#ai-data-centers

#ai-data-centers

A lot of the hoopla started when investors questioned Oracle's ( NASDAQ:ORCL) heavy debt load for the OpenAI deal. Capital expenditures came under pressure, and people wondered how OpenAI would be able to pay $300 billion over five years. That contract starts in 2027, and rumors circulated that OpenAI pushed back its data center completion to 2028, a year later than initially planned. It put more pressure on AI data center providers like IREN, even though Oracle refuted the rumor on the same day.

When Sam Altman said one year ago that OpenAI's Roman Empire is the actual Roman Empire, he wasn't kidding. In the same way that the Romans gradually amassed an empire of land spanning three continents and one-ninth of the Earth's circumference, the CEO and his cohort are now dotting the planet with their own latifundia-not agricultural estates, but AI data centers.

The land around Hassayampa Ranch, 50 miles west of Phoenix, is dotted with saguaro cacti and home to coyotes, jackrabbits, and rattlesnakes. Its few hundred human residents were largely drawn by the tranquility and clear skies for stargazing. But several of the biggest names in Silicon Valley are suddenly very interested in what happens on this serene stretch of desert.

When Oracle failed to meet revenue expectations and suggested that large-scale data centers may not be ready until 2028, it immediately chilled sentiment across the entire sector. On the same day the Dow pushed to new highs, the Nasdaq was hit hard, with anything even loosely tied to AI selling off aggressively. That divergence told us the market was reassessing the timeline, not the technology.

One afternoon in June 2024, I stood up against the fence of a sprawling industrial facility a few miles outside of Corsicana, Texas. Over a metal gate, I watched a bright yellow excavator claw at the dirt and flatbed trucks shuttle to and fro. A hangar-like structure with a gleaming white roof stretched hundreds of meters along the opposite perimeter. The company that owned the plot, Riot Platforms, was busily constructing the world's largest bitcoin mine.

Even so, Microsoft has the depth and ecosystem strength to continue doubling down on AI data centers, said Prabhu Ram, VP for industry research at Cybermedia Research.

Few sectors this year have delivered the kind of explosive gains seen in artificial intelligence (AI)-focused data center operators. IREN ( NASDAQ:IREN ) is a former Bitcoin miner turned renewable-powered AI cloud provider and surged more than 400% year-to-date at its peak. Nebius Group ( NASDAQ:NBIS ) - the rebranded AI infrastructure arm of what was once Russian search giant Yandex - climbed over 500% from its spring lows as it secured massive GPU deals.

As the tech industry funnels billions into AI data centers, chip makers both big and small are ramping up innovation around the technology that connects chips to other chips, and server racks to other server racks. Networking technology has been around since the dawn of the computer, critically connecting mainframes so they can share data. In the world of semiconductors, networking plays a part at almost every level of the stack-from the interconnect between transistors on the chip itself,

Nvidia just announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to build out a new generation of AI data centers, one of the largest AI computing projects in history. These are remarkable numbers that get even bigger when you consider the countless supporting projects, like many subsea cables, or local corporate and public sector computing projects, that will likely be essential for this global AI network.

It's the latest move by Google and other tech companies to revitalize nuclear energy in the US, which has struggled to compete with falling costs for gas, solar, and wind power over the years. As power grids scramble to keep up with growing electricity demand from AI, nuclear energy has become a more attractive option for generating carbon-free energy around-the-clock for data centers.

Tesla's profit per share is expected to fall about 25% year over year to around $0.53-$0.55, even as revenue rises from 4% to 6%, as noted in a report from Market Pulse. Analysts noted that Tesla's record quarter was partly fueled by buyers rushing to complete purchases before the U.S. federal EV tax credit expired in September, a surge that could dampen Q4 demand. The company also dipped into its inventory to reach the record delivery number.

"After analyzing a detailed pipeline of data center projects, we predict an average global growth rate of 17% per year in data-center-related power demand between 2022 and 2030," the report states. In the US, that average growth rate jumps to 25%. By 2030, data centers could account for more than 14% of the US's total power demand, even with gains in energy efficiency from new chips and sustainable data center infrastructure.

Despite being under a year old and having no revenue, Fermi America had a very successful initial public offering (IPO) this week. The company, which aims to provide data and power centers for artificial intelligence, saw its shares (Nasdaq: FRMI) close at $32.53 on their first day of trading Wednesday, up nearly 55% from their IPO price of $21 per share. Fermi's stock price continued to rise through after-hours and into premarket trading on Thursday, reaching $36.

Earlier on Monday, Nvidia and OpenAI announced that they'd signed a letter of intent to pursue the $100 billion deal. The goal is to produce Nvidia-equipped data centers with a capacity of at least 10 gigawatts of power. The infrastructure will be used to develop and run artificial intelligence models. Nvidia chips have become the most prized commodity in Silicon Valley in recent years, with data center operators scrambling to obtain as many as possible.

By The Associated Press Chipmaker Nvidia will invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a partnership announced Monday that will add at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia AI data centers to ramp up the computing power for the owner of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. Per the letter of intent signed by the companies, the first gigawatt of Nvidia systems will be deployed in the second half of 2026. Nvidia and OpenAI said they would be finalizing the details of the arrangement in the coming weeks.

In the span of less than two years, Core Scientific went from a bankrupt crypto mining company to a $9 billion acquisition target. How? By reinventing itself as an upstart player in the artificial intelligence-driven data center craze. Only now, one of the company's largest shareholders is urging other investors to vote down the deal - arguing that $9 billion isn't nearly enough. While a takeover battle between little-known data center firms might seem like

Reliable high-yielders are your best friends today, and they will likely remain that way for the coming years. That's especially true if they operate as midstream or as a utility. They have a rare combination of defense and growth that no other sector can match. Demand for electricity, gas, and water does not flutter when the headlines turn grim, so cash flow stays predictable and dividends stay funded.