Google said its fiber internet unit called GFiber is combining with Astound Broadband and forming an independent provider, with Google remaining as a minority shareholder.

The new company will be majority owned by investment firm Stonepeak and led by the existing GFiber executive team, “utilizing their expertise in high-speed fiber innovation to manage the combined network footprint,” Google said in a press release on Wednesday. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Google Fiber, launched in 2010, was an early effort by Google to build ultra-fast fiber-optic broadband networks in the U.S., starting with a gigabit-speed rollout in Kansas City in 2012. Google proposed building gigabit fiber connections to homes, far faster than typical U.S. internet speeds at the time.

Since then, some planned expansions were canceled and the company focused on select markets rather than a costly and time-intensive nationwide rollout.

The spinout comes at a time when demand is growing for high-capacity networks fueled by the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence services. The external capital will help the new entity expand across the country, the company said.

“This partnership with Astound and Stonepeak is the next step in our decade-long mission to redefine what customers can expect from their internet provider,” GFiber CEO Dinni Jain said in the release.

GFiber has been part of Google’s “Other Bets” segment, which includes non-core assets such as the Waymo robotaxi division and drug discovery business Isomorphic Labs. In 2025, the combined segment generated $1.54 billion in revenue, or less than 0.5% of Alphabet’s total sales, and recorded an operating loss of $16.8 billion.

The shift toward fiber infrastructure has become increasingly important as demand grows for networks that can support cloud computing, streaming and emerging AI services. U.S. tech giants are also rolling out a rapidly expanding network of transcontinental subsea cables, seeking to keep pace with growing bandwidth demand.

Astound is a major U.S. cable operator and broadband platform, which was acquired by Stonepeak in 2021 for $8.1 billion. Stonepeak specializes in infrastructure and real estate.

A Google spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

WATCH: Google’s capacity advantage

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr lashed out at Amazon on Wednesday for opposing SpaceX’s orbital data center plans while it’s falling short of its own satellite “deployment milestone.”

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote in a post on X.

Amazon declined to comment.

Amazon last week urged the FCC to reject a SpaceX application for permission to launch a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites, which would function as a data center network in space to support artificial intelligence projects.

Amazon characterized the application as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” noting SpaceX has provided scant details around how it will “deliver on these grand claims.”

SpaceX’s Starlink service currently dominates the internet-from-space market. Amazon has been vying to compete with Starlink via its Leo satellite service, previously branded as Kuiper. The company has invested more than $10 billion into the effort, and has sent up at least 200 satellites since last April via a variety of launch partners, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

In late January, Amazon asked the FCC for a waiver or 24-month extension, to July 2028, to meet a deadline that requires it to deploy roughly 1,600 internet satellites by July 2026. At the time, the company blamed delays beyond its control, including a “shortage in the near-term availability” of rockets and manufacturing disruptions.

Amazon noted in its request that the FCC has previously granted similar extensions. The FCC last month approved a separate petition from Amazon to deploy 4,500 internet satellites, which would more than double the size of its constellation.

Starlink has around 9,000 satellites in orbit today and roughly 9 million customers. It recently received authorization from the FCC to put another 7,500 satellites into orbit.

Scientists have decried the SpaceX proposal to launch one million satellites into orbit, citing a wide range of issues, including light pollution, orbital debris and other harms to the broader orbital environment, as well as increased risk of “Kessler syndrome,” a scenario in which debris and clutter in space can cause a chain reaction that makes low Earth orbit unusable.

Amazon pointed to these concerns from astronomers and environmental groups in its petition, and said SpaceX’s application “risks worsening international backlash” from regulators who are concerned about monopolization of space resources.

“Granting the application would worsen matters further, forcing every other operator in Low-Earth Orbit to plan around a constellation that may never exist, distorting international spectrum and orbital coordination proceedings, and lending regulatory legitimacy to what amounts to a publicity and narrative-shaping exercise,” Amazon wrote in its request to the FCC.

The FCC hasn’t yet approved SpaceX’s request, but in separate remarks to Reuters on Wednesday, Carr said he doesn’t expect Amazon’s petition to “get much traction.”

Carr is a longtime public fan of SpaceX who has mocked environmental concerns from those calling out Musk’s company for launches that harmed public lands and endangered species’ habitat.

He also accused the FCC, under former President Joe Biden, of “regulatory harassment” of SpaceX when the agency found the company’s Starlink WiFi service was not fit at the time to fulfill the program needs of a rural broadband initiative.

Just outside Ireland’s capital, Dublin, a data center has become the first in Europe to turn to an independent, so-called “islanded,” microgrid to keep its servers running.

