The Stack

Nvidia backs OpenAI's Ohio AI infrastructure with guarantees of up to $105bn

Nvidia agreed to provide guarantees of up to $105 billion supporting OpenAI's 20-year lease of SB Energy's planned Pike County AI data-centre development, while also investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy. The campus has an ultimate development potential of up to 8GW, but this is not operational capacity: the first disclosed 800MW is targeted for 2028. Nvidia referenced an initial 4.25GW capacity commitment and will supply the compute and networking infrastructure. SB Energy and SoftBank are also planning at least 10GW of new power generation, alongside approximately $4.2 billion of grid investment with AEP Ohio. The structure is significant because Nvidia is using its balance sheet to help underwrite the physical infrastructure that will ultimately consume Nvidia accelerators.

Source: Reuters — Nvidia, SB Energy and OpenAI transaction

IREN delivers the first 50MW of Microsoft's Texas AI infrastructure

IREN delivered and Microsoft accepted Horizon 1, the first 50MW IT-load building at IREN's Childress AI data-centre campus. Horizon 1 uses direct-to-chip liquid cooling and forms part of four planned 50MW buildings, giving the Microsoft program 200MW of scheduled 2026 capacity. The infrastructure supports Microsoft's previously signed five-year, $9.7 billion cloud-services agreement with IREN. Childress has a longer-term 750MW development potential, but only the initial 50MW should currently be regarded as delivered customer-accepted capacity. The milestone is strategically important because it converts AI infrastructure from construction-stage MW into accepted physical capacity linked to a major hyperscaler contract.

Source: Data Center Dynamics — IREN delivers first Microsoft capacity

New South Wales ties faster data-centre approvals to power, water and renewable-energy obligations

New South Wales introduced a data-centre policy framework under which qualifying developments can receive a commitment to assessment within 75 days, while developers are expected to fund additional energy, water and electricity-network requirements created by their projects. NSW says 19 projects worth approximately US$35.6 billion are in its State Significant Development pipeline, while more than 60 data centres are operating or under construction in the state. The framework also includes renewable-power requirements; DCD reported qualifying facilities must source at least 40% of energy requirements from wind through PPAs. NSW will also ask IPART to examine full-cost recovery for data-centre water supply. The policy effectively exchanges permitting speed for developer-funded infrastructure externalities.

Source: NSW Government — Data Centre Policy FrameworkData Center Dynamics — NSW 40% wind requirement

DataVita secures ~US$406M to build contracted CoreWeave AI capacity in Scotland

DataVita secured approximately approximately US$406 million of debt financing to expand its North Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone infrastructure, supported by a approximately US$273 million guarantee from the UK's National Wealth Fund. The financing includes approximately US$341 million from ING, ABN AMRO and Santander, with additional capital from the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services. Funding will support the expansion of DV1 and construction of DV3. Importantly, capacity across both facilities has already been contracted to CoreWeave under a 15-year lease, meaning the project combines secured financing, construction activity and long-term customer commitment. The wider AI Growth Zone is associated with more than 3,400 jobs.

Source: UK Government — Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone financingData Center Dynamics — DataVita financing and CoreWeave lease

Alibaba Cloud activates its third South Korean data centre

Alibaba Cloud launched its third data centre in South Korea, following earlier Korean infrastructure launched in 2022 and 2025. The facility adds local compute, storage, database, networking, container, security and AI-service infrastructure and strengthens Alibaba's ability to support workloads requiring domestic data processing and compliance. With the expansion, Alibaba Cloud said its global infrastructure reached 104 availability zones across 30 regions. The launch sits within Alibaba's wider previously announced $53 billion AI and cloud infrastructure investment program. MW capacity for the individual Korean facility was not disclosed, so the significant development this week is the transition of another local Alibaba facility into operational status rather than the broader investment envelope.

Tencent Cloud establishes a three-AZ cloud-region footprint in Malaysia

Tencent Cloud announced a new Malaysian cloud region in Johor designed to comprise up to three Availability Zones, with the initial zones entering launch during the announcement period. Before the expansion, Tencent Cloud operated approximately 23 regions and 66 Availability Zones globally. Tencent positioned the Johor infrastructure to provide domestic cloud and AI capacity for Malaysian enterprises. Strategically, the announcement adds cloud-region functionality to Johor's rapidly expanding hyperscale data-centre ecosystem and reinforces Malaysia's evolution from a data-centre overflow market for Singapore into a cloud-infrastructure hub in its own right.

Source: Data Center Dynamics — Tencent Cloud Malaysia region

Core Scientific completes $444m Polaris acquisition and gains 440MW of grid-connected power

Core Scientific completed its acquisition of Polaris DS, a transaction valued at approximately $444 million in cash, giving it control of around 440MW of existing grid-connected power capacity in Muskogee, Oklahoma, under electric-service agreements with Oklahoma Gas & Electric. The acquisition also adds 40 acres of land. Core Scientific intends to combine these assets with its adjacent development to expand the Muskogee campus toward 1.5GW of gross power and approximately 1GW of leasable capacity, using both grid connections and behind-the-meter power. Unlike a greenfield power request, the acquired 440MW is linked to existing service agreements, making the transaction important as a mechanism for converting legacy bitcoin-mining power infrastructure into future AI/HPC capacity.

