Tags: Texas

Google is constructing a new data center in Texas that will employ advanced air‑cooling technology to sharply reduce water use, limiting consumption to essential campus operations such as kitchens. The project follows the company’s previously announced two‑year, $40 billion investment in the state and includes contracts for roughly 7,800 megawatts of net energy generation to support the Texas grid. While the initiative arrives amid growing public concern over the environmental impact of data centers, industry figures like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Tesla’s Elon Musk have voiced differing opinions on the water‑use issue and the potential of space‑based facilities. Weiterlesen

A new analysis published in Nature Communications examines the environmental footprint of the rapid AI‑driven data‑center expansion in the United States. While tech giants pour billions into new facilities, the study finds that location dramatically influences carbon and water impacts. States such as Texas, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota emerge as optimal sites because they balance lower water scarcity with cleaner electricity grids. In contrast, traditional hubs like Virginia and California face growing pressure on energy and water resources, raising doubts about the feasibility of industry net‑zero pledges. Weiterlesen

Google has confirmed that its AI-powered Ask Photos feature is currently unavailable to users in Texas and Illinois. The company cited ongoing efforts to determine how to expand access, while industry observers link the restriction to recent state settlements over biometric data collection in Google Photos. Both Ask Photos and the related Conversational Editing tool rely on facial recognition, which raises legal challenges under state privacy laws that require explicit consent from subjects captured in photos. Weiterlesen

OpenAI has reportedly pledged $300 billion to Oracle over a five‑year period to secure up to 4.5 gigawatts of power for new data‑center capacity, a deal announced by major newspapers and slated to begin in 2027. The agreement, part of OpenAI’s broader push to diversify beyond Microsoft Azure, ties into the company’s Stargate Project, a multi‑billion‑dollar effort to build AI infrastructure with partners including Oracle, Microsoft, Nvidia and Softbank. The deal reflects soaring demand for generative‑AI compute, with U.S. data‑center numbers having nearly doubled since 2021 and power consumption expected to double again by 2035. Weiterlesen