Chips & Supply · United States

Big tech, green groups in talks over data center guardrails

Credited to The Economic Times · economictimes.indiatimes.com · 20h ago

The "Responsible Data Center Collaborative" counts Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Nvidia and Anthropic among its members, alongside environmental stalwarts the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Sierra Club.

A coalition of tech giants and environmental groups is negotiating a national framework for data centers, according to a document reviewed by AFP on Thursday.

The " Responsible Data Center Collaborative " counts Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Nvidia and Anthropic among its members, alongside environmental stalwarts the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Sierra Club.

The members began holding meetings in September and will continue through February 2027, backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization, and Invest in Our Future, which is affiliated with it, the document said.

The matter was first reported by The Hill.

Their purpose is to hash out guidelines for areas including energy and infrastructure, water and natural resources, community engagement, economic and community value, transparency and accountability, and implementation.

Given the mix of participants, the document is blunt about how they should behave: "Check your assumptions by asking clarifying questions" and "attack problems, not people."

It also says the discussions will be governed by "Chatham House rules" which means "conversations stay in the room and learnings leave (without attribution)."

Data centers are key to the artificial intelligence buildout but have angered communities across the United States.

New power plants have driven up electric rates and the facilities create noise pollution. Cooling systems can draw large volumes of municipal water, while mists from cooling towers can carry harmful bacteria.

To avoid raising local power bills, newer data centers generate their own electricity, often with noisy, polluting gas-fired plants.

Voters in dozens of American cities approved restrictions or outright bans on data centers during Tuesday's midterm elections, in one of the clearest signals that a groundswell of anger over the AI boom has cut across political divides.

Chips & SupplyUnited States

DDR, LPDDR revenue growth outpaces HBM as DRAM market nears US$200 billion

Credited to DigiTimes$ · digitimes.com21h ago

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Revenue from conventional DDR and LPDDR memory grew faster than that from high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the third quarter of 2026, as global DRAM revenue surged 369% year over year to nearly US$200 billion, according to Counterpoint Research.

View the article · $DigiTimes

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