Google Beam Futuristic AI-Powered 3D Video Chats Are Coming This Year

As it races to build ever larger data centers, Google on Tuesday said it has agreed to pay more than $3 billion to source carbon-free hydropower from Brookfield Asset Management’s company, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners.

The first contracts under the deal include 20-year power purchase agreements, the companies said, altogether amounting to $3 billion, for 670 megawatts of capacity from two hydropower plants in Pennsylvania. The deal is part of a broader framework agreement that will allow Google to source up to 3 gigawatts of capacity in total.

The deal comes as Google and its hyperscaler rivals, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, seek to source power for their seemingly ever-expanding data centers that they use to house, train, and host the AI tools that underpin the tech sector’s current boom.

This renewed demand for power has breathed new life into nuclear energy, boosted gas generation, and brought back focus on renewable energy. Google itself has committed tens of billions to making sure it won’t run out of power; Meta more or less bought a nuclear plant; and Microsoft has struck a deal to source power for 20 years from a nuclear plant next to another one that melted down nearly 50 years ago.

Power aside, renewable energy also presents an attractive opportunity for these companies to continue working towards their net-zero targets even as their burgeoning data centers add to their carbon emissions.

Brookfield Renewable Partners, which operates renewable energy plants in the U.S., said its two hydropower facilities in Pennsylvania, Holtwood and Safe Harbor, will be relicensed, upgraded, or overhauled to meet the new requirements.

“This collaboration with Brookfield is a significant step forward, ensuring clean energy supply in the PJM region where we operate. Hydropower is a proven, low-cost technology, offering dependable, homegrown, carbon-free electricity that creates jobs and builds a stronger grid for all,” Amanda Peterson Corio, head of data center energy at Google, said in a statement.

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Reddit users in the United Kingdom are now required to verify their age as a way to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content. 

The new requirement comes after the U.K.’s Online Safety Act (OSA) introduced new steps for platforms to take to block children from encountering harmful content, like pornography and material promoting self-harm.

Reddit will use the third-party service Persona to confirm a user’s age, necessitating users to submit a picture of their government-issued identity documents or take a selfie. Reddit said it will not have access to these images, and will only save the person’s verification status and their date of birth.

Restricted content to be hidden from users under 18 includes sexually explicit posts, anything that encourages suicide and disordered eating, and posts that spread hate against other people based on their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, and gender, among other violent and harmful content.

Critics have long warned of the security and privacy risks associated with private companies collecting and storing large amounts of people’s identity documents.

Last week, Bluesky announced that users in the UK will be required to verify their age in light of OSA’s update.