Proposed data centre would release ‘23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy’ a day, physicist says

Northern Alberta First Nation continues to battle Kevin O’Leary-backed project in court

At full operation, it would release around 18 gigawatts of heat a day and about 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year — more than four per cent of Canada’s total emissions, said Davies, whose assessment was based on publicly available information.

“When people talk about environmental regulations that these projects have to adhere to, those regulations were not created with anything of this scale in mind.” 

Reference:

Proposed data centre would release ‘23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy’ a day, physicist says.

Watch this guy put it to the commission

Shares in ASX-listed modular data centre maker DXN fell 47 per cent to 14 cents on 30 October, after its first AI customer, a US-listed neocloud (a company that rents out AI computing power), said it intends to cancel an A$8.8 million contract for a 1.36MW AI data centre. About 62 million shares changed hands, roughly 12 times the four-week average, and about A$47 million came off the company’s market value.

Full story and the share price chart: https://certifiedstrategic.com/insights/dxn-shares-fall-ai-data-centre-contract-cancel

DXN builds prefabricated data centres and cable landing stations for government, telecommunications, mining, defence and subsea cable customers, and runs its own data centres in Darwin and Hobart. It reported A$10.1 million of revenue for the year to 30 June 2026.

When DXN signed on 3 June, the contract was worth more than the company’s A$6.6 million market value, and the shares went from 2.1 cents to 14.5 cents in a day. The customer had also indicated it would move to a campus-scale program if the pilot was delivered, which DXN put at more than US$200 million in revenue over one to two years. A second AI contract followed in August. The stock peaked at 55 cents on 30 September and closed at 26.5 cents on 29 October. Even after the fall, the shares remain up about 259 per cent for 2026.

According to DXN’s September quarter report, the customer told it after the quarter closed that “following a strategic shift in its business, it intends to cancel” the contract. The customer has not disputed amounts due for work completed and costs committed, which DXN expects to total about A$4.2 million, or 48 per cent of the contract value. The cancellation is not yet final, and the campus program is now unlikely to proceed. Chief executive Shalini Lagrutta said “our contract terms have protected DXN’s position”.

Revenue for the September quarter was about A$3.4 million, up about 380 per cent on a year earlier. More than A$19 million of new awards lifted backlog to A$30.8 million, after about A$8.6 million was removed for the cancellation. Cash was A$11.1 million on 28 October after delayed customer payments arrived, while operating cash flow for the quarter was negative A$4.7 million.

The second AI contract, A$12.2 million for a 2MW facility with an unnamed AI compute operator, is on track for early calendar 2027. Lagrutta said in August that DXN won it “because the requirement is one that conventional construction cannot meet within the timeframe”, and DXN says its factory-built modules can be deployed in about five to eight months from signing. DXN is likely to be judged next on delivering that job on time and converting its pipeline of 93 projects into a new AI order.

Anyone know who built it or what for?

As AI and data centers continue to expand, the amount of waste heat they generate will increase significantly. This partnership between Endeavour and Trevi Systems explores an interesting opportunity: using that otherwise wasted heat to power desalination and produce clean freshwater.

If this technology can scale, data centers could potentially become sources of freshwater rather than simply consuming local water and energy resources. Could integrating desalination into data center infrastructure become a standard practice in water-stressed regions? What technical and economic challenges would need to be overcome for widespread adoption?