From Meta and Nvidia’s blockbuster AI infrastructure partnership and xAI’s wave of senior departures to high-profile cloud migrations and multi-billion-dollar transmission expansions, it’s been another packed stretch for the sector. Plus, how could ordinary oven glass help transform long-term data storage? Here’s a roundup of the latest data center developments.

Notable Deals and Company Moves

One of the biggest deals came from Meta and Nvidia, which signed a sweeping, multi-year partnership spanning CPUs, GPUs, and networking. Meta will deploy “millions” of Nvidia chips – including the first large-scale rollout of Nvidia’s standalone Grace CPUs – across AI-optimized data centers, reinforcing the industry’s larger shift toward vertically integrated AI infrastructure stacks.

Elsewhere, Elon Musk’s xAI saw a wave of senior departures – including co-founders – following its acquisition by SpaceX. In total, at least 11 employees have left the company within the past two weeks, and half of the company's 12-person founding team have departed in the past year.

Internationally, India’s Adani Group unveiled a massive $100 billion plan for renewable-powered, AI-ready data centers by 2035, anchored by hyperscale partnerships with Google and Microsoft and building on its existing AdaniConneX footprint. The commitment cements India’s status as a formidable power player in the global AI ecosystem. In parallel, Yotta Data Services committed more than $2 billion to deploy over 20,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs in Noida, India, while Australia’s Firmus secured a $10 billion debt facility to roll out Nvidia-based AI factories nationwide.

In acquisition news, Trane Technologies has acquired liquid cooling firm LiquidStack to integrate direct-to-chip and immersion cooling into its global portfolio, positioning the HVAC giant to provide end-to-end thermal management for AI workloads.

Lastly, in a move highlighting the human cost of operational efficiency, Australian telco Telstra is cutting 209 jobs at its $495 million AI joint venture with Accenture, replacing roles with AI automation and offshoring others to India.

Cloud Migration and Spend: Goodbye Legacy Systems

In cloud news, there were multiple high-profile migrations from aging hardware. The UK’s HM Courts and Tribunals Service completed a multi-year migration of 37 legacy applications out of fragile, failure-prone data centers and into cloud platforms. Many of the systems were so old that finding replacement parts was “nearly impossible.” Across the Atlantic, the US Navy shut down 25 legacy IT systems as part of its modernization effort, shifting to the cloud, freeing funds, and reducing attack surfaces. Acting CIO Barry Tanner said there are hundreds more legacy systems that still need to be modernized or consolidated.

Meanwhile, Anthropic expects its cloud spend to reach $80 billion through 2029, spread across AWS, Google, and Microsoft, with increasingly complex revenue-sharing models. That massive spend comes as Synergy Research reports enterprise cloud infrastructure spend jumped $12 billion in Q4 2025 alone, driven primarily by generative AI workloads.

Sovereignty is another area seeing a surge in spending. Gartner forecasts European sovereign cloud IaaS spending will nearly triple by 2027 as organizations hedge regulatory and geopolitical risk.

Energy Updates: Guarantees, Gridlock, and Gigawatts

Energy procurement continues to define who can build, where, and how fast – and clean energy is a large part of that equation. BloombergNEF found that Meta, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft accounted for 49% of all corporate clean-energy procurement in 2025, even as overall corporate PPA volumes dipped slightly year over year. The latest energy news from Mountain View and Redmond exemplify that: Google signed a 150MW geothermal PPA in Nevada to support data center operations, while Microsoft reported it matched 100% of its 2025 electricity consumption with renewables, backed by more than 40GW of contracted capacity – 19GW of which are already online.

At the same time, natural gas remains firmly in the mix. Fermi America received the first turbines for its planned 11GW campus in Amarillo, Texas, Meta is deploying behind-the-meter modular gas units for its El Paso, Texas project, and natural gas provider Solaris Energy signed a 500MW AI-focused power deal.

Elsewhere, Iron Mountain partnered with Calibrant Energy to deploy a 23MWh on-site battery energy storage system at its New Jersey data center, integrated with rooftop solar – another sign that BESS is moving toward mainstream adoption.

All this while utilities are scrambling to keep pace with demand. American Electric Power added 28GW of new large-load demand to its interconnection pipeline, with roughly 80% tied to big tech while the UK’s Ofgem launched a sweeping review of connection rules with a specific focus on data centers. In the US, PJM Interconnection approved a stunning $11.8 billion transmission upgrade and expansion plan aimed squarely at meeting surging data center demand across its 15-state footprint. Roughly $4.8 billion of that is allocated to “Data Center Alley” in Northern Virginia.

Against this backdrop, Anthropic pledged to cover 100% of grid-upgrade costs tied to its data center growth, invest in new generation, and deploy demand-curtailment systems during peak periods.

Global Development Watch

In development news, Texas continues its ascent: JLL projects it will become the world’s largest data center market by 2030, overtaking Virginia. Of the more than 35GW of data center capacity under construction in North America, Texas alone accounts for 6.5GW.

Meanwhile, CyrusOne advanced a 760MW Texas project colocated with a natural gas plant, Google broke ground on a second campus in Kansas City, Missouri, and Meta announced a 1GW Indiana campus and quietly expanded its massive Hyperion site in Louisiana.

Beyond the US, steady expansion is also unfolding across Europe and Australia – often at smaller but strategically important scales. In the UK, edge provider Pulsant completed a £10 million expansion of its Milton Keynes data center, adding a 1.2MW AI-ready hall for regulated and latency-sensitive workloads. In Poland, Cisco confirmed plans for a 4MW data center in Krakow that will pair production capacity with AI-focused R&D labs. French AI firm Mistral is investing $1.2 billion to build an EcoDataCenter facility in Sweden. Meanwhile, Australia’s Goodman Group added a massive 1GW to its global data center power bank, bringing available capacity to 6GW – primarily across Australia and Europe.

Not every project makes it through. Brennan Investment Group withdrew a $2 billion proposal outside Chicago after resident opposition, while Vantage Data Centers was denied permission to build a data center near Frankfurt. Lastly, an Illinois arrest underscored how heated local opposition to data center development can become.

Next-Gen Tech

Meanwhile, next-gen innovations continue to show what’s possible. A biomass-powered “green AI” data center planned in Croatia would be fueled by waste from the olive industry. In a quest for 10,000-year data durability, Microsoft researchers have reportedly discovered that ordinary borosilicate glass – the same material used in oven doors and cookware – can replace expensive fused silica, making "forever" archival storage commercially viable.

Cadence also launched an agentic AI tool promising major productivity gains in chip design and testing. Meanwhile, Alphabet spin-off Taara has unveiled a wireless optical solution that promises to “instantly upgrade” existing networks to fiber-like speeds over the air, bypassing the years-long "trenching and permitting" headache with 20Gbps capacity and 99.999% reliability.

Lastly, Space startup Starcloud is taking AWS Outposts into orbit this October, the first step in a staggering plan to deploy an 88,000-satellite constellation that brings high-performance cloud infrastructure to space.