How to Choose a Data Centre Location: Five Maps, Two Permanent
Siting a data centre means overlaying five constraint maps. Three are dissolving this decade. Two never will, and they point to a place we know.
ScienceShot: science and technology for the people who build the data-centre stack
Top stories
Top stories
- Data CentersCosmic Rays and Silent Data Corruption in Data Centres3 Oct 2026
- Data CentersEU Data Centre PUE 2025: What the First Figures Show2 Oct 2026
- Data CentersEU Data Centre Minimum Performance Standards: What to Submit by 14 December1 Oct 2026
- Data CentersEuropean Data Centre Regulation Tracker: Rules, Status, Deadlines30 Sep 2026
Live data and reference tools
Free, sourced and updated: the instruments behind our reporting.
Europe’s grid now0650 gCleanest Sweden (SE3) 26 gMost carbon-intensive Poland 774 gCarbon intensity of electricity, g CO₂e/kWh · Updated 19:29 CESTOpen the live grid →
71 days: EU consultation closesRegulation tracker Every European data-centre energy rule, its threshold and its next date.30 countries rankedSiting cost map Rank 30 European countries by power cost and emissions for your load.10,701 power plantsEnergy map Every power plant of 50 MW or more in Europe, searchable by fuel and capacity.500 kW reporting thresholdEED reporting guide What a site over 500 kW reports to the EU, and by when.
Latest
Semiconductors & Electronics
MoS2 Radio Survives Nine Months in Orbit: What It Shows
A 2026 orbital MoS2 radio experiment ran for nine months. Its measured error rate supports a promising result, with mission qualification still ahead.
Intel Glass Core Substrate: Why It’s Not Shipping
3D Chip Stacking’s Thermal Limit Splits Cache From Cores
Optoelectronics for High Energy Experiments: Evolution and Emerging Capabilities
The Future of Particle Detection: Diamond Pixel Sensors
Rules clock
Days to the dates European data-centre operators plan around.
Regulation tracker →Every rule and its status- 71daysEU consultation closesMinimum performance standards for data centres · 14 Dec 2026
- 89daysGermany: 100% renewable powerEnEfG, law in force; a bill would move it to 2030 · 1 Jan 2027
- 178daysGerman register report dueEnEfG annual data-centre report · 31 Mar 2027
- 223daysEU data-centre report dueEED Article 12, sites from 500 kW IT · 15 May 2027
Connectivity
Co-Packaged Optics Is Killing the Pluggable Transceiver
Everyone is cheering co-packaged optics for saving power. They are missing the real story: the pluggable transceiver, the most-swapped part in any AI data center, is being quietly executed.
Fibre Optic Infrastructure for Data Centres: Optics, Cabling and Testing
Meet-Me-Rooms: The Hidden Rooms Where the Internet Actually Connects
Copper or Fiber: The Truth About Network Speed and Bandwidth
Hollow Core Fibres: How Novel Fibres Smashed Loss Records Through Air Guidance
Data Centers
AI Model Collapse Is a Curation Failure
AI model collapse comes from uncurated synthetic data, and the text shortage only pushes labs toward it. Curation decides which labs keep improving.
Data Center Opposition Is Now America’s Real AI Bottleneck
Equinix’s Nuclear Power Agreements: What Each One Secures
Phantom Data Center Power Demand Is Raising Your Bill
Samsung’s Floating Data Center: 50 MW, Permits Unsettled
Software & AI
PII Masking AI Agent: The New Privacy Default
PII masking AI agent design is quietly becoming standard — six unrelated vendors converged on mask-then-send without comparing notes.
Claude Unified Memory Is a Trust Play, Not a Feature
AI Trading Agents Are Losing Real Money Fast
Claude Code Built-In Browser Closes the QA Loop
AI Agent Memory Is About Cost, Not Feelings
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What changed on Europe's grid and in data-centre rules, every Monday.
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