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Oracle on the hook to pay data centre investors even if site has no electricity

106 points • by Betelbuddy • today at 10:19 AM • 86 comments • view on HN

Comments

peri-cl • today at 11:09 AM

I'm very curious what happens now to the several gigawatts of fuel cells, that this project supposedly purchased to supply power.

> "Oracle signed a deal with solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Bloom last year for 1.8GW of power, expanding it to 2.8GW of capacity in April."

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/new-mexico-regula...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Energy

I was surprised to read we're already building fuel cell power plants on this scale (this is a first of its kind project—by far this startup's largest customer). I didn't realize the tech was that mature. Now I'm left wondering if they actually ever intended to, or whether this was some kind of circular financial-engineering vaporware.

jpster • today at 2:15 PM

I thought force majeure is for weather catastrophes, natural disasters, terrorism, “acts of God”. Not for “we didn’t get the permits”.

runeks • today at 10:24 AM

> The tech group has issued a force majeure notice related to the power supply to the project developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital, after the site ran into permitting delays after rising local opposition.

Since when can failing to get a permit be considered force majeure?

Doesn't majeure specifically denote something large scale and out of anyone's control, such as a hurricane?

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briffle • today at 2:19 PM

Great to know that everyone's RAM, GPU, and SSD costs have skyrocketed over the last year, so that companies like Oracle can fill giant buildings full of RAM and SSD's (and GPU's) and then not even be able to turn them on..

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gchamonlive • today at 11:23 AM

A too-big-to-fail about to fail certain it'll be bailed out? Another comment* raised a question about investments in fuel cells that could have been just for show. Are they doing max damage to leech as much cash as possible before implosion or it's just... I mean, it's oracle it's a mystery to me how they make so much money with selling crapware, so it might just be business as usual?

*https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49842884

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hn3ufz62f7 • today at 10:36 AM

Agreed, and most of these leases explicitly carve permitting out of force majeure since it's the tenant's job to get them.

cmiles8 • today at 11:26 AM

The AI bubble has built a giant interconnected web of commitments backed by a debt bomb. It all flows back to the ability of net new cash to flow in to pay for all this, not just VC funding and circular vendor financing. We’re seeing the early signs of that starting to all implode.

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Havoc • today at 1:11 PM

Oracle is on the hook for god damn everything. If AI implodes they'll be a smoking crater

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be8e9dmrro • today at 11:46 AM

You can put solar and wind everywhere. I would sue god if there is no sunshine at night!

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jrochkind1 • today at 1:47 PM

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