Microsoft plans to deploy an energy infrastructure team as data centers struggle to power ever-larger facilities on an increasingly constrained grid.
The company is hiring for a director of transmission technologies for North America, as well as a senior program manager of global transmission technologies for APAC and EMEA. The roles have not been previously reported.
Both roles are based in the US, and are part of the CTO office of Microsoft’s Cloud Operations & Innovation division.
The North Americas director is expected to “be knowledgeable in developing transmission strategies for the United States market in line with Microsoft’s business objectives and goals.”
They will be tasked with understanding emerging technologies, and work with partners to develop innovative solutions to ensure that Microsoft’s growing data center portfolio has sufficient power.
Similarly, the other role will see the hire “develop and share insights on innovative solutions for supporting energy infrastructure solutions and support the development of a strategy for adoption of new technologies.”
They will also “lead the development of a technical roadmap for emerging technologies for global markets, including understanding technology readiness for deployment and resulting priorities as well as the necessary next steps for implementing key portions of the roadmap’s strategy.”
Alongside the transmission roles, the company is hiring for an energy technology program manager. That role is tasked with “supporting technical assessments for advanced energy and infrastructure technologies to power the data centers that the Microsoft Cloud reside on.”
The listing adds: “This role will also be responsible for supporting a team responsible for researching and developing varied precommercial energy technologies.”
All three roles are new, and will work alongside Erin Henderson, the director of nuclear development acceleration, and P. Todd Noe, the director of nuclear & energy innovations.
“I am so excited to have the opportunity to build a new team within the CTO Office in Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO&I) to focus on energy infrastructure technologies,” Henderson said in a LinkedIn post.
Henderson and Noe were instrumental in Microsoft’s deal with Constellation to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to power the company’s data center, in a blockbuster 835MW PPA.
The company has also signed a long-shot PPA with fusion power company Helion, but has yet to announce any major small modular reactor (SMR) deals. Amazon has signed several and invested in one, Google has partnered with Kairos, and Oracle has said it will deploy three SMRs.
After a decade of limited power growth, data centers have begun to rapidly demand ever more of the grid. The Department of Energy believes that data center power use could jump from 4.4 percent of the nation’s power in 2023 to as much as 12 percent by 2028.
That estimate was made before this week’s $500bn Stargate announcement which, if real, would put significant pressure on the grid.
Microsoft, meanwhile, plans to invest $80bn into data centers this year, globally. Last year, it partnered with Brookfield to spend $10bn on US and European wind and solar farms.
US President Donald Trump has called the AI data center power crunch a national emergency and promised to use presidential powers to fast-track energy projects. However, he has also blocked wind projects and spoken against solar farms, putting some grid-easing efforts at risk.
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