All Eyes on Intel
In an extraordinary development, the U.S. government has agreed to take a 10% stake in Intel, with the option to increase its share to 15% if the company divests its foundry business. White House officials clarified the government won't have a direct role on Intel's board or be involved in its decision-making, while also mentioning the potential for similar deals going forward. Intel CFO David Zinser said that the company has already received $5.7 billion from the government.
Days earlier, SoftBank announced a $2 billion investment in Intel, making it the chipmaker’s fifth-largest shareholder. The developments show just how strategically vital – and precarious – Intel’s role is in the AI hardware arms race.
Mega-Deals, Expansions, and Another Fire
Hyperscale spending continues. Meta has signed a $10 billion cloud deal with Google for AI infrastructure spanning six years. President Trump also casually revealed that Meta’s Louisiana “Hyperion” AI campus may cost $50 billion rather than the originally touted $10 billion – a massive escalation even by hyperscale standards.
On the expansion front, Google announced a $9 billion expansion in Virginia, including a new Chesterfield County campus. Vantage unveiled a $25 billion, 1.4GW project in Texas, plus an $8 billion campus in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Zenith got approval for a 1.24GW site in New Mexico, Applied Digital will break ground on a 280MW AI campus in North Dakota, and EdgeConneX teamed with Lambda on AI-centric builds in Chicago and Atlanta.
Lastly, in Virginia, a fire at a Chirisa Technology Parks data center facility raised fresh concerns over the safety challenges inherent in high-voltage systems and lithium-ion storage. Though contained and without injuries, the incident adds to a series of recent fires across AWS, Equinix, Digital Realty, and others, underscoring the ongoing need for improved fire prevention and resilience measures.
New Energy Projects: Gas Reigns
In energy news, Meta signed a 100MW solar deal in South Carolina with Silicon Ranch. In Louisiana, Entergy got approval to build three new gas plants totaling 2.26GW to feed Meta’s Hyperion campus, along with a previously announced $1.2 billion transmission line. And in Texas, Pacifico Energy unveiled a 5GW off-grid gas project designed explicitly to help serve AI data centers.
Water Regulations and Community Resistance
Growing regulatory hurdles and local opposition continue to challenge large-scale data center projects. Tucson has enacted one of the nation’s first water standards specifically for data centers, mandating that large users offset at least 30% of their potable water consumption with recycled water and submit detailed conservation plans. While aimed at protecting limited desert resources, the measure could also serve as a model for other municipalities facing water stress, signaling the start of a broader policy trend.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, residents are pushing back on planned $1.2 billion University of Michigan data centers. And in Virginia, Diode scrapped a 500-acre campus after sustained local opposition. Similarly, Gigaland has withdrawn plans for its 800MW data center campus in Fauquier County, Virginia following community pushback.
Quantum, Photonics, and More
Finally, innovation news offered a potential glimpse of the future. Lightmatter claims its new photonic chip interconnect increases wavelength density eight-fold, potentially lowering costs for AI-heavy workloads. Meanwhile, Orca Computing has installed photonic quantum computers at Montana State University. Speaking of quantum, IBM and AMD have joined forces to explore “quantum-centric supercomputing.” And Nvidia is now pitching its Spectrum-XGS tech as a way to make multiple data centers act like one giant GPU. Intriguing.