Source: Data Center Dynamics — Core Scientific completes Polaris acquisition

NextEra secures $3.3bn backing for up to 10GW of power targeting data-centre demand

NextEra Energy signed agreements involving the US Department of Commerce and the Government of Japan that will provide approximately $3.3 billion of funding for development of new generation projects in Texas and Pennsylvania with potential capacity of up to 10GW. The Pennsylvania component includes the approximately $17 billion South Mon project, expected to provide around 4.3GW of gas-fired generation. NextEra said initial resources could be online by late 2028, with full development targeted for 2032. The projects remain subject to permitting, regulatory approval and construction milestones, so the 10GW should be viewed as development-stage generation rather than usable power. The key signal is that national-scale financing is now flowing directly into electricity infrastructure designed around data-centre load growth.

Source: Data Center Dynamics — NextEra 10GW generation program

Pennsylvania removes data centres from fast-track permitting

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed Executive Order 2026-05, adding new conditions to data-centre development and removing data-centre projects from the Commonwealth's Permit Fast Track program. Developers seeking state permits must meet the state's GRID requirements and secure all necessary local approvals. The order also limits the use of NDAs by state agencies dealing with data-centre developers and focuses on energy affordability, environmental protection, transparency and community engagement. The change is material because power availability is no longer the only bottleneck for Pennsylvania's rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market: local political acceptance and permitting processes can now extend development timelines even for projects with capital and electricity strategies in place.

Source: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — Executive Order coverageReuters — Pennsylvania data-centre rules

Goodman signs 20-year hyperscaler lease for 50MW near Tokyo

Goodman signed a 20-year lease covering 50MW at its TYO05 development within Tsukuba Tech Central with an unnamed hyperscale customer. The 50MW building is the first phase of a significantly larger campus where Goodman says it has secured approximately 1,000MW of power. TYO05 is targeting early 2028 ready-for-service, meaning the 50MW represents contracted future capacity, not capacity currently available to the customer. Goodman also reports a 6.4GW global secured power bank across its broader data-centre portfolio. The deal shows hyperscalers locking up power-secured Japanese capacity years before commissioning, shifting utilisation risk away from developers while making secured electricity increasingly valuable.

AWS commits another $6bn to Louisiana data-centre infrastructure

AWS pledged an additional $6 billion for a new data-centre campus at the 313-acre Resilient Technology Park in Shreveport, taking Amazon's total announced Louisiana data-centre commitment to approximately $18 billion across three campuses. STACK Infrastructure will lead the Shreveport development, as it does AWS's existing Caddo and Bossier Parish projects. AWS has committed to fund the water and wastewater improvements required by its projects and is working with SWEPCO to fund the energy infrastructure and grid upgrades required. The company has not disclosed the Shreveport campus's MW capacity or number of buildings, so the $6bn should be treated as an investment commitment rather than deployed operational capacity. The development is expected to create about 2,250 construction jobs and 210 direct operational jobs.

Flexential secures $800m credit facility for more than 130MW of US expansion

Flexential established an $800 million credit facility, 60% larger than its initial $500m target, to support more than 130MW of new US data-centre capacity. Identified developments include 36MW in Atlanta-Douglasville, 36MW in Portland-Hillsboro, 22.5MW in Denver-Parker, another planned 36MW Portland development and a 4.5MW Atlanta-Norcross expansion. Eleven infrastructure lenders participated. Flexential currently operates more than 360MW across 40-plus data centres in 18 US markets. This financing is notable because the capital is linked to identified capacity projects rather than an undifferentiated corporate investment announcement.

AWS adds fourth London Availability Zone with next-generation AI capacity

AWS activated a fourth Availability Zone, eu-west-2d, in its Europe (London) Region, increasing both physical redundancy and AI capacity available within the UK cloud region. AWS said the new AZ supports next-generation accelerated infrastructure including Amazon EC2 Trn3 and P6 instances, alongside general-purpose compute, allowing training and inference workloads to remain entirely within the London region. The announcement moves immediately into operational capacity rather than describing a future region: customers can already distribute applications across four UK AZs. This strengthens London's position for regulated, high-availability and data-residency-sensitive enterprise AI workloads.

QTS signs 48MW solar PPA for Texas operations

QTS signed a 48MW solar power purchase agreement with Engie supporting its data-centre operations in the Irving, Texas market. The agreement adds another contracted renewable-power source to a data-centre operator whose capacity requirements are being driven increasingly by hyperscale and AI deployments. Unlike speculative generation announcements, the 48MW figure represents contracted renewable supply tied to an operating data-centre platform. The deal is strategically relevant because hyperscale operators are having to solve not only gross electricity availability but also the carbon profile and long-term price structure of that electricity as power requirements rise.

