AI data centers dominated PowerGen, revealing how inference-driven demand, grid limits, and self-built power are reshaping the energy industry.
The post PowerGen’s Shock Pivot: How AI Data Centers Hijacked an Energy Conference appeared first on TechRepublic.
AI data centers dominated PowerGen, revealing how inference-driven demand, grid limits, and self-built power are reshaping the energy industry.
The post PowerGen’s Shock Pivot: How AI Data Centers Hijacked an Energy Conference appeared first on TechRepublic.
AI company says its Stargate AI data centers will pay their own way on energy, aiming to scale US infrastructure without raising local electricity rates.
The post OpenAI Says Stargate Data Centers Won’t Raise Local Power Bills appeared first on TechRepublic.
AI company says its Stargate AI data centers will pay their own way on energy, aiming to scale US infrastructure without raising local electricity rates.
The post OpenAI Says Stargate Data Centers Won’t Raise Local Power Bills appeared first on TechRepublic.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it’ll be ramping up an ultra-high-speed satellite data network called TeraWave, which will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink network for business from data centers, large-scale enterprises and government customers.
The service appears to dovetail with Amazon Leo, the satellite-based broadband internet service that was Bezos’ brainchild while he served as Amazon’s CEO. Amazon Leo — previously known as Project Kuiper — promises downlink speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). In contrast, TeraWave is targeting higher-end data applications with symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second (Tbps), a rate that’s 6,000 times faster.
In today’s announcement, Blue Origin said TeraWave’s constellation would consist of 5,408 laser-linked satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO). It plans to start deploying the satellites in late 2027, presumably using the company’s New Glenn rockets.
Blue Origin’s plans are discussed in an application and technical annex filed today with the Federal Communications Commission. In its application, the company is seeking waivers from several regulatory requirements in order to get TeraWave off the ground quickly.
“TeraWave addresses the unmet needs of customers who are seeking higher throughput, symmetrical upload/download speeds, more redundancy and rapid scalability,” Blue Origin said. An array of 5,280 satellites in LEO would provide access speeds of up to 144 Gbps, while another 128 satellites in MEO would offer terabit-level speeds.
Blue Origin said the multi-orbit network design would facilitate ultra-high-throughput links between global hubs and distributed gigabit-scale user connections, particularly in parts of the world that are not well-served by optical fiber connections.
TeraWave could give Blue Origin a bigger role in knitting together a rapidly growing ecosystem of data centers and companies that are dependent on ultra-high-speed connections. SpaceX also plans to go after that market with Starlink V3 satellites that are said to be capable of terabit-level downlink speeds.
But what about Amazon, which is in the process of putting more than 3,200 satellites into low Earth orbit for Amazon Leo? Tech consultant Tim Farrar, the founder of TMF Associates, said the emergence of TeraWave raises questions about the relationship between the two best-known companies founded by Bezos.
“This is a very different design from Amazon Leo/Kuiper, but there is certainly overlap with Amazon’s target customers in the government and enterprise sectors,” Farrar told GeekWire in an email. “Is this all part of an ongoing negotiation with Amazon? … Or an alternative source of launch demand [for Blue Origin] in case Amazon decides to scale back their near-term space investments while they try to prove the case for Amazon Leo Gen1, before spending more money to launch a Gen2 system?”
Farrar speculated that the TeraWave initiative might represent an effort by Bezos to pressure Amazon’s current leadership to keep investing in space, or to spin off the Leo system to Blue Origin. He also said Blue Origin (Bezos’ private space venture) may be in a better position than Amazon (the publicly traded retail giant) to build out a next-generation satellite network.
“One takeaway is that everyone recognizes the value of vertical integration, where rocket makers create their own launch demand by building a constellation, as SpaceX has done,” Farrar said. “Amazon doesn’t have that right now, and it is a problem when you want to develop a mass-market satellite system with good enough economics to meet consumer price points, because you end up paying the full retail price for your launches.”
Bitcoin’s network power dipped this week, falling back under the one-zettahash mark after several months above it. Reports show the seven-day average hashrate near 993 EH/s, a clear pullback from last year’s highs.
Reports say big AI data centers are buying long-term power contracts and willing to pay more for steady, round-the-clock electricity, pushing some miners to cut or shift operations. This competition has changed who gets the cheapest power on the grid.
