Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#71

Post by FireBeyond » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

datakan wrote: post #63

bespokedevelopr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Oracle can't acquire power generation for their WI facilities they've been asleep. Generac is based out of WI and rapidly expanding their manufacturing footprint to match DC demand. Connect the dots to political lobbying and tax breaks to one of the biggest local businesses in an now-recovering manufacturing state to secure generation equipment. A year ago Oracle could've bought Generac outright for less than some…

Power generation is never the problem. Power transmission is.

Yeah, power utilities in the DMV area have $20B of projects to try to bring in 3GW of capacity.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#72

Post by UltraSane » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #48

JSR_FDED wrote: post #12

Couldn’t happen to a nicer company

Interviewed there early in my career. The vibe was very much off. Ran into the same vibe many years later when a company that acquired a company I founded got bought by Computer Associates. Places where doing good work and making good things seemed way down the list of priorities. I get the feeling I was pitied for naïveté.

That is the exact vibe I got working at a state government IT department.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#73

Post by Scaled » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

ai-x wrote: post #15

skywhopper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

[flagged]

Space data centers are an intrinsically cool idea, and honestly I hope we see at least one for the sheer marvel of such a project. But to be cost efficient, it has to be cheaper than rural US, cheaper than buying some island, cheaper than setting it up on a converted freighter ship and tanking the fuel in, etc.

BUT once Earth has a fully paid off space elevator the unit economics will make sense, or if we have orbital space factories and don't have any lift costs, etc. It's all possible, but at a 50 year+ timescale and immense investment. All of which I hope for because I'd like to see more space development and exploration.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#74

Post by kishkash » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

UltraSane wrote: post #72

Zigurd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviewed there early in my career. The vibe was very much off. Ran into the same vibe many years later when a company that acquired a company I founded got bought by Computer Associates. Places where doing good work and making good things seemed way down the list of priorities. I get the feeling I was pitied for naïveté.

That is the exact vibe I got working at a state government IT department.

[dead]

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#75

Post by VirusNewbie » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

roryirvine wrote: post #28

throwaway26721 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that's exactly what his job was for the previous 5 years... Or possibly senior leadership isn’t happy with the pace of DC buildout over the last 5-years.

Very unlikely to be the technical build team at fault for that. Real estate, legal, permitting, utility connections, construction, plant fit out, testing and certification, security, customs and immigration, and shipping all need to happen first - and every one of those has room for huge amounts of uncertainty and delay, more so if you're doing it internationally. There aren't many shortcuts that you can take when yo…

yes but sometimes a VP gets fired, new VP comes in, and says "we'll outsource this" or "we'll use this home grown team doing something else" and unfortunately tons of people are caught in a layoff, even if they were good.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#76

Post by lightbritefight » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

panny wrote: post #52

gtowey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that building out space infrastructure is a less hard problem to solve than bribing a few local governments to get some building permits?

>a less hard problem to solve than bribing a few local governments Wouldn't it be best if the data centers were just... good neighbors? Like everyone talking about illegal bribes and impossible moonshots when the answer is just don't suck?

The issue with this is that datacenters are inherent "suck" machines. It takes a lot more effort and cost for them to not suck then for them to suck, so "sucking" is part of their core design.

Up till recently, they were a rare enough object that distressed communities still saw the glitz and glam that they are sold with as valuable. Now that brutalist assholes are trying to jam them in every nook and cranny of the earth, word is getting out and people aren't buying it anymore.

There have been some attempts to try floating or water immersed data centers that mitigate or at least hide some of their suckiness, but these were hard and costly, so the incentives weren't there to do them anyway. Maybe now those ideas will resurface and improve, but I expect "bribe, con or sue rural community to destroy their quality of life" is still cheaper and easier.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#77

Post by bravetraveler » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #48

JSR_FDED wrote: post #12

Couldn’t happen to a nicer company

Interviewed there early in my career. The vibe was very much off. Ran into the same vibe many years later when a company that acquired a company I founded got bought by Computer Associates. Places where doing good work and making good things seemed way down the list of priorities. I get the feeling I was pitied for naïveté.

> I get the feeling I was pitied for naïveté.

I have to assume so, sadly. Peers have said my preference towards quality over quantity is why I haven't "launched" [ahead of them? unclear]... as if they're nicely retired with drinks on the beach, or something. Completely blind to the fact that our priorities differ and, well, reality/status.

Long way to say, turn the performative pity right around on 'em. Their boss is a lawn mower: https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=38m33s

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#78

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #38

wmf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason, nobody is trying to build solar-powered AI datacenters. Maybe they can't find enough land.

It takes 2.5 million solar panels to generate 1GW of electricity assuming 400W per panel and direct sunlight. 2.5M times 18 sq ft per panel is about 1000 acres or ~1.55 sq mi. That would work for a 1 GW data center, during the day, without clouds, during the summer.

Is that supposed to be a lot? The US is some 3.8 million square miles.

A decade old Reddit thread estimated there are 60 square miles of just McDonalds. That is, a McDonalds footprint of solar panels alone is 39GW.

https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2bq7l2/so_i...

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#79

Post by sumeno » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:56 PM UTC

ai-x wrote: post #43

_keats wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question here is: do the laws of economics allow it?

Yes. https://youtu.be/FKHENV75b9Q?si=JFBsT2HinR02AI4P

Oh, well, if the CEO of a company who only exists to try to convince people it is possible says it's possible on a podcast hosted by a VC firm who also wants to convince people it is possible so they can make their money back then it must be!

I've always wondered who is gullible enough to even bother watching this kind of garbage, thank you for answering that question.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#80

Post by saghm » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

roryirvine wrote: post #28

throwaway26721 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that's exactly what his job was for the previous 5 years... Or possibly senior leadership isn’t happy with the pace of DC buildout over the last 5-years.

Very unlikely to be the technical build team at fault for that. Real estate, legal, permitting, utility connections, construction, plant fit out, testing and certification, security, customs and immigration, and shipping all need to happen first - and every one of those has room for huge amounts of uncertainty and delay, more so if you're doing it internationally. There aren't many shortcuts that you can take when yo…

Well I guess we can assume that this means it's not the reason senior leadership laid them off because senior leaders definitely never scapegoat their underlings or have too little competence to correctly assess why things failed!