Australia's Macquarie on Tuesday agreed to take a 15% stake in Applied Digital's high-performance computing business and invest up to $5 billion in the company's artificial intelligence data centers amid booming AI demand.

The energy-intensive buildings have spread rapidly in northern Virginia, driving up electricity demand and cost.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introduced a series of bills Tuesday at the General Assembly aimed at regulating Virginia's data center industry, which is particularly robust in Northern Virginia and parts of Central Virginia.

Elected officials from both parties and chambers gathered in Richmond Tuesday to announce new guardrails on the state’s rapidly expanding data center industry. Responsible for billions in state and local revenue,