In a new report, the Royal Academy of Engineering called upon the government to ensure tech companies accurately report how much energy and water their data centers are using and reducing the use of drinking water for cooling. Without such action, warns one of the report’s authors, Professor Tom Rodden, “we face a real risk that our development, deployment and use of AI could do irreparable damage to the environment.” The situation is a little different for the US as the country has large bodies of water offering a  water supply that the UK just does not have. It’s not an accident that there are many data centers around the Chicago area: they’ve also got the Great Lakes to draw upon. Likewise, the Columbia and Klamath Rivers have become magnets for data centers for both water supply and hydroelectric power. Other than the Thames River, the UK doesn’t have these massive bodies of water. Still, the problem is not unique to the UK, says Alan Howard, senior analyst with Omdia. He notes that Microsoft took heat last year because it was draining the water supply of a small Arizona town of Goodyear with a new AI-oriented data center.  The city of Chandler, Arizona passed an ordinance in 2015 that restricted new water-intensive businesses from setting up shop which slowed data center development.   “I believe some data center operators just bowed out,” said Howard.

Stanish said that, in 2023, she wrote a paper that predicted “by 2028, more than 70% of multinational enterprises will alter their data center strategies due to limited energy supplies and data center moratoriums, up from only about 5% in 2023. It has been interesting watching this trend evolve as expected, with Ireland being a major force in this conversation since the boycotts against data center growth started a few years ago.” Fair, equitable, and stable electricity allocation, she said, “means that the availability of electricity for digital services is not guaranteed in the future, and I expect these policies, data center moratoriums, and regional rejections will only continue and expand moving forward.” Stanish pointed out that this trend is not just occurring in Ireland. “Many studies show that, globally, enterprises’ digital technologies are consuming energy at a faster rate than overall growth in energy supply (though, to be clear, these studies mostly assume a static position on energy efficiency of current technologies, and don’t take into account potential for nuclear or hydrogen to assuage some of these supply issues).” If taken at face value, she said, this means that a lack of resources could cause widespread electricity shortages in data centers over the next several years. To mitigate this, Stanish said, “so far, data center moratoriums and related constraints (including reduced tax incentives) have been enacted in the US (specifically Virginia and Georgia), Denmark, Singapore, and other countries, in response to concerns about the excessive energy consumption of IT, particularly regarding compute-intense AI workloads and concerns regarding an IT energy monopoly in certain regions. As a result, governments (federal, state, county, etc.) are working to ensure that consumption does not outpace capacity.” Changes needed In its report, the CRU stated, “a safe and secure supply of energy is essential

President Trump announced a$500 billion private sector investment in the nation’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure last month. The investment will come from The Stargate Project, a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX, which intends to build 20 new AI data centers in the U.S in the next four to five years. The Stargate Project committed$100 billion for immediate deployment and construction has already begun on its first data center in Texas. At approximately a half a million square feet each, the partners say these new facilities will cement America’s leadership in AI, create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Stargate is not the only game in town, either. Microsoft is expected to invest$80 billion in AI data center development in 2025, with Google, AWS and Meta also spending big. While all this investment in AI infrastructure is certainly exciting, experts say there’s one lingering question that’s yet to be answered and it’s a big one: How are we going to power all these AI data centers? This will be one of the many questions tackled duringMicrogrid Knowledge’s annual conference, which will be held in Texas April 15-17 at the Sheraton Dallas. “Powering Data Centers: Collaborative Microgrid Solutions for a Growing Market” will be one of the key sessions on April 16. Industry experts will gather to discuss how private entities, developers and utilities can work together to deploy microgrids and distributed energy technologies that address the data center industry’s power needs. The panel will share solutions, technologies and strategies that will favorably position data centers in the energy queue. In advance of this session, we sat down with two microgrid experts to learn more about the challenges facing the data center industry and how microgrids can address the sector’s growing energy needs. We spoke with Michael Stadler, co-founder and

Iron Mountain Northern Virginia Overview Iron Mountain’s Northern Virginia data centers VA-1 through VA-7 are situated on a 142-acre highly secure campus in Prince William County, Virginia. Located at 11680 Hayden Road in Manassas, Iron Mountain VA-1 spans 167,958 sq. ft. and harbors 12.4 MW of total capacity to meet colocation needs. The 36 MW VA-2 facility stands nearby. The total campus features a mixture of single and multi-tenant facilities which together provide more than 2,000,000 SF of highly efficient green colocation space for enterprises, federal agencies, service providers and hyperscale clouds.  The company notes that its Manassas campus offers tax savings compared to Ashburn and exceptional levels of energy-efficiency as well as a diverse and accessible ecosystem of cloud, network and other service providers.  Iron Mountain’s Virginia campus has 9 total planned data centers, with 5 operational facilities to date and two more data centers coming soon. VA-2 recently became the first data center in the United States to achieve DCOS Maturity Level 3.    As we continued the tour, Kinra led the way toward the break room, an area where customers can grab coffee or catch up on work. Unlike the high-end aesthetic of some other colocation providers, Iron Mountain’s approach is more practical and focused on functionality. At the secure shipping and receiving area, Kinra explained the process for handling customer equipment. “This is where our customers ship their equipment into,” he said. “They submit a ticket, send their shipments in, and we’ll take it, put it aside for them, and let them know when it’s here. Sometimes they ask us to take it to their environment, which we’ll do for them via a smart hands ticket.” Power Infrastructure and Security Measures The VA-1 campus is supported by a single substation, providing the necessary power for its growing

Land and Expand is a periodic feature at Data Center Frontier highlighting the latest data center development news, including new sites, land acquisitions and campus expansions. Here are some of the new and notable developments from hyperscale and colocation data center developers and operators about which we’ve been reading lately. DPO to Develop $200 Million AI Data Center in Wisconsin Rapids; Strategic Partnership with Billerud’s CWPCo Unlocks Hydroelectric Power for High-Density AI Compute Digital Power Optimization (DPO) is moving forward with plans to build a $200 million high-performance computing (HPC) data center in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. The project, designed to support up to 20 megawatts (MW) of artificial intelligence (AI) computing, leverages an innovative partnership with Consolidated Water Power Company (CWPCo), a subsidiary of global packaging leader Billerud. DPO specializes in developing and operating data centers optimized for power-dense computing. By partnering with utilities and independent power producers, DPO colocates its facilities at energy generation sites, ensuring direct access to sustainable power for AI, HPC, and blockchain computing. The company is privately held. Leveraging Power Infrastructure for Speed-to-Energization CWPCo, a regulated utility subsidiary, has operated hydroelectric generation assets since 1894, reliably serving industrial and commercial customers in Wisconsin Rapids, Biron, and Stevens Point. Parent company Billerud is a global leader in high-performance packaging materials, committed to sustainability and innovation. The company operates nine production facilities across Sweden, the USA, and Finland, employing 5,800 people in over 19 countries.  The data center will be powered by CWPCo’s renewable hydroelectric assets, tapping into the utility’s existing 32 megawatts of generation capacity. The partnership grants DPO a long-term land lease—extending up to 50 years—alongside interconnection rights to an already-energized substation and a firm, reliable power supply. “AI infrastructure is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and access to power-dense sites is critical,” said Andrew

His projections account for recent advances in AI and data center efficiency, he says. For example, the open-source AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek seems to have shown that an LLM can produce very high-quality results at a very low cost with some clever architectural changes to how the models work. These improvements are likely to be quickly replicated by other AI companies. “A lot of these companies are trying to push out more efficient models,” says Fung. “There’s a lot of effort to reduce costs and to make it more efficient.” In addition, hyperscalers are designing and building their own chips, optimized for their AI workloads. Just the accelerator market alone is projected to reach $392 billion by 2029, Dell’Oro predicts. By that time, custom accelerators will outpace commercially available accelerators such as GPUs. The deployment of dedicated AI servers also has an impact on networking, power and cooling. As a result, spending on data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) will also increase, though at a more moderate pace, growing by 14% annually to $61 billion in 2029.  “DCPI deployments are a prerequisite to support AI workloads,” says Tam Dell’Oro, founder of Dell’Oro Group, in the report. The research firm raised its outlook in this area due to the fact that actual 2024 results exceeded its expectations, and demand is spreading from tier one to tier two cloud service providers. In addition, governments and tier one telecom operators are getting involved in data center expansion, making it a long-term trend.