The tech behemoth and chipmaker Nvidia on Monday announced the largest-ever stock buyback increase in US corporate history as its profits continue to explode due to massive spending on artificial intelligence data centers, which have drawn increasingly intense grassroots opposition nationwide. Nvidia said its board “has authorized an additional $150 billion under the company’s existing share…
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In a letter sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday, a group of Democrats demanded answers on the Trump administration’s reported plans to construct at least a dozen data centers on public lands owned by the federal government. The letter to Burgum was spearheaded by House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) and signed by 15 other Democrats.
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In 2004, Microsoft’s future chief sustainability officer, Melanie Nakagawa, co-edited a law journal issue on Indigenous peoples’ right to prior informed consent. This month, as a data center developer routed around exactly that standard in New Mexico, she didn’t answer whether it applies to her own company’s work. Ask Google, Amazon, and Microsoft whether they consult Native nations before…
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The Trump administration is reportedly considering a dozen data center projects to be built on public lands, a plan that would grant tech firms massive swaths of protected lands as they expand AI projects already sharply criticized for outsized use of public resources. The proposals under consideration are spread across six states — Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming — and would…
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After vowing to spend $20 billion on data centers across Pennsylvania, Amazon is now quietly reaping the rewards of a controversial, yet lucrative state tax exemption, records show. Exactly how much Pennsylvania could be forgoing from the tech behemoth is unclear, even as it expands its footprint across the state. In 2025, Amazon announced it would funnel its first investments into two data…
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As a United Nations expert reiterated a call for a global ban on nonessential uses of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a Swedish nonprofit on Monday released research on how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and related data centers are helping to drive a surge in PFAS production. Often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in human bodies or the…
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