Google spends more than $4 billion on data center company

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced Monday that it has agreed to buy data center and energy company Intersect for $4.75 billion. Intersect specializes in developing data center projects alongside power plants, a fitting combination as data centers are known to put a strain on the power grid.

Alphabet had previously invested in Intersect, but is now buying the company.

“Intersect will help us expand our capacity, operate with more agility to build new power generation in step with the new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive U.S. innovation and leadership,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement. press release.

Under the terms of the agreement, Intersect will continue to operate separately from Alphabet and Google under the Intersect brand. The acquisition could help accelerate the development of data center campuses that Google has planned for AI infrastructure in Armstrong and Haskell counties in Texas, where the company is investing 40 billion dollars.

The deal comes as AI companies increasingly argue that more computing power, and by extension more data centers, will result in faster progress toward more advanced AI models. With no one willing to fall behind, companies like Google, OpenAIAnd Microsoft have all announced plans to invest billions of dollars in new data center projects.

These projects are spreading quickly across the country. But not everyone is happy to see a power-hungry data center set up in their backyard.

Rising electricity bills linked to the growth of data centers have become a flashpoint in this year’s local elections. CNBC recently reported that in some states with high concentrations of data centers, electricity bills have increased. grew faster than the national average.

Lawmakers are starting to take notice. In Minnesota, lawmakers have introduced several bills this year aimed at putting safeguards on the data center industryincluding new rules governing energy and water consumption, as well as measures designed to prevent ordinary utility customers from subsidizing the massive energy demands of data centers.

Even Senator Bernie Sanders has called for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers. In a job on

Beyond higher electricity bills, some research suggests that data centers can carry larger amounts of data. public health risks. One study estimates that the total public health burden of U.S. data centers could exceed $20 billion annually by 2028, largely due to air pollution caused by backup generators and power generation.