the internal debate surrounding hourly matching might revolve around a cost-benefit analysis of the shift.
If Microsoft were to abandon its hourly-matching target, the company would also lose some leverage in efforts to sell the public on its on its data centers.
As data centers have proliferated, the general public has begun to push back against them, citing concerns over pollution, power prices, and water use. When Microsoft brings its own clean power to a project, it can plausibly say it has addressed two of those concerns. Without it, new data centers might be harder to sell to the public.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
#Microsofts #data #center #push #colliding #clean #power #goals #TechCrunchdata centers,Microsoft,net zero,renewable energy">Microsoft’s AI data center push is colliding with its clean power goals | TechCrunch
Microsoft is weighing whether to delay or scale back one of its most ambitious clean energy goals as its rapid buildout of AI data centers puts pressure on its ability to meet those targets. Microsoft has yet to make any public announcements, but according to Bloomberg the company is having internal discussions over its hourly clean energy matching goal.
The tech company has said that by 2030 it intends to match 100% of its hourly energy use with clean power on the same grid. But Microsoft’s rush to build AI data centers has apparently sparked debate within the company about whether the pledge has become an impediment to its ambitions.
Microsoft declined to comment on the internal debate over the hourly matching goal. Instead, a spokesperson told TechCrunch the company continues “to look for opportunities to maintain our annual matching goal.”
Hourly targets like the kind Microsoft has set for itself are more rigorous than annual targets. Because the grid is a balanced system — the supply and demand of electrons needs to be matched on a near-instantaneous basis — hourly matching helps develop clean energy sources that more closely align with a company’s usage patterns.
Annual targets are more lenient. They are effectively accounting tricks that could, for example, let a company buy more solar power than it might use at midday. Other customers on the grid use that energy, but the company that paid for the solar panels gets to claim the renewable power they make. It’s a tidy arrangement that has sped the deployment of wind, solar, and batteries. But on its own, annual targets won’t eliminate fossil fuels entirely. Hourly targets help foster renewable development that more closely mimics how a true net-zero world would be powered.
Big tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Apple have generally led on emissions reductions, setting aggressive net-zero targets. Many have eliminated their carbon emissions on an annual basis. Microsoft, for instance, said it met that goal last year.
But as data centers grow in size and number, those same companies are turning to natural gas. Microsoft is included in that list; last month, the company said it was working with Chevron and Engine No. 1 to build a massive natural gas power plant in West Texas that could eventually generate up to 5 gigawatts.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
Despite the West Texas project, Microsoft is widely viewed as a leader among tech companies pursuing net zero emissions. By 2030, Microsoft intends to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than its operations produce.
Part of the company’s renewable push has been driven by an internal carbon tax. The Microsoft spokesperson did not reply to questions about the company’s carbon tax. If it remains in place, some of the internal debate surrounding hourly matching might revolve around a cost-benefit analysis of the shift.
If Microsoft were to abandon its hourly-matching target, the company would also lose some leverage in efforts to sell the public on its on its data centers.
As data centers have proliferated, the general public has begun to push back against them, citing concerns over pollution, power prices, and water use. When Microsoft brings its own clean power to a project, it can plausibly say it has addressed two of those concerns. Without it, new data centers might be harder to sell to the public.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
It has launched a venture called Next Frontier to buy up land near large power sources with the goal of turning those parcels into data centers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sources tell the WSJ that Next Frontier has already signed a joint venture with Fluidstack, a cloud infrastructure startup that penned a $50 billion deal to build data centers for Anthropic. (Coatue did not respond to a request for comment.)
Although the U.S. already has 3,000 data centers, more than 1,500 new ones are in various stages of being built, according to Pew Research, most of them in rural areas. The frenzy is enticing land speculation and data center financing projects from lots of players, ranging from Blackstone to Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank.”
It has launched a venture called Next Frontier to buy up land near large power sources with the goal of turning those parcels into data centers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sources tell the WSJ that Next Frontier has already signed a joint venture with Fluidstack, a cloud infrastructure startup that penned a $50 billion deal to build data centers for Anthropic. (Coatue did not respond to a request for comment.)
Although the U.S. already has 3,000 data centers, more than 1,500 new ones are in various stages of being built, according to Pew Research, most of them in rural areas. The frenzy is enticing land speculation and data center financing projects from lots of players, ranging from Blackstone to Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank.”
.
#Coatue #plan #buy #land #data #centers #possibly #Anthropic #TechCrunchAnthropic,coatue,data centers,In Brief">Coatue has a plan to buy up land for data centers, possibly for Anthropic | TechCrunch
Coatue, one of the biggest names in venture capital and hedge funds, has a new plan to generate bigger returns on AI beyond its sizable stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, and data center companies like Singapore’s DayOne and CoreWeave.
It has launched a venture called Next Frontier to buy up land near large power sources with the goal of turning those parcels into data centers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sources tell the WSJ that Next Frontier has already signed a joint venture with Fluidstack, a cloud infrastructure startup that penned a $50 billion deal to build data centers for Anthropic. (Coatue did not respond to a request for comment.)
