Data centre power and cooling: why the newest fixes are gas turbines, fines and orbit

Goodman Group told the NSW Department of Planning it would no longer proceed with the project, according to ABC News. The developer said the policy and regulatory environment for large-scale data centre development "has evolved significantly" and that it had considered feedback from the local community.

The three-storey site sat roughly 20 metres from the nearest house and 160 metres from Lane Cove West Public School. Liberal senator Sarah Henderson had pressured Goodman's general manager of developments, Ben McGilp, to withdraw the proposal during the first hearing of a federal senate inquiry into data centres and AI.

Power is the harder problem.

In New Jersey, the state's Department of Environmental Protection fined DataOne $1.1 million after thermal drone footage obtained by The Guardian and Floodlight News showed 45 of 62 gas generators running without permits, Ars Technica reported on 24 September. None of the units had permits, despite running at 1,982 kW, more than 50 times the state's 37 kW permitting threshold. DEP Commissioner Ed Potosnak called it the largest enforcement action ever taken against a data centre in the state. DataOne has 45 days to apply for permits or stop operating, but can keep the engines running while it applies. "We will apply for the air permits for the temporary generators," a company spokesperson told The New York Times, adding that DataOne "disagreed" with the fine.

Firms that promised their own generation are also rethinking it. Crusoe, a Denver AI data centre builder that raised $3.9 billion, has walked away from a $1.25 billion plan to buy 29 of Boom Supersonic's 42 MW Superpower turbines, TechCrunch reported on 25 September. Boom CEO Blake Scholl confirmed the split in a post on X. Crusoe spokesperson Andrew Schmitt said the company's energy plans "haven't changed" and that it still intends to use turbines, "just not Boom's". Losing its launch customer is a setback for Boom, which raised $300 million last year to commercialise the stationary power business.

Cooling goes off-grid, and off-planet

Google's answer to cooling and power is to leave the atmosphere. Ars Technica reported on 24 September that the company's first Project Suncatcher satellite, MVP, launches on 1 October aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare. The refrigerator-sized craft carries four of Google's TPUs and solar panels supplying about one kilowatt, enough for a microwave. Google did not build the spacecraft; it comes from satellite imagery firm Planet Labs.

Tom's Hardware noted the chips will run for only about 15 minutes at a time before they must shut down so radiators can catch up. Google's cooling design uses a malleable thermal interface material linking the chips to aluminium and copper heat pipes that dump heat into space, since fans have no air to move. Radiation is the other hazard: it can flip bits inside chips, and Google's interim fix is to restart them periodically.

"We don't expect, to be perfectly frank, that we'll have anything usefully operational in the next few years," Google senior vice president of research James Manyika told The New York Times.

Terrestrial politics may decide the pace anyway. WIRED reported on 27 September that climate barely features in local opposition, where water, energy bills, noise and air pollution rank higher. In Australia, officials argue the backlash is an American import. Data Centres Australia chief executive Belinda Dennett said in March that the US has 5,400 data centres and 53.7 GW of capacity against 252 and 1.4 GW in Australia, though The Guardian noted Australia has just under one data centre per 100,000 people versus 1.5 in the US.