Some publicly traded miners are closing deals to lease space to chipmakers and AI firms, turning parts of their sites into AI data centers. One large miner signed a multi-year lease with a major chip company, showing how companies are hedging against volatile mining profits.
On Monday, StandardHash CEO and founder Leon Lyu said on X that the drop came as Bitcoin miners shifted electricity toward AI computing to chase better profit margins.
Electricity is the single biggest cost for mining. When data centers bid for the same megawatts, miners face a straight choice: pay more, accept narrower margins, or repurpose capacity.
Bitcoin Hashrate Alert: A Shift in the Mining Landscape
For the first time since Sept 2025, BTC’s 7-day average hashrate has fallen below 1 ZH/s. A -4.34% difficulty adjustment is expected in ~3 days.
What’s driving the exodus?
1⃣ The AI Pivot: Major mining firms are… pic.twitter.com/hg8O8xBIkx
— Leon Lyu (@LeonLyuLv) January 19, 2026
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The network’s difficulty has been eased a bit by the drop in hashpower, which keeps block times roughly steady, but that mechanical fix does not change who holds the power contracts.
PJM, the grid operator serving the mid-Atlantic, has moved quickly to propose rules aimed at handling surging AI demand.
The plan asks large new power users to take responsibility for their own supply or accept curtailment rules so essential services and homes do not face outages. These moves are meant to limit the strain that rapid AI growth could place on the system.
Bitcoin Vs. AI: Policy Moves And Political Pressure
US President Donald Trump and several state leaders have urged steps that would make tech firms pay more to secure power, including proposals for emergency auctions to fund new plants.
The pressure reflects worry about higher bills and the risk that expanding data centers could crowd out other users.
What Miners Are Doing To Stay AliveMany operators are not only shutting rigs when power gets costly; they are retrofitting sites to host GPUs and other AI hardware.
That change can mean steadier revenue and longer contracts than mining alone would offer. It also signals a structural shift: bitcoin mining is becoming one part of a broader compute business for some companies.
Block rewards and protocol rules still secure the network. But if hashrate stays lower for a long stretch, planners and investors will watch whether centralization rises in places where power stays cheap.
For everyday users, the system keeps producing blocks; for miners, the contest for electricity is now a defining business problem.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Someone listening to last week’s GeekWire Podcast caught something we missed: a misleading comment by Alexa during our voice ordering demo — illustrating the challenges of ordering by voice vs. screen. We followed up with Amazon, which says it has fixed the underlying bug.
On this week’s show, we play the audio of the order again. Can you catch it?
Plus, Microsoft announces a “community first” approach to AI data centers after backlash over power and water usage — and President Trump scooped us on the story. We discuss the larger issues and play a highlight from our interview with Microsoft President Brad Smith.
Also: the technology capturing images of every fan at Lumen Field, UK police blame Copilot for a hallucinated soccer match, and Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman departs six months after the company’s acquisition by Rocket.
Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Audio editing by Curt Milton.
President Donald Trump pressures Microsoft and Big Tech to cover the costs of powering AI data centers as rising electricity bills spark consumer concerns.
The post Trump Warns Microsoft: Don’t Make Americans Pay for AI Electricity appeared first on TechRepublic.
President Donald Trump pressures Microsoft and Big Tech to cover the costs of powering AI data centers as rising electricity bills spark consumer concerns.
The post Trump Warns Microsoft: Don’t Make Americans Pay for AI Electricity appeared first on TechRepublic.
President Trump was right about Microsoft — but he only leaked part of the story.
Microsoft is changing its approach to building massive data centers for artificial intelligence, unveiling what it calls a “community first” initiative in response to growing opposition from people across the country facing higher electricity bills and dwindling water supplies.
The new plan, announced Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C, includes pledges to pay the company’s full power costs, reject local property tax breaks, replenish more water than it uses, train local workers, and invest in AI education and community programs.
“This sector worked one way in the past, and needs to work in some different ways going forward,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft president and vice chair, in an interview with GeekWire. He later described the shift as “both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.”
Trump made headlines Monday night with a Truth Social post in advance of the news, saying his administration has been working with tech companies “to secure their commitment to the American People.” He called Microsoft “first up” and said it would “make major changes … to ensure that Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their POWER consumption.”
Microsoft’s rollout comes at a critical juncture for tech.
Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and others are betting hundreds of billions of dollars on AI, but those ambitions hinge on their ability to build out the infrastructure to support them — a prospect that depends increasingly on the cooperation of local communities that have grown skeptical of the costs and tradeoffs.
Smith said Microsoft has been developing its initiative since September. He described it as a response to shifting public sentiment — which he witnessed firsthand during visits to his home state of Wisconsin for Microsoft’s data center expansion. Back in 2024, local residents wanted to talk about jobs. By last October, the big topics were electricity prices and water use.
“We saw this catch fire, to a degree, for many other companies in many other places around the country as each month unfolded,” he said.
In data‑center hubs such as Virginia, Illinois and Ohio, residential power prices jumped 12–16% over the past year — noticeably faster than the U.S. average, according to U.S. government data — as grid operators scrambled to add capacity for large new facilities.
The issue has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Last month, three Democratic senators launched an investigation into whether tech giants are raising residential power bills, sending letters to Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta. An Amazon-funded study found that the company more than covers the utility costs associated with its electricity use in some regions.
Microsoft’s new approach, as outlined in a post by Smith, is a clear departure from its own past practices. The company has accepted tax abatements for data centers in states including Ohio and Iowa, and its identity was kept under wraps in a Michigan township until recently.
In the interview, Smith promised new levels of transparency.
He acknowledged that the traditional approach in the industry was for companies to buy land under nondisclosure agreements to avoid driving up prices — giving them a competitive edge but leaving communities in the dark about who was moving in and how they would operate.
“That is clearly not the path that’s going to take us forward,” he said. The companies that succeed with data centers in the long run, he added, “will be the companies that have a strong and healthy relationship with local communities.”
Asked if Microsoft hopes to inspire or compel others to follow suit, Smith stopped short of positioning Microsoft as the sole leader, crediting Amazon for “really good and well-executed work in this space” while adding that “the industry is going to need to set a higher bar for itself.”
Microsoft’s plan starts by addressing the electricity issue, pledging to work with utilities and regulators to ensure its electricity costs aren’t passed on to residential customers. Smith cited a new “Very Large Customers” rate structure in Wisconsin as a model, where data centers pay the full cost of the power they use, including grid upgrades required to support them.
The company’s other commitments include:
Microsoft did not say how much it plans to spend on these new initiatives, separate from its broader capital expenditures, which approached $35 billion in its first fiscal quarter.
Asked if the company would truly be able to follow through on all of these commitments, Smith said, “we have to follow through.” Internally, he said, Microsoft is “bringing some groups together” and “adding resources” to execute the plan, describing it as essential to the company’s long-term business strategy.
As for how Microsoft’s position squares with OpenAI’s push for federal incentives to support large-scale AI infrastructure projects, Smith drew a distinction. He said he supports federal help with permitting and land access, but not electricity subsidies.
“When it comes to things like electricity prices, when it comes to the water system, when it comes to training for local jobs, these are local issues,” he said.
Smith’s post references the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan and pledges to work with the Department of Labor on workforce programs. Microsoft says it will announce specific community partnerships during the first week of July, timed to America’s 250th anniversary.
TerraPower, a Bill Gates-backed next-gen nuclear company, on Friday announced a deal with Meta to build up to eight small modular reactors in the U.S. with the first two coming online as soon as 2032.
Tech companies have been aggressively pursuing new clean energy solutions as they race to build power-hungry data centers that support burgeoning AI services.
TerraPower’s deal with Meta will provide the tech giant with up to 2.8 gigawatts of energy using its Natrium nuclear technology. The facilities include an energy storage system, which can provide shorter-term bursts of power that bring the total output to 4 gigawatts.
The contract with the Bellevue, Wash.-based company marks Meta’s largest single nuclear deal to date.
“To successfully address growing energy demand, we must deploy gigawatts of advanced nuclear energy in the 2030s. This agreement with Meta is designed to support the rapid deployment of our Natrium technology that provides the reliable, flexible, and carbon-free power our country needs,” Chris Levesque, TerraPower president and CEO, said in a statement.
The news is an endorsement of TerraPower’s approach, said Andrew Richards, the company’s vice president of government affairs, in a GeekWire interview. The company landed the deal after participating in Meta’s request for proposal.
“They chose us out of all other advanced reactor developers and said they have strong confidence in our technology,” Richards said.
