IEA warns of mounting oil surplus as demand growth slows, supply surges

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IEA warns of mounting oil surplus as demand growth slows, supply surges

Global oil demand growth is losing momentum, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) projecting the weakest annual gain since 2019. At the same time, supply is expanding rapidly, setting the stage for a record surplus next year, with stock builds expected to outpace even the average accumulation seen during the 2020 pandemic, according to IEA. […]

Oil demand

Global demand growth for 2025 has been revised down multiple times this year, with a cumulative reduction of 350,000 b/d. Current projections call for increases of around 680,000 b/d for 2025 and 700,000 b/d in 2026.

Despite weaker-than-expected consumption in China, India, and Brazil in recent months, annual growth of 600,000 b/d in second-quarter 2025 occurred entirely in non-OECD countries. Consumption in the OECD was flat, with Japan’s demand sinking to multi-decade lows.

Oil supply

On the supply side, global oil output in July held steady at 105.6 million b/d, as a 230,000 b/d drop in OPEC+ production was offset by an equivalent increase in non-OPEC+ volumes. New higher OPEC+ targets set for September are expected to lift global supply growth to 2.5 million b/d in 2025 and 1.9 million b/d in 2026. Of that growth, non-OPEC+ producers will account for 1.3 million b/d and 1 million b/d, respectively.

Additional sanctions could yet curb output from the world’s third- and fifth-largest producers—Russia and Iran. At end-July, the US Department of the Treasury announced its most significant Iran-related sanctions since 2018, aimed at making it harder for Tehran to sell its oil. Washington is also pressing major buyers of Russian crude, particularly India, to scale back purchases.

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SonicWall rolls out eight new firewalls, expands cyber warranty

NSa 4800: 24x1GbE, 8x10G SFP+, 20 Gbps firewall throughput, 13 Gbps threat prevention NSa 5800: 24x1GbE, 8x10G SFP+, 30 Gbps firewall throughput, 24 Gbps threat prevention SonicWall Multi-gigabit connectivity addresses real market demand The Generation 8 portfolio introduces multi-gigabit connectivity across both product lines. Even lower-end desktop models now support

ConocoPhillips lets well stimulation services contract for North Sea assets

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Cisco strengthens AI networking story

“Overall, AI demand in the enterprise will grow over time. But enterprise customers need to see the value, see the ROI. Also, they have to have a well-defined use case,” Wollenweber said, noting that the 12-month innovation cycles of GPU vendors can be problematic if customers choose the wrong platform.

DEF CON research takes aim at ZTNA, calls it a bust

Major vendor vulnerabilities span authentication and design flaws The research exposed critical vulnerabilities across Check Point, Zscaler and Netskope that fell into three primary categories: authentication bypasses, credential storage failures and cross-tenant exploitation. Authentication bypass vulnerabilities Zscaler’s SAML implementation contained the most severe authentication flaw. The researchers discovered that the

Amigo LNG Taps COMSA Marine for EPC Services

Amigo LNG SA de CV said it has awarded an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for its marine facilities to international marine and port infrastructure contractor Constructora Manzanillo SA de CV (COMSA Marine). Amigo LNG’s export terminal, which is designed for a nameplate capacity of 7.8 million metric tons per annum (mtpa), is located in Guaymas, Sonora, on Mexico’s west coast. Under the EPC contract, COMSA Marine will be responsible for the detailed engineering, construction, and commissioning of the Amigo LNG terminal’s marine infrastructure, including the liquefied natural gas (LNG) jetty, berthing and mooring facilities, and associated utilities to support LNG loading operations, according to a news release from LNG Alliance Pte Ltd, which leads the project. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed. The quad-berth marine facilities are planned to be equipped with high-capacity LNG loading arms exceeding 15,000 cubic meters per hour, targeting rapid vessel turnaround and efficient LNG loading operations, according to the release. Strategically located to leverage Guaymas’ deepwater port and proximity to major gas supplies, Amigo LNG aims to begin LNG exports by the third quarter of 2028, offering economic development, local supply chain engagement and job creation within Sonora. Amigo LNG’s “competitive pricing and reduced shipping distances could equate to 35 percent shorter voyage time,” LNG Alliance said. “Awarding the EPC contract for our marine facilities represents a key achievement in our project schedule,” LNG Alliance CEO Muthu Chezhian said. “COMSA Marine brings extensive experience in LNG terminal construction and marine engineering, which ensures we will meet the highest standards of safety, quality, and environmental stewardship”. COMSA Marine President Ruben Alamo said, “We are honored to be entrusted with this challenging project. Its success will be driven by our unique combination of local expertise and an unwavering commitment to the highest international standards

