Equinix

A nonprofit data center advocacy group, the Data Center Coalition, has launched ad campaigns in multiple states including Oregon, Ohio, and North Carolina to counter criticism of data centers' resource demands and promote their economic benefits. The campaigns, funded by state-specific groups like Oregon Connects, emphasize investments in clean energy and job creation by tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

The Data Center Coalition, an industry group backed by large tech companies, launched ad campaigns through state-specific nonprofits in Oregon, Virginia, and five other states to counter criticisms of data centers. These campaigns highlight investments in clean energy and job creation while addressing concerns about resource use and tax incentives.

President Donald Trump announced a voluntary pledge with governors and companies to prevent higher utility bills from data centers, despite analysts warning bills could rise 40%. The pledge, signed by 23 governors and 187 companies, aims to address electricity demand from AI-driven data centers, though skepticism remains about its effectiveness.

Utility companies and data center developers in the US have signed a pledge under President Donald Trump to protect consumers from rising electricity bills linked to AI's energy demands. Nearly 200 organizations, including NextEra Energy, Duke Energy, Equinix, and Digital Realty, joined the 'rate payer protection pledge' introduced in March.

Amazon Web Services faces a lawsuit alleging it made false and misleading claims about water use and sustainability in Northern Virginia datacenters. The plaintiff, Dr. Nathan Wangusi, a former AWS water sustainability program manager, used FOIA requests to obtain data showing discrepancies between AWS's public water consumption figures and internal records. The lawsuit criticizes AWS for not disclosing methodology, comparison periods, or inclusion of third-party colocation facilities in its sustainability claims.

A heat wave in Virginia caused a data center to emit dark smoke as diesel generators were activated to manage power grid stress. PJM's demand-response program incentivized reduced grid usage, with data centers like Digital Realty participating to prevent outages. Environmental concerns arose over fossil fuel use for backup power during the July 2026 event.

South Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI has deployed its RNGD AI accelerators at Equinix's Lisbon datacenter, targeting European demand for sovereign AI compute. The RNGD cards offer 48 GB HBM3, 1.5 TB/s bandwidth, and 512 teraFLOPS of FP8 performance with an 180W TDP, while Furiosa collaborates with Broadcom on a next-gen chip using HBM4 memory.

The Open Compute Project is promoting the reuse of excess datacenter heat to local governments as a way to address community concerns about new datacenter construction. The initiative highlights environmental and economic benefits while acknowledging challenges in cost justification and policy coordination. The effort comes amid growing protests against datacenter expansion plans by major tech companies.