From Amazon's multibillion-dollar fiber pact with Corning and a fresh shareholder lawsuit rattling Microsoft to the DOJ stepping in to defend xAI's gas turbines in Memphis, it's been another packed stretch for the sector. Plus, a data center cluster made out of 2,000 retired smartphones? Here's a roundup of the latest data center developments.

Market News: Microsoft's Lawsuit, SpaceX's Cursor Buy

Microsoft is facing a shareholder class action lawsuit over its AI and cloud spending, with plaintiffs alleging it concealed ballooning capex needs and Copilot struggles, including allegations that Copilot lagged rival AI offerings. It echoes a similar investor suit against Oracle earlier this year over its OpenAI-linked debt. Meanwhile, Amazon struck a multibillion-dollar optical fiber deal with Corning, promising 1,000 North Carolina jobs and extending Corning's streak of AI-era connectivity deals with Meta and Nvidia.

In an even bigger swing, SpaceX agreed to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion in stock just days after the rocket-maker’s record Nasdaq debut, setting up a direct challenge to Anthropic and OpenAI in AI-assisted coding. And on the hardware side, AMD acquired storage software startup MEXT, picking up memory-tiering tech that lets flash storage mimic DRAM.

Policy and Regulation: Loosening Standards, DOJ Intervention

Federal policy continues shifting toward data center deregulation. Wired reports the Trump administration and Congress have no plans to renew the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act before it expires in September. The law sets minimum federal standards for uptime, cyber resilience, and energy efficiency; letting it lapse could accelerate federal builds while leaving future standards to agencies and local jurisdictions. Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin rebuffed calls for nationwide data center environmental standards, telling Politico states and communities know best.

On AI safety, Anthropic was forced to disable its Fable and Mythos models for foreign users after the US government imposed export controls following an Amazon-flagged jailbreak claim (that Anthropic disputes). And in Mississippi, Trump’s DOJ has intervened in a highly publicized NAACP lawsuit over xAI's unpermitted gas turbines. In a move likely to be closely watched by legal and environmental observers, the government asked a judge to throw out the case, arguing that restricting power to the Memphis-area AI facility could threaten national security – and asserting federal authority to halt the citizen-led environmental lawsuit.

Energy and Power: PPAs and UK Curtailment

Solar PPAs kept stacking up. Meta added a 298MW deal with RWE in Bowie County, Texas and a 180MW agreement with Zelestra in Freestone County, bringing its total contracted capacity with Zelestra to 1.4GW. In Australia, Naturgy brought online two solar plants tied to Telstra contracts in New South Wales and Queensland.

On the grid side, Circe Energy secured 2GW of natural gas capacity from Cummins for its West Texas AI campus, FERC approved a PJM fast-track interconnection process for large projects able to come online within three years, and Google-backed Tapestry completed its first AI-assisted review of PJM's interconnection queue, processing over 800 applications in under an hour.

Meanwhile, Ofgem is weighing mandatory power curtailment rules for UK data centers, according to Bloomberg, and the EU launched two initiatives to better integrate data centers into its energy grid, including a new AI model for grid planning. Smaller but notable: Amazon disclosed its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, down slightly year-over-year.

US Development: Pushback Mounts, Builds Continue

Public enthusiasm for data center development appears to be fading fast. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 33% of Americans view rapid data center construction favorably, with most opposed to one nearby. Even more notable: more than 75 data center projects worth roughly $130 billion were blocked or delayed in Q1 2026 alone, according to Data Center Watch – matching the total for all of 2025. This comes as at least 69 local moratoriums are now in place nationwide. Meanwhile, in Utah, Governor Spencer Cox set a "higher bar" for data center approvals, following backlash over Kevin O'Leary's downsized Stratos Project.

Despite mounting community opposition, builds continue: Amazon committed $10 billion to a new Montgomery County, Missouri campus, Google is adding $1.5 billion to its Jackson County, Alabama site, Microsoft broke ground on a 48MW campus in San Jose, and CyrusOne started work on a 380MW Texas facility colocated with a Calpine gas plant.

International Development: France Leads, Iren Enters Spain

France continues angling to become Europe's AI infrastructure capital: Data4 confirmed a €5 billion ($5.8 billion), 700MW campus on a former steelworks site in Escaudain. Meanwhile, in Spain, Iren completed its acquisition of developer Nostrum, picking up 490MW of secured power. Ireland approved Red Admiral's €1 billion ($1.16 billion), 600-acre data center and solar farm in Westmeath. Lastly, officials in Hamilton, Canada denied Slate Asset Management's data center proposal after an eight-hour meeting dominated by resident opposition.

Next-Gen Technology: Recycled Phones, a New 6G Forecast

Google is backing a unique UC San Diego project repurposing 2,000 retired Pixel phones into a low-cost, low-carbon computing cluster, managed via Kubernetes and delivering roughly the compute capacity of 50 servers. Meanwhile, Dell'Oro forecasts cumulative 6G RAN capex will top $500 billion by 2034, with AI built into the radio network from day one. And Ribbon Communications launched "Network in a Box," a rugged, zero-touch edge platform aimed at defense and disaster-recovery deployments.