USA Crude Oil Stocks Rise by 3 Million Barrels Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), increased by three million barrels from the week ending August 1 to the week ending August 8, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report. That report was released on August 13 and included data for the week ending August 8. It showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 426.7 million barrels on August 8, 423.7 million barrels on August 1, and 430.7 million barrels on August 9, 2024. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 403.2 million barrels on August 8, 403.0 million barrels on August 1, and 376.5 million barrels on August 9, 2024, the report revealed. Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.670 billion barrels on August 8, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks were up 7.7 million barrels week on week and up 6.9 million barrels year on year, the report showed. “At 426.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report. “Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.8 million barrels from last week and are at the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased and blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.7 million barrels last week and are about 15 percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 3.9 million barrels from last week and are 11 percent above the five year average for this time of year,”

Green Solutions Firm to Build Facility in Saudi Arabia for O&G Sector

CleanGo Innovations Inc. said it plans to construct a green industrial solutions manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia in a joint venture with Sanad Industrial Co Ltd, aiming to service the region’s oil and gas sector. The facility is targeted at producing environmentally responsible chemical products tailored for the oil services industry, not only in Saudi Arabia but across the MENA and Gulf Cooperation Council regions, the company said in a news release. Financial details of the project were not disclosed. The joint venture will be named CleanGo Arabia Ltd. Sanad is controlled by Earth Reservoirs for Oil and Gas Ltd, or EROG Holdings, a comprehensive service provider for the energy market in Saudi Arabia. The partnership will leverage EROG’s understanding of the regional energy sector, network and logistical capabilities, and expertise in providing turnkey solutions to penetrate the market in the oil services industry, CleanGo said. According to CleanGo, its flagship product CG-100 offers distinct uses within the oil services industry, including waterflood enhancement, wellbore tubular cleaning, frac port cleaning, flowline cleaning, facility cleaning, completion systems, and diluent replacement for well abandonments. “This joint venture marks a pivotal moment for CleanGo Innovations,” CleanGo CEO Anthony Sarvucci said. “Partnering with EROG Holdings and Sanad Industrial Co. Ltd. provides us with unparalleled access to the rapidly growing oil and gas market in Saudi Arabia and the broader GCC and African regions. Their deep-rooted expertise and commitment to local manufacturing align perfectly with our vision of delivering certified green solutions that not only enhance operational performance but also champion environmental responsibility”. Sanad CEO Ali Al Kaabi said, “We are thrilled to join forces with CleanGo Innovations. Their certified green products offer a unique and highly sought-after solution for the oil services industry, which is increasingly focused on sustainability. Through CleanGo Arabia LTD, we

CPChem Completes Belgian LV PAO Facility Upgrade

Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC has completed the expansion of its low-viscosity polyalphaolefins (LV PAO) production unit in Beringen, Belgium. The company said in a media release that this significantly boosts its manufacturing capacity in Europe. The project has doubled the site’s LV PAO production capacity to 120,000 metric tons per year, establishing it as the largest decene-based LV PAO facility in Europe by volume, CPChem said. “Beringen has a proud legacy of operational excellence and innovation in PAO production”, Antoine Janssens, general manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said. “This expansion strengthens that legacy, enhances integration with our existing assets, and reinforces CPChem’s position as a global leader in the specialty chemicals market”. LV PAOs are crucial components used in various applications, such as automotive and industrial lubricants, CPChem said. They are also increasingly important in new technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and immersion cooling systems, it said. “This expansion reflects our commitment to growth and innovation”, Frank Derudder, EMEA PAO/NAO manager, said. “We’re scaling up to meet global demand while maintaining the high quality our customers rely on”. The upgraded facility features advanced electrification technologies to decrease dependence on natural gas, thereby reducing emissions and enhancing long-term energy efficiency, CPChem said. CPChem is exploring renewable electricity options to further reduce the environmental impact of its Beringen site. To contact the author, email [email protected] What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and engage in a professional community that will empower your career in energy. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Tamboran Sets Record Beetaloo Basin IP90 Flow Rate

