This Week's Top Five Stories in the Data Centre Industry

Nebius Chooses Kao Data for UK's AI Infrastructure Expansion

Some of the UK's most advanced research projects already call Kao Data's Harlow campus home.

Now the site is adding another major tenant, with AI cloud provider Nebius selecting the facility for a 22MW deployment that will support AI innovation across academia, research and industry.

The 10-year agreement will see Nebius host its AI cloud platform and managed inference service, Nebius Token Factory, at the Essex campus.

It also forms part of the company's wider £1.7bn (US$2.26bn) UK investment programme, announced this week.

The programme is aimed at expanding domestic compute capacity and supporting the Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan.

Amazon Bets on Fibre Manufacturing to Power Data Centres

While the race to scale AI-ready data centres is often framed around chips and power, the quieter constraint sits deeper in the stack.

Fibre optic cable is what stitches hyperscale infrastructure together, and as cloud regions expand at pace, securing enough of it has become a strategic priority in its own right.

Amazon’s new multibillion-dollar agreement with Corning brings that issue into focus, tying one of the world’s largest cloud operators directly to expanded fibre production capacity in the US.

The deal will scale manufacturing in North Carolina, add more than 1,000 skilled roles and support construction activity across Corning’s facilities, while reinforcing the supply chains that underpin Amazon’s growing data centre footprint across the country.

Google's Data Centre Water Use to Turn Net Positive by 2030

Google has committed to returning more water to local systems than its data centres use by 2030. The company announced this target alongside US$17m in funding for watershed protection projects.

Data centres function as command hubs for digital services including search engines, mapping tools, online banking and healthcare platforms. The servers and chips within these buildings produce heat that requires management to maintain operational efficiency.

Water cooling methods can reduce energy use by around 10% compared to air cooling systems, according to Google. The company notes that data centre water use represents less than 1% of the volume Americans use for lawn irrigation each year.

Google is concentrating efforts on protecting water resources in locations where it constructs and operates facilities. The strategy aims to prevent digital infrastructure expansion from placing pressure on municipal water supplies.

Behind Dow and Solenis’ Data Centre Cooling Partnership

As data centres push deeper into liquid cooling, attention is moving beyond the coolant itself and towards a less visible challenge: keeping those fluids performing reliably over time.

While much of the industry conversation focuses on cooling hardware and fluid selection, long-term coolant health is becoming a critical operational consideration for facilities seeking to maximise uptime.

That focus sits at the heart of a new agreement between water treatment and process solutions provider Solenis and materials science company Dow.

Under the arrangement, Solenis is joining Dow’s Coolant Care Network for Data Centers as an approved service provider, supporting operators that use DOWFROST™ LC and DOWFROST™ HD heat transfer fluids in direct-to-chip liquid cooling environments.

KKR Launches $10bn AI Hyperscale Data Centre Firm Helix

Global investment firm KKR has launched a data centre infrastructure company named Helix Digital Infrastructure (Helix). The business starts with over US$10bn in committed capital to accelerate the deployment of facilities, energy generation and connectivity required for AI workloads.

Helix is backed by founding investors including the Kuwait Investment Authority, technology corporation NVIDIA and integrated power firm Vistra. Writing on LinkedIn announcing his appointment, the new chief executive outlines his motivation for joining the venture.

“In my 15 years helping build a US$100bn revenue business and scale cloud infrastructure with Amazon Web Services (AWS), I saw firsthand what happens when demand for compute outpaces the physical infrastructure behind it,” says Adam Selipsky, CEO of Helix.