Oracle and OpenAI break ground on the Michigan Stargate campus

Construction has started on a new Stargate data center campus in Saline Township, Michigan, internally nicknamed “The Barn.” It is the latest physical site under the Stargate program, the multi-hundred-billion-dollar AI infrastructure effort tied to OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. The Michigan groundbreaking signals the program is moving from headline commitments into steel and concrete across multiple states.

Source: Data Center Dynamics

2026 hyperscaler capex closes in on $690 billion

Fresh analyst tracking puts combined 2026 spending from the big five hyperscalers at roughly $660 to $690 billion, up about 36 percent year over year. Amazon is guiding near $200 billion, Alphabet $175 to $185 billion, Meta $115 to $135 billion, Microsoft past $120 billion, and Oracle around $50 billion. Capital intensity is now running at historically unusual levels relative to revenue, a reminder of how concentrated this buildout has become.

Source: Futurum, CreditSights

Operators keep chasing alternative power as the grid lags

Two announcements this week show how creative the power hunt has become. Pure DC signed a biomethane purchase agreement to supply a Dublin data center, with the gas produced in Germany, and Era4 outlined plans for a landfill gas-powered facility in Canterbury, UK. Meanwhile Generac confirmed a backup generator supply deal with an undisclosed hyperscaler after what it called a rigorous qualification process. On-site and alternative generation continue to fill the gap while utility interconnection timelines stretch.

Source: DCD, DCD, DCD

Local approvals advance, but community opposition is building

A 2,000-acre parcel in Mason County, Kentucky was rezoned for data center use this week, even as local opposition continued to mount. It is part of a broader pattern: large land assemblies are still clearing zoning, but operators are increasingly meeting organized pushback on water, power, and land use. Early and substantive community engagement is becoming a real factor in site schedules.

Source: Data Center Dynamics

$3.6 billion AI data center campus planned for Rapides Parish, Louisiana

A new AI-focused data center campus valued at roughly $3.6 billion has been announced for Rapides Parish in central Louisiana. The project adds to the state’s fast-growing pipeline, which already includes Meta’s massive Hyperion development. Louisiana’s combination of land, power access, and incentives continues to pull large AI builds into the region.

Source: Louisiana Illuminator

Latvia’s Tet completes its DC7 facility in Riga

Telecom operator Tet has finished the first phase of its new DC7 data center in Riga, bringing fresh capacity online in the Baltic region. It is a smaller deal in dollar terms, but a useful signal that demand and investment are spreading well beyond the established Tier 1 markets.

Source: Data Center Dynamics

Etix to acquire Eurofiber’s French data centers

Colocation operator Etix Everywhere has agreed to acquire Eurofiber’s French data center portfolio, adding four facilities in the south of France. The deal continues the steady consolidation of European edge and regional colo assets as larger platforms build out denser national footprints.

Source: Data Center Dynamics

Submer launches Rubix Data Centers with an 8GW land portfolio

Cooling specialist Submer has spun up a new development arm, Rubix Data Centers, which it says controls a powered land portfolio of around 8 gigawatts. The company also hired a former Stack Infrastructure executive to lead the push. It is another example of an equipment and technology vendor moving up the stack into development and operations to capture more of the AI buildout.

Source: Data Center Dynamics

Liquid cooling crosses over, and the loop gets smart

2026 is the year liquid cooling stops being the exception. Industry trackers expect liquid-cooled capacity, which roughly matched air cooling in 2025, to double air cooling capacity by the end of this year. Direct-to-chip cold plates, CDU-based systems, and immersion are all scaling at once as AI racks push past 100 kilowatts and air alone can no longer keep up.

The more interesting shift is what sits inside the loop. The standout development this season is thermal intelligence: liquid loops are now packed with sensors tracking flow rate, pressure differentials, inlet and outlet temperatures, and even coolant chemistry, feeding software that tunes cooling in real time. Heat reuse is maturing alongside it, with European campuses feeding waste heat into district heating and US operators piloting absorption chillers that turn server heat into chilled water. Cooling is becoming an active, instrumented system rather than fixed plumbing.

Source: Build, ByteBridge, Upsite