Good morning. OpenAI is shopping for 10 gigawatts at a former uranium enrichment site, Ohio's 40-year data center tax break is coming due, and SpaceX wants to put server racks in orbit. The buildout keeps getting bigger and stranger.
Top Stories
ARIZONA BUDGET DEAL FREEZES DATA-CENTER SUBSIDIES
AZCentral
Gov. Katie Hobbs and GOP leaders reached an $18.3 billion budget deal that includes tax cuts while freezing new subsidies for data centers.
OHIO'S 40-YEAR DATA-CENTER TAX BREAK COMES DUE
The Columbus Dispatch
A Kasich-era agreement gave Amazon and Google a four-decade tax break, sharpening the fight over how long states should subsidize hyperscaler infrastructure.
OPENAI EYES 10-GIGAWATT OHIO DATA-CENTER LEASE
Data Center Dynamics
OpenAI is reportedly in talks to lease an SB Energy campus at the former Portsmouth uranium enrichment site, with an initial 800 MW phase and gas-fired power buildout.
FIRSTENERGY WANTS DATA CENTERS TO PAY GRID CONNECTION COSTS
Utility Dive
The utility asked FERC to make data centers cover transmission interconnection costs before the commission acts on large-load connection rules.
SOLAR PASSES COAL IN A TRUMP COAL REVIVAL YEAR
The Associated Press
Solar topped coal's U.S. electricity share in May, even as the administration pushes coal and tries to slow clean-energy incentives.
Power & Grid
JUDGE BLOCKS FAST TRACK FOR NEBRASKA TRANSMISSION LINE
Courthouse News Service
A federal judge barred agencies from using Trump's national energy emergency order to shortcut review of Nebraska's 226-mile R-Project line.
GRID SOFTWARE FIRM WANTS A NATIONAL CAPACITY BOOST
Canary Media
OATI is asking DOE for support to expand grid-enhancing software it says could unlock 10% to 20% more transmission capacity across participating systems by 2030.
HYDRO PAUSE EXPOSES NEW ENGLAND'S CLEAN-POWER BET
CommonWealth Beacon
A two-week Canadian hydropower pause, plus weak offshore wind output, showed how fragile Massachusetts' gas-replacement plan looks when imports and renewables stumble at the same time.
PUBLIC UTILITIES TURN TO BATTERIES AS DATA LOADS RISE
Utility Dive
Co-ops and municipal utilities are using storage for peak shaving, wholesale-cost control and reliability as data centers put new pressure on local systems.
GM PITCHES EVS AS GRID BACKUP FOR THE AI BOOM
Business Insider
GM is positioning bidirectional EVs as a flexible grid resource, betting that millions of parked vehicle batteries become valuable as AI load tightens supply.
Data Centers
CRUSOE PAUSES 1.8-GIGAWATT WYOMING DATA CENTER
Data Center Dynamics
Crusoe paused work on its Cheyenne project at the customer's request, another sign that AI infrastructure plans can move faster than final demand commitments.
APOLLO AND BLACKSTONE FINANCE $35B ANTHROPIC COMPUTE BUILDOUT
IndexBox
The private credit giants are funding a Broadcom-based expansion for Anthropic, starting with 1 GW at Fluidstack sites in mid-2026 and targeting more than 20 GW for AI labs through 2028.
MARYLAND CANDIDATES BLAME DATA CENTERS FOR POWER BILLS
The Daily Record
Data centers are becoming campaign material in Maryland, where candidates are tying rising electricity prices to large-load growth and utility planning.
SPACEX UNVEILS ORBITAL AI DATA-CENTER SATELLITE
TechSpot
SpaceX revealed its first-generation AI1 satellite ahead of Friday's record IPO: a 230-foot-wide craft carrying one rack's worth of compute, wrapped in its own solar arrays and liquid radiators.
SPACEX ALUMNI PITCH SOLAR-PLUS-STORAGE FOR AI POWER
TechCrunch
Ambrosia Energy wants to build solar and battery plants in under 12 months and scale to gigawatts by 2030 for the AI power market.
Stat of the Day
150 kW
Peak power of SpaceX's AI1 orbital data-center satellite
Roughly one Nvidia GB300 rack's draw — a server rack in orbit with its own power plant and cooling attached, and no interconnection queue.
TechSpot ↗