Tamboran Resource Corporation has completed further flow tests at the Shenandoah South 2H Sidetrack (SS-2H ST1) well in the Beetaloo Basin. In its latest report, the company said the well achieved a record average 90-day initial production (IP90) flow rate of 6.7 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd). The company said that over the last 30 days, flow rates from the SS-2H ST1 well increased by 2 percent without any downhole intervention and maintaining a 44/64” choke. “The performance and character of the SS-2H ST1 well is unique compared to hundreds of wells I have seen in my career. With flow rates increasing over the last 30 days to 6.5 MMcfd, without downhole intervention or adjustments to choke, I believe we are seeing the enhanced matrix connectivity achieved during the stimulation program. The SS-2H ST1 well represents another encouraging data point as we better understand the Velkerri B Shale’s ultimate performance and recovery”, Richard Stoneburner, Tamboran Chairman and Interim CEO, said. “Most importantly, at the end of the 90-day period, the well continued to slowly clean up, suggesting that it could have sustained the current rate beyond the testing interval. This data will be important as we prepare to stimulate our first 10,000-foot horizontal section in the Shenandoah South area by the end of the year”, Stoneburner said. Tamboran said the SS-2H ST1 well has now been suspended ahead of the commencement of gas sales to the Northern Territory government via the Sturt Plateau Compression Facility (SPCF) in mid-2026, subject to weather conditions and final stakeholder approvals. The company added that the 2025 Shenandoah South drilling campaign is making steady progress, with the intermediate sections of the SS-5H and SS-6H wells successfully drilled. The rig is currently working on the intermediate section of the SS-4H well. This campaign marks the

Trump Has Limited Leverage Over Russia Without Risking Oil Price Spike

Absent greater military involvement, the Trump administration has limited leverage over Russia without risking a spike in oil prices. That’s what J.P. Morgan analysts, including Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities strategy at the company, said in a J.P. Morgan research note sent to Rigzone by Kaneva on August 8. “At the same time, low oil prices will negatively affect the Russian economy,” the analysts said in the note. The analysts went on to state that Russia can expand its shadow fleet to bypass sanctions but added that opportunities are becoming more limited . “The country needs around 240 Aframax to transport 3.5 million barrels per day of crude,” the J.P. Morgan analysts said. “Currently, about 99 tankers older than 20 years have a high likelihood of transitioning to the shadow fleet and 155 tankers aged 15-20 years … have a moderate likelihood of being converted,” they added. Rigzone has contacted the White House and the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment on J.P. Morgan’s research note. At the time of writing, neither have responded to Rigzone. In a separate J.P. Morgan research note sent to Rigzone by the JPM Commodities Research team late Monday, J.P. Morgan analysts said the estimated value of open interest in energy markets declined by $19.5 billion week on week and has reverted to ten week lows of $622 billion amid price weakness across crude markets. “Contract based flows were largely muted on the week at -$1.1 billion week on week across the sector, as -$3.8 billion week on week of outflows from refined product markets were mostly offset by inflows to natural gas markets of $2.7 billion week on week,” the analysts said in that note. In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by

Cisco Q4 results: AI infrastructure orders surpass goal

Adding a little more color to the enterprise results, Robbins called out some of Cisco’s network modernization offerings for customers. “We’ve got [our] routing refresh, we’ve got a lot of new technology in our data center networking business … we have Wi-Fi 7 gear, which grew triple digits year over year. We’re in year eight of the [Catalyst 9000] offering, and honestly, if you look at products that were pre-[Catalyst 9000] that are still installed in our customer base, there’s tens of billions of dollars of install base there that we can go after,” Robbins said. Demand for AI infrastructure will extend to enterprises, Robbins said: “If you think about the AI revolution…We tend to see these things begin first in the cloud providers, which we’re clearly seeing the AI play in the cloud providers. Then we see it shift into the enterprise. We see a shift in the back end, in this case, from the back end to the front end. We believe that will occur as enterprises start using more of these services, and then enterprises will also build out inferencing… and we’re even seeing the telco business actually pick up as they’re telling us they’re increasing their network capacity and they’re modernizing their infrastructure in preparation for AI. So, we think AI is going to drive network modernization across all of these segments.” Taking aim at security Overall security order growth in Q4 was up double digits, Robbins said. “We have 80 new Hypershield customers, largely connected to this new smart switch [the N9300 Smart Switch]. So that strategy is working. And I would say that we had 480-plus new SSE customers during the quarter. So that’s our secure services edge [which] is really getting good traction. Robbins singled out the demand for integrated networking and security

