US$4.75 billion! Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has acquired a clean energy company.

Recently, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced a definitive agreement to acquire U.S. clean energy developer Intersect Power for $4.75 billion in cash and the assumption of debt. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026. The goal is to address the bottleneck of surging power demand from AI data centers by controlling clean energy assets, thereby strengthening its competitive edge in the global cloud and AI sectors.

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Under the agreement, Alphabet will acquire Intersect’s core team, its pipeline of energy projects, and its data center infrastructure. The latter will continue to operate independently under the leadership of current CEO Sheldon Kimball, while maintaining close collaboration with Alphabet’s technical teams. It is worth noting that Intersect’s existing operating assets in Texas and certain assets in California are not part of the acquisition and will continue to be supported by its current investors. Alphabet will focus on projects that directly serve its data center and cloud operations. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the partnership will help expand capacity, enable the simultaneous construction of power-generation facilities and new data-center loads, and reshape energy solutions. Following the acquisition, Intersect’s clean energy assets will directly power Alphabet’s data centers, reducing reliance on external suppliers and advancing the company’s goals of 24/7 carbon-free electricity and net-zero operations by 2030. In 2024, Alphabet already achieved 66% carbon-free energy usage, with data center emissions down 12% year over year. Industry analysts point out that the acquisition of Intersect will significantly shorten Alphabet’s data center deployment timeline, reduce operating costs, and give the company a speed and cost advantage in the compute-power arms race with rivals such as OpenAI. As the deal progresses, tech companies’ model of “self-generated power” to address AI’s energy challenges may reshape the competitive landscape of the global energy and technology industries.