Who pays for AI’s electricity? Data centers spark debate over rising power costs

Advocacy groups and community members protest laws surrounding data centers while outside the Texas Capitol in Austin Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. Austin American-statesman/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images The companies racing to build the massive infrastructure needed for the artificial intelligence boom are facing growing backlash over electricity costs, as households and policymakers question…

Read More

Europe switches on first microgrid data center in Dublin

Just outside Ireland’s capital, Dublin, a data center has become the first in Europe to turn to an independent, so-called “islanded,” microgrid to keep its servers running. Europe is looking to cash in on the AI boom while tackling power connection delays that have persisted for decades. The European Commission estimates the bloc needs at…

Read More

AI chipmaker Cerebras namedropped by Oracle, alongside Nvidia and AMD

As AI chipmaker Cerebras angles for an eventual IPO, the company appears to have landed a significant cloud-computing customer: Oracle. On a conference call with analysts on Tuesday following Oracle’s quarterly earnings, Clay Magouyrk, one of the software vendor’s two CEOs, indicated that his company’s infrastructure includes Cerebras chips, alongside graphics processing units (GPUs) from…

Read More