Power & Sites · United States

Canterbury approves plans for landfill-powered data centre

Credited to Data Centre Review · datacentrereview.com · 23h ago

Canterbury City Council has approved plans for a new data centre that will use electricity generated from landfill gas.

The facility, which was proposed by Era4 back in November 2025, previously came before the council’s planning committee back in July, but the decision was deferred to a later date to give time for a formal site visit. In the end, the councillors decided to take the planning officer’s recommendation and approve the data centre.

The development will occupy land previously used for composting operations at an existing landfill and waste management site operated by Valencia Waste Management. That former life is actually useful too – as it’ll be key to providing electricity to the site.

Rather than relying entirely on a conventional grid connection, Era4 plans to draw power through a private-wire connection to the neighbouring Valencia Energy Centre, which generates electricity using methane captured from the landfill.

According to planning documents, the facility could consume approximately 140MWh of electricity per day at full utilisation, equivalent to an average continuous demand of around 5.8MW.

Planning officers noted that this would fall within the energy centre’s average daily generation, so it shouldn’t have an increased burden on the local electricity grid.

Part of a wider landfill gas strategy

The data centre isn’t just relying on the Valencia Energy Centre, however. It will also incorporate rooftop solar panels and a closed-loop liquid cooling system, supplemented by adiabatic cooling. That should give it a lower environmental footprint compared to some other projects being built around the world.

It won’t be the only one of its kind for Era4 either as the company, previously known as Carbon3.AI, announced a partnership with Valencia Waste Management in October 2025 to develop landfill gas-powered data centres at eight locations across the UK.

The arrangement is one of several alternative electricity supply models being explored by developers as grid capacity constraints complicate new data centre projects.

A proposed 72MW data centre near Reading is planning to use natural gas fuel cells while awaiting additional grid capacity, while Kao Data has agreed to procure electricity from a planned 40MW solar farm through a private-wire connection at its Harlow campus.

The Canterbury project differs by using generation associated with an existing landfill operation, although the long-term reliability of that supply will be an important consideration.

Landfill gas production can decline as organic waste decomposes, potentially affecting how much electricity can be generated over the lifetime of the data centre. While capturing methane for electricity generation can reduce emissions that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, burning the gas still produces carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Whether the solution ultimately proves successful will likely become apparent when the new data centre becomes operational. When exactly that will be has yet to be confirmed, however.

Power & SitesUnited States

Venture Global to build power plants for AI data centers

Credited to Investing.com · investing.com23h ago

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Power & Sites · United States

SpaceX in talks to borrow $40 billion to buy Nvidia chips

Credited to The Hindu BusinessLine · thehindubusinessline.com · 13h ago

Photograph · The Hindu BusinessLine

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Tech companies and AI model developers are investing and borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to build and lease giant data centers full of chips to power AI systems

By Bloomberg

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is in talks with banks and investors to raise $40 billion of debt to buy chips from Nvidia Corp., people familiar with the matter said, underscoring the insatiable demand among AI developers for more computing power.

Pacific Investment Management Co. is one of the investment managers looking at the deal, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the talks are private. SpaceX’s fundraising discussions are in an early stage and could end without a deal being completed, they said.

Musk’s AI, satellite and rocket conglomerate is seeking to raise about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt to pay for the chips, the Financial Times reported earlier, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Apollo Global Management Inc. is leading the financing, in a deal that is expected to close in 2027, the newspaper said.

Tech companies and AI model developers are investing and borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to build and lease giant data centers full of chips to power AI systems.

The worldwide expansion of computing capacity has sent the cost of everything from land to chips and power-generation equipment soaring, touching off a series of massive financing deals.

Nvidia, SpaceX and Apollo didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. SpaceX shares erased gains in postmarket trading following the FT’s report, falling 1.2 per cent in US postmarket trading to $169.79. Nvidia’s stock rose fractionally.

Just last month, Musk said Colossus 2, an AI computing cluster built by his xAI business, may more than double its current Nvidia chip count by the end of the year. It was the most detailed timetable that the trillionaire has given yet for expansion plans for the Memphis-area cluster.

Colossus 2 now has 110,000 Nvidia GB200 chips and 440,000 GB300s, Musk said in a post on X. A further 220,000 GB300s are due to be operational next week, with another 220,000 expected in November, he said. An additional 220,000 may come online late December “if we get lucky,” he said.

Musk’s xAI has recruited multiple Wall Street firms to test its Grok chatbot, including Apollo and Morgan Stanley.

Apollo was among the US investment giants that Nvidia tapped for a high-profile partnership in August to source $500 billion in financing for AI infrastructure.

The coalition — which also includes Blackstone Inc., BlackRock Inc., Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and KKR & Co. — said at the time that they’d “create dedicated pools of capital at significant scale at attractive rates for Nvidia customers.”

Executives indicated that it will focus on debt financing to provide access to compute for Nvidia’s largest customers and signaled that there were already many deals in the works that would qualify toward this commitment.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com