Monday, October 13, 2025

The Obtain: The desert information middle increase, and the best way to measure Earth’s elevations

Within the excessive desert east of Reno, Nevada, building crews are flattening the golden foothills of the Virginia Vary, laying the foundations of an information middle metropolis.

Google, Tract, Change, EdgeCore, Novva, Vantage, and PowerHouse are all working, constructing, or increasing large services close by. In the meantime, Microsoft has acquired greater than 225 acres of undeveloped property, and Apple is increasing its current information middle simply throughout the Truckee River from the economic park.

The company race to amass computing sources to coach and run synthetic intelligence fashions and retailer info within the cloud has sparked an information middle increase within the desert—and it’s simply far sufficient away from Nevada’s communities to elude huge discover and, some worry, satisfactory scrutiny. Learn the total story.

—James Temple

This story is a part of Energy Hungry: AI and our vitality future—our new sequence shining a light-weight on the vitality calls for and carbon prices of the unreal intelligence revolution. Try the remainder of the package deal right here.

A brand new atomic clock in area might assist us measure elevations on Earth

In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland started constructing a bridge throughout the Rhine River concurrently from each side. Months into building, they discovered that the 2 sides didn’t meet. The German aspect hovered 54 centimeters above the Swiss one.

The misalignment occurred as a result of they measured elevation from sea stage in a different way. To forestall such pricey building errors, in 2015 scientists within the Worldwide Affiliation of Geodesy voted to undertake the Worldwide Peak Reference Body, or IHRF, a worldwide commonplace for elevation.

Now, a decade after its adoption, scientists want to replace the usual—by utilizing probably the most exact clock ever to fly in area. Learn the total story.

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