All posts tagged: data

The Biggest Threat To Today’s Data Centers Is In The Battery Room

The Biggest Threat To Today’s Data Centers Is In The Battery Room

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by David Ellis via Data Centre Dynamics, As data centers continue to multiply, facilities are deploying industrial-scale Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units by the hundreds and substation-size front-of-the-meter Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to secure against grid failure, power surges, or other disruptions. But while the battery units are looking after the servers, who is looking after the batteries? In the last few years, lithium-ion batteries have become the backup power of choice for data center UPS and BESS systems, and for good reason. They have long lifespans, a small footprint, and superior energy density. While data centers tend to be safe, things can and do go wrong. When they do, it’s almost always related to lithium-ion batteries. The September 2025 data center fire in South Korea that led to a paralyzing nationwide outage in government services started with a single lithium battery explosion. Last year, a battery room at the Chirisa Technology Parks data center in Virginia caught fire twice in two months. Firefighters who responded to a May 2025 fire at an …

WindBorne wins a hefty US Air Force contract for its balloon data

WindBorne wins a hefty US Air Force contract for its balloon data

Published by skeptic

The U.S. Air Force will buy data collected by WindBorne Systems‘ fleet of autonomous weather balloons under a new contract that could be worth nearly $50 million to the startup. WindBorne currently has about 700 weather balloons flying around the globe, collecting atmospheric sensor readings that the company sells to customers and also feeds into its own AI weather forecasting model. WindBorne, founded in 2015 and based in Redwood City, California, is one of the first organizations to directly feed empirical data into a deep-learning weather model. The company has worked closely with the U.S. government, particularly the National Weather Service and the U.S. Air Force and Navy, but this is the single-largest contract the company has participated in. The contract is worth up to $49 million, but the Air Force pays only as it needs data. It can place orders for specific regions at specific times. So far, it has ordered $1.7 million worth, and executives expect more orders to follow. “This is largely a vehicle through which continued growth of the constellation can …

Can the AI industry persuade data center opponents by getting rid of NDAs?

Can the AI industry persuade data center opponents by getting rid of NDAs?

Published by skeptic

Amazon recently followed Microsoft’s lead and said it will no longer use nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) while negotiating with local governments over data centers. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Sean O’Kane, Rebeccan Bellan and I discussed Amazon’s announcement, which came in the middle of a longer blog post making the case that data centers are actually good for communities. Rebecca was a bit skeptical that the recent spate of data center moratoriums will have a lasting effect, especially since the moratoriums only last for a year or two and “these data centers aren’t coming online for the next two, three, four, five years,” though I countered that data center backers definitely seem worried. Sean, meanwhile, suggested that a big reason for the backlash is the industry’s poor communication. “We’ve seen, through a lot of the controversy and backlash to AI and data centers, that the industry just does a really poor job explaining itself, and that they are obviously and constantly frustrated with the fact that most people can’t envision a world in …

These Midterm Races Will Decide Data Centers’ Political Fate

These Midterm Races Will Decide Data Centers’ Political Fate

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to Power Play! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft tackles a topic around this midterm season’s biggest issue: data centers. If you’ve got a question or thought for the column, feel free to shoot Molly an email at [email protected] or reach them securely on Signal at mollytaft.76. From surveillance and DOGE to Big Tech money and religious extremism, the midterms have never been more WIRED. Data centers are no exception: The public has rapidly turned on them since the beginning of the year. The opposition is bipartisan, with many Republicans making a rare break from President Donald Trump. Candidates on both sides of the aisle are trying to attack their opponents for being pro–data center (or not anti–data center enough). I’ve spotted at least five candidates who have been given the derogatory “Data Center [Name]” moniker by their opponents, in an attempt to highlight their connections to the industry. (That includes two guys named Derek/Derrick getting this treatment.) While polling shows that pocketbook issues are likely to be top of voters’ minds, data …

Petra Power looks to modernize energy for data centers and defense vehicles

Petra Power looks to modernize energy for data centers and defense vehicles

Published by skeptic

As AI gobbles up an ever larger amount of energy, the hunt is on for efficient and cost-effective power sources. One of the companies leading the charge is Petra Power. Petra, which was founded in 2017, sells solid oxide fuel cells — ceramic devices that convert fuel, like natural gas, into electric power without burning it. The company markets them as a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to operate data centers and large vehicles. Petra’s founder, Aaron Goodman, told TechCrunch that his company’s product has significantly lower fuel costs and emissions than traditional power sources, and that they have much less of a physical footprint, too, because they’re more compact and lightweight. The efficiency, and the cost savings that come with it, is what makes the fuel cells attractive. “Combustion takes fuel and creates explosions,” Goodman said, describing how traditional power generation works. “Those explosions create heat. That heat creates motion. The motion powers an electromotive force, which eventually creates electricity. It’s a lot of steps, and they all have so much loss in …

Batteries are now cheaper than natural gas turbines used at many data centers

Batteries are now cheaper than natural gas turbines used at many data centers

Published by skeptic

Battery storage is now cheaper than a type of natural gas power plant favored by many data center developers, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie.  On every continent and in each of the 43 markets that Wood Mackenzie surveyed, four-hour duration batteries were less expensive than open-cycle gas turbines. The consultancy predicts that the cost of electricity from batteries will continue to decline while electrons from gas turbines will only grow more expensive in the coming decades. The report lands as energy prices in the U.S. and elsewhere continue to rise, fueling inflation as data centers push electricity demand to new heights. Prices for gas turbines have been driven up by AI data center developers, which have been buying any model they can get their hands on. The effects have been more acute for open-cycle gas turbines, which are more readily available but less efficient and more expensive to operate.  Those turbines are often used by utilities as peaking power plants, which step in to generate electricity in periods of high demand. As …

NASA Just Made Nearly 1 TB of Artemis II Data Available to the Public

NASA Just Made Nearly 1 TB of Artemis II Data Available to the Public

Published by skeptic

NASA has just released about 800 gigabytes of scientific data generated by the Artemis II mission. The archive documenting the astronauts’ return to the far side of the moon includes 11,000 full-resolution images and videos, 8.5 hours of spoken observations, notes taken by the astronauts, transcripts, and photographs from the cameras aboard the Orion capsule. The space agency describes this effort as the first set of planetary science data obtained outside Earth and—for the most part—directly by humans in more than half a century. The closest comparable precedent dates back to the Apollo era and its missions to the lunar surface. In addition to the public database, NASA released three reports summarizing what was learned during the first crewed spacecraft mission to approach the moon in five decades. These are the Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report, the Artemis II Lunar Science Operations Report, and the Artemis II Lunar Science Data User Guide. Anyone can access the near terabyte of data, though the release is primarily intended for the scientific community. While the astronauts capture …

Amazon and others are done keeping data center deals secret. Is it enough to build trust?

Amazon and others are done keeping data center deals secret. Is it enough to build trust?

Published by skeptic

Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in.  On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Sean O’Kane, and Rebecca Bellan dig into whether ditching NDAs will change how data center deals get done, why trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, plus a couple of deals of the week.  Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.  Source link

What Is A Blockchain Data API? A Practical Guide To On-Chain Data

What Is A Blockchain Data API? A Practical Guide To On-Chain Data

Published by skeptic

Blockchains are often described as transparent financial networks, and technically that is true. Every transaction sits on a public ledger that anyone can inspect – but a public ledger is not the same thing as a readable one. Raw blockchain data is a stream of pseudonymous wallet addresses and transaction hashes, and without context it […] The post What Is A Blockchain Data API? A Practical Guide To On-Chain Data appeared first on Geeky Gadgets. Source link