Google, Oracle, Valve, and Nintendo issue warnings, suffer issues in European heatwave

Google and Oracle suffered cooling issues at their UK-based data centres, while Valve and Nintendo offered advice on when it’s too hot to use their consoles.

Firefighters spent yesterday dealing with wildfires across Western Europea. (Photo by LOIC VENANCE / AFP)

Some of the world’s largest tech companies are struggling to keep up with the European heatwave. Google and Oracle, both of which provide massive cloud infrastructure across the continent, both suffered issues yesterday thanks to record temperatures.

As reported by PCGamer, cooling systems failed for both companies. The UK hit record highs of 40.3°C (104.5°F) in some locations, which Oracle called “unseasonal” while reporting the issues across their UK South (London) centre. The issues are still not resolved as of 4am UK time, though the cooling problems have been fixed.

Google also described a “cooling related failure” in one of the buildings that hosts the europe-west2-a zone, hitting their cloud services. For both companies, virtual machines were taken offline and other crashes were experienced. Measures such as spraying water on AC units have been reported, though Google and Oracle don’t seem to have got quite that far yet.

In the meantime, both Valve and Nintendo have issued advice and warnings for operating their handheld consoles during the heat. Above 35°C, both the Nintendo Switch and the SteamDeck will experience slowdowns or dangerous situations. Nintendo says to clean the exhaust ports in high-heat situations, while Valve also gives advice on how hot the Deck internals can run – 105°C will see it shut off.

These issues are unlikely to get better before they get worse. Today has also seen reports from various European countries of failing infrastructure in power and phone lines, the boxes that contain them failing to insulate properly. It’s not quite shutting all of society down, but it’s not just a nice Summer’s day either – the BBC reports that it was the busiest day for firefighters since World War II.

This, of course, is on top of the ecological devastation caused by fires across the continent and the travel impact from melting airport runways.

Written by GLHF.