Although the U.S. already has 3,000 data centers, more than 1,500 new ones are in various stages of being built, according to Pew Research, most of them in rural areas. The frenzy is enticing land speculation and data center financing projects from lots of players, ranging from Blackstone to Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank.”
Should this deal come to fruition, it would more than double Fluidstack’s valuation in a matter of months.
In December, the company was reportedly raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg at the time, although it didn’t formally announce the close of that round. That round was said to be led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, and backed by Stripe’s Collison brothers, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and the AI investor and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.
Talks were apparently still ongoing for this round in February, at least with Google, which was considering kicking in $100 million to the round, The Wall Street Journal reported.
There’s good reason for the hype over Fluidstack. In November, Anthropic announced that it had signed a $50 billion deal with the startup to build data centers custom-designed for its needs in Texas and New York. Unlike hyperscalers like AWS, which serve all kinds of computing needs, Fluidstack’s infrastructure is built specifically for AI.
The deal was a huge vote of confidence for Fluidstack, a company that was relatively unknown in the U.S. Anthropic primarily uses AWS and Google Cloud to serve Claude (though it also has a partnership with Microsoft to supply Claude to that software giant’s customers). But just like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is growing so fast that it needs more capacity, and this deal gives Anthropic more control over its own cloud infrastructure.
This partnership is so significant to the startup that Fluidstack — which was spun out of Oxford and had been a rising star in Europe’s AI scene — relocated its headquarters from the U.K. to New York. Last month, it also pulled out of a key €10 billion AI project in France, Bloomberg reported, to focus on U.S. opportunities.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
In addition to Anthropic, it counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others as customers. Prior to the deal with Anthropic, Fluidstack was probably best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.
Fluidstack did not respond to a request for comment.
Should this deal come to fruition, it would more than double Fluidstack’s valuation in a matter of months.
In December, the company was reportedly raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg at the time, although it didn’t formally announce the close of that round. That round was said to be led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, and backed by Stripe’s Collison brothers, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and the AI investor and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.
Talks were apparently still ongoing for this round in February, at least with Google, which was considering kicking in $100 million to the round, The Wall Street Journal reported.
There’s good reason for the hype over Fluidstack. In November, Anthropic announced that it had signed a $50 billion deal with the startup to build data centers custom-designed for its needs in Texas and New York. Unlike hyperscalers like AWS, which serve all kinds of computing needs, Fluidstack’s infrastructure is built specifically for AI.
The deal was a huge vote of confidence for Fluidstack, a company that was relatively unknown in the U.S. Anthropic primarily uses AWS and Google Cloud to serve Claude (though it also has a partnership with Microsoft to supply Claude to that software giant’s customers). But just like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is growing so fast that it needs more capacity, and this deal gives Anthropic more control over its own cloud infrastructure.
This partnership is so significant to the startup that Fluidstack — which was spun out of Oxford and had been a rising star in Europe’s AI scene — relocated its headquarters from the U.K. to New York. Last month, it also pulled out of a key €10 billion AI project in France, Bloomberg reported, to focus on U.S. opportunities.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
In addition to Anthropic, it counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others as customers. Prior to the deal with Anthropic, Fluidstack was probably best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.
Fluidstack did not respond to a request for comment.
#data #center #startup #Fluidstack #talks #18B #valuation #months #hitting #7.5B #report #TechCrunchdata centers,fluidstack,neocloud">AI data center startup Fluidstack in talks for $1B round at $18B valuation months after hitting $7.5B, says report | TechCrunch
Fluidstack, a startup that builds specialized data centers for AI companies, is in talks to raise a $1 billion round at an $18 billion valuation, potentially led by Jane Street, Bloomberg reports.
Should this deal come to fruition, it would more than double Fluidstack’s valuation in a matter of months.
In December, the company was reportedly raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg at the time, although it didn’t formally announce the close of that round. That round was said to be led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, and backed by Stripe’s Collison brothers, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and the AI investor and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.
Talks were apparently still ongoing for this round in February, at least with Google, which was considering kicking in $100 million to the round, The Wall Street Journal reported.
There’s good reason for the hype over Fluidstack. In November, Anthropic announced that it had signed a $50 billion deal with the startup to build data centers custom-designed for its needs in Texas and New York. Unlike hyperscalers like AWS, which serve all kinds of computing needs, Fluidstack’s infrastructure is built specifically for AI.
The deal was a huge vote of confidence for Fluidstack, a company that was relatively unknown in the U.S. Anthropic primarily uses AWS and Google Cloud to serve Claude (though it also has a partnership with Microsoft to supply Claude to that software giant’s customers). But just like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is growing so fast that it needs more capacity, and this deal gives Anthropic more control over its own cloud infrastructure.
This partnership is so significant to the startup that Fluidstack — which was spun out of Oxford and had been a rising star in Europe’s AI scene — relocated its headquarters from the U.K. to New York. Last month, it also pulled out of a key €10 billion AI project in France, Bloomberg reported, to focus on U.S. opportunities.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA|October 13-15, 2026
In addition to Anthropic, it counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others as customers. Prior to the deal with Anthropic, Fluidstack was probably best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.
Fluidstack did not respond to a request for comment.
