Today's edition
—·Chips, power, and the grid
Desk
Stories on this desk are prepared with AI assistance and reviewed under Voltgrid News editorial standards and the corrections policy. The desk covers chips, power, and data centers.
Corrections follow the corrections policy.
Data centers · Oct 19, 2026, 14:28
Israel's Electricity Authority will cap new data centers at 200 MW and require NIS 2 million per MW in guarantees after Noga received 27,000 MW of requests.
Power · Oct 19, 2026, 14:28
Serverfarm's $6.6 billion Arkansas campus will run its 432 MW first phase on a 660 MW, 40-turbine Solaris gas island while transmission catches up.
Chips · Oct 19, 2026, 14:28
HPE Juniper's QFX5252 tray for AMD Helios uses two liquid-cooled Tomahawk 6 switches and retimers to drive 224G PAM4 scale-up links inside the rack.
Data centers · Oct 19, 2026, 10:20
Rune Energy plans 100 MW of compute within 12 months using 100 kW RELIC GPU modules wired to the DC side of solar farms to soak up power the grid can't take.
Data centers · Oct 19, 2026, 10:16
Schneider Electric is piloting software-defined medium-voltage switchgear at Equinix, claiming 3x faster manufacturing and half the commissioning time.
Power · Oct 19, 2026, 10:16
EIA data shows ERCOT hit a 91.1 GW hourly peak in summer 2026, 6.5% above its 2024 record, as heat waves drove record highs at PJM, ERCOT and SPP.
Chips · Oct 19, 2026, 10:16
Cisco and NVIDIA are drafting USFP, a pluggable optics spec that carries 1.6 Tbps on four 400G SerDes lanes, Cisco said ahead of the OCP Global Summit.
Power · Oct 19, 2026, 10:13
FERC's Oct. 9 order lets PJM track loads of 50 MW or more but rejects its IRAS curtailment plan, leaving data center emergency rules for the 13-state grid open.
Chips · Oct 19, 2026, 10:13
NVIDIA has reportedly asked Samsung, SK hynix and Micron to build NVHBM base dies on TSMC 3nm, a single logic node for three rival memory makers.
Power · Oct 18, 2026, 16:55
Oracle's huge planned AI data center in Port Washington, Wisconsin, cannot run until state regulators approve its power line connection. Research firm Aterio expects real use to start only in 2028.
Power · Oct 18, 2026, 16:55
Researchers at ETH Zürich and NYU tested 36 real memory chips of the kind used in AI processors. They found the industry's standard worst-case test misses how much power the chips can really draw.
Data centers · Oct 18, 2026, 16:55
Microsoft has pulled out of a deal to rent 23,000 Nvidia AI chips at Nscale's planned data centre in Essex. The local power grid may not be able to supply the site until the 2030s.
Data centers · Oct 18, 2026, 16:55
More than 300 local US bans on new data centers are holding up only three projects, a SemiAnalysis review finds. The industry's 2027 growth looks on track. A permit freeze in Texas is the big unknown.
Chips · Oct 18, 2026, 16:55
The chip NVIDIA has sold in small Linux computers for a year is now inside Windows laptops, led by Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra. Its graphics are strong, but its main processor cores are older.
Chips · Oct 18, 2026, 16:54
Intel's GPU D270, the first card from its Crescent Island project, is slower on paper than AMD's rival but uses far less power and needs no liquid cooling. There is still no launch date or price.