Brazil commits US$444M to sovereign AI compute using both Chinese and US technology

Brazil announced approximately US$444 million of government-backed national AI infrastructure investment. Around approximately US$251 million will support supercomputing infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro developed with Huawei and iFlytek, while another approximately US$193 million will fund procurement of an AI supercomputer in Rio Grande do Norte that officials expect to rank among the world's ten most powerful AI systems. Nvidia is expected to be a potential supplier for the second system, with operation targeted by the end of 2027. Brazil explicitly framed the dual-supplier approach as a way to avoid dependence on one company, technology or country, making the program a clear example of sovereign AI through diversification rather than full domestic technological independence.

Bitdeer deploys GB300 infrastructure at 9.5MW Malaysian AI facility, with half already contracted

Bitdeer AI deployed Nvidia GB300 NVL72 infrastructure at its A102 Malaysian facility, designed for approximately 9.5MW of capacity once fully operational. Around half of the facility is already contracted under a five-year, $400 million offtake agreement, with revenue impact expected from Q1 2027. A102 was designed for rack-scale, liquid-cooled AI deployments. Bitdeer said its wider active AI-cloud contracting pipeline exceeds $2 billion and approximately 24.5MW, while the company is targeting 350MW of AI-cloud capacity by Q1 2028. The important distinction is that equipment deployment and customer contracting have occurred, but the full 9.5MW is not yet economically equivalent to fully energised operational capacity.

I Squared launches Saragon with up to $1bn and 53MW of installed data-centre power

I Squared Capital launched Saragon, a new US data-centre platform backed by up to $1 billion of committed capital. Saragon begins with a portfolio of 10 facilities across nine US markets, representing approximately 53MW of installed power and 259,000 sq ft. The seed assets derive from the Cogent data-centre portfolio previously acquired by I Squared. Saragon plans to target high-density AI inference, hybrid cloud, interconnection and liquid-cooled workloads. The launch differs from a greenfield platform announcement because the company begins with existing installed infrastructure while also having substantial committed expansion capital available.

Singapore provisionally allocates 200MW across four major data-centre operators

Singapore's EDB and IMDA provisionally allocated 200MW of new data-centre capacity under the country's second Data Centre Call for Application. Digital Realty, Equinix, Keppel Data Centres and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres each received 50MW. The award is particularly important because Singapore's data-centre growth is government-managed due to power, land and sustainability constraints rather than being an unrestricted private development market. Singapore already hosts more than 70 data centres with roughly 1.4GW of capacity, while about 20 hectares on Jurong Island have been reserved for a potential 700MW low-carbon data-centre park. The allocation therefore represents a state-controlled release of scarce capacity into one of Asia's highest-value cloud and interconnection markets.

Nvidia invests in powered-land developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure

Nvidia acquired a minority stake in Cloverleaf Infrastructure and established a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating powered-site and AI-factory development using Nvidia's DSX architecture. Financial terms were not officially disclosed. Cloverleaf's model focuses on solving the power, land and grid-development layer that precedes actual data-centre construction; DCD reported that the company has sold projects capable of supporting more than 7GW and has a development pipeline exceeding 10GW. The transaction reinforces a major weekly signal from Nvidia's separate SB Energy/OpenAI transaction: Nvidia is moving upstream from accelerator supply into the physical infrastructure development and financing ecosystem needed to make future GPU deployments possible.

Prometheus and Istmo propose 2.5GW behind-the-meter Texas AI campus

Prometheus Hyperscale and Istmo announced plans for a large AI data-centre and power development in Reeves County, Texas, targeting approximately 1.5GW in Phase 1 and up to 2.5GW at full buildout. The project intends to use behind-the-meter natural-gas generation, drawing on pipeline gas and locally available methane/ethane resources rather than relying entirely on conventional grid interconnection. Initial power is targeted for 2027, and closed-loop cooling is planned. The campus remains an announced/planned project rather than usable capacity, but its architecture is strategically relevant: developers are increasingly designing AI campuses to bypass constrained utility queues by colocating compute with dedicated generation.

TVA increases electricity costs for data centres by about 10%

The Tennessee Valley Authority changed its electricity-rate treatment for data centres, removing them from the utility's manufacturing service-rate class and resulting in approximately 10% higher electricity charges for affected data-centre customers. TVA serves a seven-state region that is increasingly attracting hyperscale and AI infrastructure because of comparatively abundant electricity and large development sites. The change is strategically important because utilities are beginning to price data centres as a distinct large-load category rather than treating them like conventional industrial customers. As AI campuses move toward hundreds of MW or multiple GW, even a roughly 10% electricity-price adjustment can materially change operating economics and site-selection decisions.

Itochu targets 10 Japanese data-centre developments by 2030

Itochu disclosed plans to expand into data-centre development in Japan with a target of approximately 10 facilities by 2030 and investment reported at several billion US dollars. The move is strategically significant because Japan faces growing demand for AI and cloud capacity while large, power-secured sites close to Tokyo and Osaka are becoming increasingly constrained. The Itochu plan adds a major Japanese trading house—with access to energy, real estate, financing and industrial supply chains—to the country's data-centre development market. The ten-facility figure represents planned capacity rather than facilities under operation, so it should remain classified as a forward development program.