#datacenters

A bright data hall with an overhead copper busway above the rack rows, one tap-off box caught part-seated in the busway slot and not yet latched, an open roller door to the transformer yard beyond

The Physical Plant: Power, Cooling, and Networks in an AI Datacenter

Strip away the accelerators and what remains is a substation, a heat-rejection plant, and a fabric. The building is the engineering object, and the computing is the easy part.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 8, 2026 · 18 min read

An overhead copper busway above two rack rows with a sheet-steel tap-off box caught part-way engaged on the run, its handle not yet thrown

Foundation Models

The Physical Economics of Inference: Bandwidth, Energy, and the Limits of a Datacenter

Serving a frontier model is a thermal and logistical problem before it is a computational one. The binding constraints are bytes moved, joules dissipated, and megawatts delivered — in that order.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 8, 2026 · 10 min read

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