Uptime Institute’s Jay Dietrich on Why Net Zero Isn’t Enough for Sustainable Data Centers

In the latest episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, Editor-in-Chief Matt Vincent sits down with Jay Dietrich, Research Director of Sustainability at Uptime Institute, to examine what real sustainability looks like inside the data center, and why popular narratives around net zero, offsets, and carbon neutrality often obscure more than they reveal. Over the course of our conversation, Dietrich walks listeners through Uptime’s expanding role in guiding data center operators toward measurable sustainability outcomes; not just certifications, but operational performance improvements at the facility level. “Window Dressing” vs. Real Progress Dietrich is candid about the challenges operators face in navigating the current landscape of sustainability reporting. Despite high-level claims of carbon neutrality, many facilities still operate inefficiently, relying heavily on carbon offsets or energy attribute certificates to hit corporate goals. “An EU survey found that 80% of data centers report carbon-free operations based on market calculations, while their national grids run at only 55% renewable,” Dietrich says. “The only thing that truly matters is the performance of the actual facility.” To close this gap, Uptime offers a Sustainability Gap Analysis and a Sustainable Operations Certification, helping data center operators minimize energy and water use, improve cooling efficiency, and increase the useful work delivered per megawatt hour. Redefining the Sustainable Data Center One of the discussion’s core messages: a net zero data center is not necessarily a sustainable one. Dietrich stresses the need to shift focus from corporate carbon accounting toward IT utilization, emphasizing metrics like: Work delivered per unit of energy consumed. Work delivered per metric ton of CO₂ emitted (location-based). Actual IT infrastructure utilization rates. Underutilized IT infrastructure — still common across the industry — is one of the biggest sustainability blind spots. “Running IT at 10% utilization wastes capacity, space, and energy,” says Dietrich. “Increasing that

Data Center Jobs: Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Sales, Field Service and Facility Tech Jobs Available in Major Data Center Hotspots

Each month Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, posts some of the hottest data center career opportunities in the market. Here’s a look at some of the latest data center jobs posted on the Data Center Frontier jobs board, powered by Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting. Peter Kazella of Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting provides tips for building a healthy applicant pool. Switchgear Field Service Technician – Critical Facilities Nationwide Travel This position is also available in any major data center region: Ashburn, VA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Denver, CO; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Las Vegas, NV; or Phoenix, AZ. Multiple opportunities for both senior and mid-level switchgear field service technicians. These openings are with a nationwide market leader of power distribution solutions, specializing in switchgear and controls for mission-critical environments. This company provides customized solutions for enterprise, colocation, and hyperscale data centers, ensuring reliability and uptime through controls integration, power distribution solutions, and switchgear installations. Their services include installations, retrofits, upgrades, turnkey electrical solutions, and preventive & corrective maintenance of UPS, switchgear, generators, and PLC systems. This is an excellent career-growth opportunity to work on exciting projects with leading-edge technology and competitive compensation. Electrical Commissioning Engineer New Albany, OH This traveling position is also available in: Richmond, VA; Ashburn, VA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Hampton, GA; Fayetteville, GA; Minneapolis, MN; Phoenix, AZ; Dallas, TX; or Chicago, IL. *** ALSO looking for a LEAD EE and ME CxA agents and CxA PMs *** Our client is an engineering design and commissioning company that has a national footprint and specializes in MEP critical facilities design. They provide design, commissioning, consulting and management expertise in the critical facilities space. They have a mindset to provide reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise when providing these consulting services for enterprise, colocation and hyperscale companies. This career-growth

