Google’s future data centers will be built next to solar and wind farms
In what it’s calling a “first-of-its-kind partnership,” Google will collaborate with developers to build data centers powered by renewable energy generated on-site.
It’s partnering with energy company Intersect Power and investment firm TPG Rise Climate on a $20 billion initiative to develop an unspecified number of “industrial parks” across the US this decade. The first one is supposed to be partially operational by 2026 and completed by 2027.
If successful, it would be a big change to how data centers are typically built and operated. Google and its competitors are racing to find clean sources of electricity for energy-hungry AI data centers. But the US electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels; connecting new data centers to the power grid leads to more pollution as a result. With this new partnership, Google can bypass that problem by connecting directly to solar and wind farms and batteries for renewable energy.
“To realize AI’s potential, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean power sources. The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink...