Energy Digital

Finnish authorities have ordered Google to stop work at its data centre sites over environmental concerns, according to Al Jazeera. The move affects construction or operations tied to Google's facilities in Finland, and signals regulators' willingness to challenge major tech infrastructure projects on ecological grounds. The decision is drawing attention amid growing scrutiny of data centres' energy and environmental impact across Europe.

A link circulating on Mastodon is drawing attention to the environmental impact of data centres in Scotland. The post, tagged with Scotland, data centres and environment, is being shared among users concerned about energy and water use tied to growing digital infrastructure. Little concrete detail is available beyond the shared link itself.

Oilfield services firm SLB has won a 15-year contract from TotalEnergies to provide its digital well planning technology. The long-term agreement covers deployment of SLB's software for planning and drilling wells across the French energy major's operations. The deal underscores ongoing investment by major oil companies in digital tools to improve drilling efficiency and reduce costs.

Bert Hubert, a Dutch technologist known for open-source infrastructure work, has raised concerns about gaps in European IT resilience, linking the issue to energy security and the reliability of solar power systems. His remarks on EU policy are drawing attention among European technology and policy circles, with commenters agreeing that there is work to be done.

Concerns are being raised about the environmental impact of data centers, which consume large amounts of electricity and water to power digital services and artificial intelligence. The discussion focuses on their carbon footprint, energy demands, and the strain placed on local resources as demand for cloud computing and AI infrastructure continues to grow worldwide.

The World Economic Forum outlines three key factors it says will define how the next generation of data centres is built and run. With demand for AI and cloud computing surging, the piece highlights choices around energy use, sustainability and infrastructure capacity as decisive for the sector. Data centres have become a central economic and environmental issue as governments and companies weigh their growing power consumption against digital expansion.

Stanislav Kondrashov has published commentary on Europe's progress across the critical minerals landscape, addressing the continent's efforts to secure supplies of raw materials essential for energy transition technologies, batteries and digital industry. The remarks come as the EU pushes to reduce dependence on external suppliers through initiatives such as the Critical Raw Materials Act.

Reports describe the Yandex DC Sasovo data center in Russia's Ryazan region as a large facility with declared energy capacity of up to 12 MW and infrastructure to host tens of thousands of servers. It sits on the same site as an object referred to as 'Sasta', making the location a significant dual infrastructure point.

Chevron has joined the digital subsurface technology collaboration previously formed by SLB and TotalEnergies, according to a report by World Oil. The partnership focuses on digital tools for subsurface exploration and reservoir characterization, and Chevron's addition expands the alliance among three of the world's largest energy companies at a time when oil majors are investing heavily in digital and AI-driven exploration technology.