Hey there,
AI demand is rising fast, and the real pressure is landing on power, construction, storage, and the people who run them.
Take a look and see where your foundations, data platforms, and leadership structure are ready, and where they need adjustment.
Execute one decision at the start of the week, make it constant, and watch it cut hassles.
In this issue:
Playbook of the Day
A 15-minute AI Factory Power and Build Check
Goal: Spot where power, cooling, and construction constraints slowed AI factory execution today, so you can simplify how infrastructure and workloads scale tomorrow.
Who: COO/Head of Infra plus 1 lead per major function (energy, construction, data center ops, finance, cloud/AI). Same time every workday.
Before the debrief (3 mins):
Each lead adds 2–3 bullets to a shared doc where power delivery, GPU cluster installation, and what’s threatening capacity, cost, or customer SLAs.
Host skims and highlights anything connected to energy constraints , critical supplier lead times, or potential delays on mega‑cluster milestones.
During the 15 minutes:
Today in 60 Seconds (4 mins): Each lead gives a quick update where build moved fast, where it jammed in power or supply, and one number that shows the impact.
Structures & Preventions (6 mins): The group quickly reviews tagged “power” or “supply” issues and picks one clear solution per item, with a concise deadline.
Plan for Tomorrow (3 mins): The host recaps 3–5 structural actions for tomorrow, confirms who owns what, and how impact on speed, cost, or capacity will be tracked.
Rules: No brainstorming, no new projects. Keep it about today’s physical constraints and tomorrow’s concrete fixes for scaling AI factories efficiently.
Latest News
🧠 Crusoe’s AI Factory Infrastructure Play
Published: 02/19/2026
Madrona reports the latest Crusoe built; a 1.2 gigawatt Abilene, Texas AI factory with Oracle, and compressing schedules within months via modular manufacturing and wind-powered siting. As CEO Chase Lochmiller details coherent GPU clusters rivaling Denver's energy draw, creating 7,000 jobs in 120,000-population city.
Upside: COOs in intelligence ops gain a blueprint to build AI factories using off-site modularization, locations prioritizing energy and supply chain control that slash CapEx and deliver Northern Virginia expansions capacity.
Impact: Turns energy hassles into scale engines stabilizing AI compute amid ‘hyperscaler’ demand, as Crusoe emulates to speed Blackwell deployment and thrive as modular operators in intelligence infrastructure.
💾 StorONE’s 9x Flash ROI Program
Published: 02/19/26
Database Trends reports StorONE launching 9x ROI on Flash Program via v3.9 ‘auto-tiering’ that boosts effective capacity 9x by mixing flash performance with HDD for warm & cold data, redeploying existing JBODs without app changes or supply chain dependency. CEO Gal Naor positions ‘auto-tiering’ over compression for expansion.
Upside: COOs in intelligence ops gain a blueprint to hybridize flash/HDD storage with real-time data placement that sustains all-flash performance, cuts memory needs, and scales AI workloads without all-flash CapEx.
Impact: Turns storage burdens into capacity engines stabilizing AI training and inference despite the volatility, as StorONE emulate to create resilient architectures, speed tiering deployment, and thrive with efficiency.
⚡️PowerBank Elevates COO to President
Published: 02/18/2026
PR Newswire reports PowerBank promoting Andrew van Doorn, P.Eng, to President while retaining COO duties to lead the North American growth in solar/BESS/data center power, leveraging 28 years of developing 200+ MW solar including North America's largest school rooftop portfolio, CEO Richard Lu credits his grid expertise.
Upside: COOs in intelligence operations gain a strategy to expand into President roles blending solar and BESS engineering, priority focusing on grid integration, and AI data center power to capture hyperscale demand.
Impact: Turns operational expertise into growth engines securing reliable energy for AI amid grid constraints, as PowerBank emulates to build project pipelines, speed market entry, and strengthen infrastructure.
Prompt of the Day
The COO Risk Radar Prompt
Trigger Event | Action | Use Case Example |
|---|---|---|
Start of the week. | List key builds, power targets, and capacity numbers. | Quick view of near-term infrastructure risks and who or what they affect. |
Before leadership/ops sync. | Capture agenda, open issues, and main dependencies. | Clear list of risks and questions to raise with senior leaders. |
When a project feels unstable. | Note status, blockers, and cross-team dependencies. | Simple view of what is off track and what needs attention first. |
After a surprising outage or delay. | Record what failed, why, and how it was handled. | Basic pattern check to avoid the same outage or delay happening again. |
Month-end / quarter-end capacity planning. | List upcoming launches, key milestones, and constraints. | 30–90 day view of capacity and 2–3 actions to reduce risk on major plans. |
Prompt
“Act as my risk radar. Using this snapshot of our current builds, power targets, capacity plans, and recent incidents, (1) flag the top 3 infrastructure or execution risks for the next 30–90 days, (2) list specific early warning signals to watch this week for each risk, and (3) propose 2–3 clear mitigation steps I can assign today to the right owners.”
To excel is to reach a level of quality and performance that surpasses ordinary standards.
One last Thing
AI growth will keep testing how you plan, build, and staff.
If you treat each new project and role shift as a chance to tighten execution instead of just “keeping up,” you reduce surprises and protect margins.
Start small, but start now. Your next build or upgrade will feel the difference.
Until next edition,
Chloe Rivers
Editor-in-Chief
COO Intelligence
P.S. Interested in sponsoring a future issue? Just reply to this email and I’ll send packages!