By Catherine Roberts, senior team leader/business
Right now, about 6% of the U.S. energy supply goes to serving data centers. The large-scale data center buildouts being proposed right now could double that by 2028.
Larger data centers can use up to 5 million gallons per day, which is equivalent to what a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people uses, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institutes.
A Little Canada startup could have an answer to reduce the use of both in data centers, and it’s technology using lasers. When reporter Patrick Kennedy first told me about Maxwell Labs, I said you have to find out more. We think of lasers as producing heat, but in this case the lasers turn heat into energy.
The company has a bunch of venture capital backing, enough to build out a prototype.
Data centers are in the news all over the state, but the only large-scale center under construction is one for Meta in Rosemount. Walker Orenstein reported that two other large-scale proposals were scrapped after the development company behind them decided the permitting process in Minnesota would take too long.
But proposals are still in the works. Today, he has another story that one company wants to build renewable energy plants in farm country that would directly fuel a large data center.
With the growth of AI and our online economy, the need for the processing done at these centers is not going to go away.