Europe is looking to cash in on the AI boom while tackling power connection delays that have persisted for decades. The European Commission estimates the bloc needs at least 1.2 trillion euros ($1.39 trillion) in investments by 2040. In some cases, companies can’t wait for bottlenecks to be eased and are turning to their own sources of power.

The Dublin facility, operated by power supply solutions provider AVK and digital infrastructure developer Pure Data Centre Group, could mark the continent’s first step toward a privately powered ecosystem.

Microgrids are localized energy systems that can generate, store, and distribute power. The systems are already being widely used in the U.S., where a boom in data centers in red-hot areas like Texas and Virginia has seen an increasing need for off-grid power.

AVK and Pure DC say their Dublin installation is the first data center in Europe to be operated by a live microgrid.

“As these data centers get bigger and we see AI workloads and that data becoming more of a feature in our day-to-day lives, that only puts more stress on the grid. So we have to drive to a different solution,” AVK CEO Ben Pritchard told CNBC.

The systems are not without their challenges. Regulatory hurdles could slow deployment, and the long-term success of microgrids likely depends on whether their power sources are both reliable and sustainable.

Ireland is one of two European countries to have enforced a moratorium on new data center applications as the energy-intensive facilities put pressure on the nation’s grid. The facilities consumed a staggering 22% of the small country’s power in 2024.

Ireland’s national grid operator warned in late February that meeting power demand could be “challenging” as consumers use electricity in new ways. It identified data centers as a key driver of that demand growth.

But late last year, Irish authorities eased the moratorium, as the AI boom saw sentiment U-turn on their economic potential.

All new data centers connecting to the grid must now provide dispatchable power — electricity that can be turned on or off depending on the national grid’s needs — or have the capacity to store energy. They must also source at least 80% of annual demand from renewable electricity generated in Ireland, according to guidelines set by the country’s regulator CRU.

“The alternative in Ireland was to wait, literally wait for an unknown time to be able to get a grid connection, and still today you’re not able to get a grid connection. So creating a microgrid enabled us to move our project forward,” Pure DC President Dawn Childs told CNBC.

Childs, who was appointed a Dame in the U.K. for her services to engineering, added that the project is intended as both an immediate and a long-term solution. “If we have to stay as an islanded solution, we absolutely can … However, to get the most sustainable solution and to provide services back into the grid in Dublin, in the most constrained area of Ireland, it would be our desire to get a grid connection.”

The Dublin data center, which can run both cloud and AI workloads, has a total capacity of about 110 megawatts. Total projected investment in the site is about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion).

The facility is currently powered by natural gas engines with the ability to switch to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO). The site has also trialled biomethane as a power source.

If the Dublin data center does eventually secure a grid connection, it will be able to offer dispatchable power and provide up to 20 MW of battery storage, Childs said.

The global microgrid market was worth around $29 billion in 2025, with Europe’s market expected to grow by nearly 10% per year due to its aging infrastructure, according to estimates from Global Market Insights. While investments are made in modernizing the national grid, companies are expected to increasingly turn to more immediate solutions for power.

Microgrids are already being used to power industrial sites and plants in Europe, but there aren’t many instances of them powering data centers when compared to the U.S.

In addition to AVK, companies such as ABB and Siemens are racing to develop the technology, with Schneider Electric opening a microgrid testing lab in Massachusetts last year to test the systems in real-world conditions.

Siemens sees “potential opportunities” for implementing microgrids at data center locations and is currently in discussions with several customers, a company spokesperson told CNBC. The topic is particularly relevant for the U.S. market, but it is also having similar discussions in Europe, they said.

Siemens is also interested in the use of microgrids to support electric vehicle charging infrastructure and port decarbonization.

AVK, which is expected to reach at least a billion-dollar valuation by 2030, initially focused on standby and backup power generation before expanding to become a full power solutions provider.

According to the company’s CEO, discussions and plans for microgrids were underway in Europe, but the U.S. market quickly overtook the 27-nation bloc. “It’s just that the U.S. has such a high demand that we’ve seen the rollout a little bit quicker than we’ve seen here in Europe,” Pritchard told CNBC, adding that the company is now seeing a new type of investor who is specifically interested in microgrids and not necessarily the data center itself.

“They’re infrastructure funds who are looking to build, own and operate microgrids and supply power to the data centers,” Pritchard said. He expects this type of asset class to mature over the next three to five years.

