Powering data centres

Al leadership will depend also on control of power supply

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Google’s reportedly planned $4.75 billion acquisition of Intersect Power will not just be another corporate clean-energy deal. Data centres powering large-language models now consume city-sized amounts of energy, and the constraint is no longer only chips or capital but also access to reliable power at scale.

By buying a major renewables developer, Google is moving beyond being a buyer to becoming an energy actor in its own right. For years, technology companies relied mainly on power-purchase agreements (PPAs). In this case, ownership will give Google the ability to build generation capacity to power new data-centre campuses. Intersect has an array of solar and battery-storage projects concentrated in Texas, a fast-emerging data-centre hotspot.