Meta and Terrapower “are looking all over the country,” to select a location for the first facility containing the dual reactors, he added.. If all are eight are ultimately constructed, the reactors should be operational by 2035.
Meta’s announcement includes additional partnerships with Vistra and Oklo:
Meta in June signed a deal with Constellation that supports the relicensing and extends the operations of its nuclear plant in Illinois.
“Our agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation make Meta one of the most significant corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in American history,” said Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, in a statement.
The tech sector has faced growing criticism over how its demand for power affects utility customers and the environment. Last month, three Democratic senators launched an investigation into Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and three data center companies, examining whether their energy consumption is driving up residential electricity bills.
Meta addressed these concerns in announcing the new partnerships.
“This work builds on our ongoing collaboration with electric utility companies and power providers to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of our data centers becoming operational. We pay the full costs for energy used by our data centers so consumers don’t bear these expenses, and we support the broader grid through our energy agreements,” the company stated.
Amazon and Microsoft are likewise pursuing nuclear energy.
TerraPower is currently building its first commercial reactor in Kemmerer, Wyo., and plans to start splitting atoms by 2030. The reactor is located near a retiring coal plant.
In December, the company said it completed a key regulatory milestone, passing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s final safety evaluation for its permit. Additional permitting hurdles remain, but the Terra Power hopes to be the first to deploy a utility-scale, next-gen reactor in the U.S.
The company launched in 2006 and is building on technology used in an experimental breeder reactor in Idaho that operated for nearly 30 years before shutting down. Its Natrium reactor includes technology from TerraPower and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
In June TerraPower disclosed $650 million in new funding from Gates, who helped start TerraPower, as well as the venture arm of chip giant NVIDIA. It previously raised more than $1 billion, including investments from Gates as well as South Korea-based SK Inc. and SK Innovation, according to PitchBook. TerraPower has additionally been awarded roughly $2 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Kevin O’Leary’s Wonder Valley AI data center faces regulatory, cost, and community hurdles, raising doubts about the future of the world’s largest project.
The post Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful Promised the World’s Largest AI Data Center — Is It Even Happening? appeared first on TechRepublic.
Kevin O’Leary’s Wonder Valley AI data center faces regulatory, cost, and community hurdles, raising doubts about the future of the world’s largest project.
The post Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful Promised the World’s Largest AI Data Center — Is It Even Happening? appeared first on TechRepublic.
Elon Musk is rapidly scaling xAI’s Colossus data center into a hyperscale AI powerhouse, raising stakes around power, cost, and the AI arms race.
The post Elon Musk Is Turning ‘Colossus’ Data Center Into a 2-Gigawatt AI Behemoth appeared first on TechRepublic.
Elon Musk is rapidly scaling xAI’s Colossus data center into a hyperscale AI powerhouse, raising stakes around power, cost, and the AI arms race.
The post Elon Musk Is Turning ‘Colossus’ Data Center Into a 2-Gigawatt AI Behemoth appeared first on TechRepublic.
The past year may go down as one of the most consequential in technology history, in both the Seattle tech community and the world. But in some ways, it’s not without precedent.
As we sat down to reflect on the past year, we rewound all the way back to January — when, as part of a larger discussion with Bill Gates, we asked the Microsoft co-founder to compare the early days of the PC with these early years of AI.
Gates reflected on the PC era as a moment of computing becoming free, effectively.
“Now what’s happening is intelligence is becoming free,” he said, “and that’s even more profound than computing becoming free.”
As we looked through GeekWire’s top stories of the year, almost every one felt like a subplot to that larger narrative. On this special year-end episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we reviewed the articles that resonated most with readers, and compared notes to make sense of it all.
Listen below, and continue reading for episode notes and links.
“We look forward to joining Matt on his private island next year.” — Kiana Ehsani, CEO of Vercept, after her co-founder Matt Deitke left to join Meta for a reported hundreds of millions of dollars.
Proud Seattleite and grammarian Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!, correcting a contestant: “Sorry, Dan, we are sticklers in Seattle. It’s Pike Place — no s.”
Ambika Singh, CEO and founder of Armoire, accepting the Workplace of the Year award at the GeekWire Awards: “It is not a surprise to any of you that we are losing community outside of these walls in this country. But here, it feels alive and well.”
Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Audio editing by Curt Milton
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