One of the biggest challenges facing the market is how microgrids are deployed sustainably, as much of the discussion on the tech has revolved around the use of gas turbines or fuel cells, Diego Diaz Hernandez, a partner at McKinsey, told CNBC.

“Making these assets grid participants in theory and in practice are very different questions,” Diaz Hernandez said.

“Technically speaking, it’s very feasible to do so, and we’ve seen examples of that in the U.S. [where] grid operators are requiring 50 or even 100 hours of flexibility out of the entire year in order to ease the pressure on the grid. So they’re not asking for a lot, but actually having the regulation and policy in place to allow for that to happen is a big question.”

Ensuring the power supply is reliable, as well as overcoming regulation, will also be key, Hernandez said. He noted that in the U.S., around 30% of data centers are adopting microgrid or other behind-the-meter solutions, like fuel cells and gas turbines — power sources that don’t require a connection to the main grid. In Europe, the share was just 5–10% 18 months ago, but has since already risen to about 20%, he added.

Challenges aside, the burden on data centers to provide their own sources of power is clearly growing. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said data centers “need some PR help” amid concerns about their impact on electricity prices.

Swedish legaltech Legora has raised $550 million at a $5.55 billion valuation in a Series D round, the company announced on Tuesday, as investors pile money into European AI startups.

The round was led by Accel, with participation from existing investors Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, ICONIQ, Redpoint Ventures and Y Combinator.

New investors including Alkeon Capital, Bain Capital, Firstmark Capital, Menlo Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Sands Capital and Starwood Capital were also involved.

Legora’s Series D is its third raise in the past year.

The announcement comes on the back of a bumper start to the week for European AI companies.

U.K.-based AI infrastructure Nscale said on Monday that it had raised a $2 billion Series C and on Tuesday former Meta AI chief Yann LeCun’s new AI startup Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs announced it had picked up over $1 billion. U.K. autonomous driving startup Wayve hit an $8.6 billion valuation in February after raising a $1.2 billion Series D.

Record funds were ploughed into European AI startups in 2025, with $21.7 billion invested, according to dealcounting platform Dealroom. Just over two months into 2026, AI startups in the region have raised more than $9 billion.

“Over the past year, the pace of adoption in the U.S. has exceeded our expectations, as leading firms and in-house teams move decisively from experimentation to embedding AI across their organisations,” Max Junestrand, CEO and cofounder of Legora, said in a statement.

“This funding enables us to accelerate our U.S. growth – investing in talent and infrastructure, strengthening our presence in key markets, and ensuring we can support customers on the ground as they integrate AI into their core workflows.”

Legora is expanding its footprint in the U.S. with new offices in Houston and Chicago, alongside its existing presence in New York and Denver. The company expects to open additional local hubs and grow to more than 300 employees across its U.S. offices by the end of 2026, it said.

A prolonged conflict in the Middle East could impact the semiconductor industry’s access to key materials while rising costs could hit demand for chips that have been central to the artificial intelligence boom, analysts warned.

The U.S.-Israel war with Iran has shone a spotlight on the role countries in the Middle East play in the complex and intricate semiconductor supply chain.

Semiconductor stocks were caught in the sell-off seen in equity markets before President Donald Trump said on Monday that war will end “very soon.”

Memory chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung have been hit particularly badly with more than $200 billion wiped off their combined value since the start of the war, even with both stocks rallying sharply on Tuesday. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF is down about 3% since the start of the war paring some losses after a 3.6% jump on Monday.

“A prolonged regional conflict could potentially disrupt chipmakers’ manufacturing operations regarding sourcing materials like Helium and Bromine,” Ray Wang, memory analyst at SemiAnalysis, told CNBC.

“For now, the impact appears to be limited. However, a prolonged conflict could eventually lead to disruptions or require adjustments in the sourcing of key materials.”

A South Korean lawmaker warned last week that the Iran war could hamper access to key materials from the Middle East such as helium, Reuters reported. The lawmaker also warned a prolonged conflict could lead to higher energy prices.

So, what exactly is the role of certain countries in the Middle East in the semiconductor supply chain?

Qatar produces over a third of the world’s helium supply, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Helium is used in the manufacturing process to transfer away heat. It is also used in areas like lithography, which is key for printing the intricate circuitry of a chip. There is no viable alternative to helium.

In 2023, the Semiconductor Industry Association warned that if the supply of helium were to be disrupted, “there would likely be shocks to the global semiconductor manufacturing industry.”

Not only is production an issue. Transportation of the element out of the Middle East could become increasingly difficult with the effective closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

More than 25% of the world’s helium supply would be taken off the market by an extended shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, Phil Kornbluth, president of Kornbluth Helium Consulting, told CNBC.

