Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, data center projects in rural areas could be eligible for major tax benefits starting next year. Some hyperscalers do not seem eager to take the free cash. 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.

The technology could strap onto existing gas turbines and make them more efficient--but it wouldn't do away with their emissions entirely. A new company has a plan to make the dirty gas turbines powering data centers more efficient: liquid carbon dioxide. American Supercritical came out of stealth Wednesday, announcing $8 million in funding. It wants to retrofit inefficient gas turbines that many data centers rely on for power with units that can generate more power, without adding more emissions (though the gas-fired turbines will continue to emit carbon pollution). The technology can also theoretically be used on a wide variety of energy sources at a time when power demand is skyrocketing.

The president has doubled down on data centers and AI. His base is running in the opposite direction. 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.

The satirical collaboration between a creative studio and the music producer behind Big Data, "Bezzy" is a cute little doll that spews the sounds of real data centers. Uh oh, we got a cute alert! Give this soft lil' doll a squeeze, and it shall sing you its telltale song: the piercing, grinding ambient squeals emitted from a real US data center. The Bezzy doll is a stuffed plushie made in a satirical collaboration between the New York-based creative studio Basura and Big Data, the musical project of producer Alan Wilkis, best known for the song "Dangerous," a 2013 collaboration with the band Joywave. The joint project, which is coming out the same day as a new Big Data single, is called Adopt a Data Center.

Submit Your Questions: Why Is Silicon Valley Still a Boys' Club? How are women really faring in Silicon Valley? Submit your questions to our panel and we'll give you the scoop on September 24. In 2026, as DEI and woke were declared over, WIRED set out to investigate the state of gender in Silicon Valley. As tech titans embraced Trump and the right, as Mark Zuckerberg declared that "masculine energy" was needed and Elon Musk cut federal female workers most of all, the backlash was in full swing.

Amazon Web Services didn't design its data centers to withstand war, and now the company admits it can't recover what's been lost. Half a year after Iranian drone strikes knocked out multiple Amazon data centers, the US tech company has acknowledged the permanent loss of some customer data that was hosted in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Amazon Web Services was "unable to restore access to the resources and data" hosted in some of the war-damaged data centers, according to an AWS dashboard update posted on September 15. The development was first reported by Reuters and suggests that the Iranian strikes inflicted catastrophic damage on the data centers. Customer data was irretrievably lost in one of three AWS availability zones in the United Arab Emirates region, specifically the mec1-az2 availability zone.

Mashable Selects Creator Playbook Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more In My Bag Say More Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net All Series How many states have banned data center construction? Matt Binder joined Mashable's tech vertical in 2018, where he covers social media, tech policy, cybersecurity, online scams, cryptocurrency, AI, creator news, weird tech, and other related tech beats. By now, you've likely heard about the push to stop new data centers from being built in the United States. Data centers aren't very popular right now, and a /Sienna survey just found that 61 percent of Americans oppose new construction. It certainly doesn't help that AI companies are overtly talking about doomsday-like scenarios and widespread AI-driven job loss .

Data centers spark a partisan divide as Democratic lawmakers push for tighter restrictions over water use and utility bills while Republican lawmakers cite the AI race.

Things to Do in L.A. Darian Orduno holds her baby, Gael, as her husband, Antonio, looks on during a town hall meeting at the Episcopal Church of the Savior in Hanford, Calif., which was convened in opposition to a possible data center proposal at the county fairgrounds. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Data centers are becoming the political flash point of the midterms as candidates race to respond to tanking public opinion.

New Jersey and Indiana are taking different paths to protect households from higher utility bills as AI data centers demand more electricity.