Qatar’s state-owned QatarEnergy produces helium as a byproduct of liquefied natural gas (LNG). QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan Industrial City was hit by an Iranian drone attack last week, taking the site offline.

Kornbluth said it “is getting hard to imagine” that the world is not looking at a “minimum” two-to-three month shutdown of helium production and a four-to-six month period before the helium supply chain “returns to normal.”

Bromine is another element in focus and is a key part of the semiconductor manufacturing process. Around two-thirds of the world’s bromine production comes from Israel and Jordan, according to the USGS.

“There is modest risk to critical materials. Helium is the main one we are watching. Qatar is one of the largest sources of Helium. Canada and the United States are also large suppliers,” Peter Hanbury, partner in Bain & Company’s Technology practice, told CNBC.

Rising energy costs could also impact the semiconductor industry. That’s because so much of semiconductor demand, from Nvidia‘s graphics processing units to the memory chips products by Samsung and SK Hynix, are designed for data centers that are training and running huge AI models.

Because of the huge demand for AI and the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured by hyperscalers into building infrastructure, the world’s supply of memory chips has been funnelled into these projects. This has created a shortage of memory and an unprecedented price rise of these chips.

With Elon Musk’s xAI planning to build a massive, natural-gas burning power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, the state’s environmental authority has scheduled a board meeting for Tuesday — Election Day for the 2026 primaries — to decide whether to grant the company key permits.

The NAACP and other civil rights and environmental advocates tried to get the meeting delayed, arguing that it was being rushed and would conflict with some residents’ efforts to vote. The groups also said that by holding the meeting in Jackson, nearly 200 miles away from Southaven, those directly affected by the plant are impeded from attending.

“This is not only a civic duty conundrum, but an unnecessary financial burden to Black residents and individuals who live in low-income and other communities near the facility,” the NAACP wrote in a letter to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) that’s dated March 8, but was released publicly on Monday.

They asked that the hearing be rescheduled and moved to a site closer to the proposed facility.

The MDEQ denied the request on Monday, writing in a response to the NAACP that its permit board “regularly meets on the second Tuesday of each month, which has been the standard practice for decades,” and that the regulator, “considers matters on a statewide basis.” A copy of the letter was shared with CNBC.

The meeting is set to take place a little over a month after Musk merged xAI with SpaceX, his reusable rocket company, in a transaction that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. Since starting xAI in 2023, Musk has tried to turn the AI company into an OpenAI competitor in the booming generative AI market.

Training and running AI models requires hefty amounts of compute and power, and rising utility bills have been partly blamed on the massive electricity consumption of new data centers. At a meeting last week with the White House, execs from tech companies, including xAI, signed non-binding pledges to supply their own power for their facilities.

So far, xAI has relied on its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, just across the Mississippi state line. In Southaven, a roughly 15 minute drive from Memphis, xAI is investing in the proposed power plant, and a large data center dubbed Macrohardrr.

Following the MDEQ’s response on Monday, the NAACP said in a statement that by having the hearing the morning of Election Day, three hours away from the community, “their actions speak volumes.”

“They’re trying to sneak xAI’s data center into the community’s backyard and they don’t care about the people living there,” the letter said.

In February, the NAACP filed a notice of intent to sue xAI over alleged Clean Air Act violations in Southaven.

As CNBC previously reported, residents in the area say they’ve endured round-the-clock noise pollution, and are concerned about air quality and public health issues from xAI’s use of “temporary” natural gas-burning turbines. Research by scientists at the University of Tennessee found that xAI’s earlier turbine use added to air pollution woes in Greater Memphis.

At a public hearing on Feb. 17 in Southaven, about 200 residents turned out to implore state and local officials to deny xAI authorization to rapidly build out data and power infrastructure without greater transparency, community engagement and effective efforts to prevent noise and air pollution.

Physicians, parents, teachers and local officials spoke out at the hearing.

“We are slowly falling out of love with where we have decided to grow our family,” said Taylor Logsdon, a mother of three, citing pollutants, noise levels and negative health effects. “It’s no coincidence that this is happening now. And I feel it will only get worse.”

A recent investigation by Floodlight showed that xAI has been operating more than a dozen “temporary” turbines concurrently in Southaven, as it previously did in Memphis. The company has argued that the turbines did not require federal permits, but environmental compliance experts have disagreed.

Community pushback and regulatory requirements are among the factors driving Musk and other tech executives to explore the potential of data centers in space.

WATCH: SpaceX takes on xAI cash burn after merger