DCF Trends Summit 2025: Power Chat

Data Center Frontier Editor in Chief Matt Vincent and Contributing Editor Bill Kleyman (CEO/Apolo) recently had another video chat to discuss the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit 2025 and, in particular, the event’s focus on data center power. The second annual Trends Summit is scheduled for August 26-28 in Reston, Virginia. Register Now This second QuickChat in our series—following the opening discussion that set the stage for the conference—now zeroes in on data center power challenges. The conversation explores how AI’s exponential growth is straining power infrastructure, turning energy into both a critical market-entry barrier and a defining theme of the event. The Power Challenge: Quantifying the Scale Kleyman outlined the sheer scale of the power challenge facing the industry. He cited a Goldman Sachs report projecting that U.S. data center power consumption, currently around 2-3% of total consumption, could more than double to 8-9% by 2028. He also highlighted a forecast that the data center industry will require upwards of 50 gigawatts (GW) of power by 2035, a figure he put into perspective by noting that 1 GW can power a city of a million people. The discussion mentions a few large-scale projects that illustrate this trend: Kevin O’Leary‘s Wonder Valley project in Alberta, Canada, aiming for 8 GW. Tract’s new multi-gigawatt campus project in Texas amid plans for a staggering 25 GW national build-out. Kleyman also referenced the NVL576 rack unveiled at Nvidia GTC 2025, which is capable of supporting 600 kilowatts (kW) per rack, signaling the official arrival of the “megawatt era class of data center racks.” Grid-Optional Solutions and the Summit Panels The discussion transitioned to how the industry is moving from being solely grid-reliant to “grid-optional.” A significant trend highlighted is the inclusion of behind-the-meter power generation in new builds, with 30% of new U.S. data

Earnings Frontier: Equinix and Modine

Welcome to Earnings Frontier, our new series where we cut through the noise of quarterly financial reports to get straight to what matters for the data center industry. Today, the spotlight is on a pair of companies whose recent earnings calls offered valuable insights into the market’s current trajectory: Equinix and Modine. On one hand, we have the colocation giant, Equinix, which continues to demonstrate its enduring strength as a foundational pillar of the digital economy. Their latest results underscore a familiar story of robust customer engagement, strategic capacity expansion, and a steadfast focus on interconnection. The numbers speak to the company’s ability to capitalize on the sustained demand for cloud and AI infrastructure, all while successfully navigating a complex and competitive landscape. Then there’s Modine, a company whose name might not be as synonymous with data centers as Equinix’s, but whose recent performance is a powerful testament to the critical role of cooling in the age of AI. Their earnings call highlighted a strategic pivot toward data center cooling technologies, with strong growth in their Climate Solutions segment. The company’s commentary reveals a deep understanding of the market’s evolving needs, with a keen focus on high-efficiency, advanced cooling strategies that are becoming non-negotiable for next-generation workloads. In the following segments, we’ll dive into the details of these two contrasting, yet equally illuminating, earnings reports, exploring the key metrics, strategic takeaways, and forward-looking statements that are shaping the future of digital infrastructure. Equinix Outlines Three-Pronged Strategy for 2025 Double-Digit Revenue Growth CEO Adaire Fox-Martin described growth from acquisitions, new projects, customer AI adoption, and long-term strategies, saying, “We were built for this moment.” Key Takeaways Leaders at Equinix, Inc. announced the acquisition of three data centers in Manila and has 59 projects in 34 metro areas, including key markets such

Vertiv Launches OneCore Modular Data Center Platform for AI and HPC

Fully Integrated Modular Design for Speed and Scale The data center industry has increasingly embraced modular, prefabricated systems to address time, cost, and consistency pressures. OneCore stands out by delivering Vertiv’s full power and thermal stack — along with whitespace fit-out and control systems — as a single, factory-integrated solution. This eliminates the patchwork of partial modules and gives customers single-vendor responsibility. Vertiv also emphasizes deployment speed, claiming the platform can be commissioned at a rate of 1 MW per day. In a OneCore deployment, power, cooling, and whitespace components are assembled offsite in parallel, reducing on-site complexity and schedule risk. The completed system arrives enclosed in a steel shell — a modular, turnkey building block that includes both critical infrastructure and whitespace — streamlining logistics and accelerating construction cycles. Designed with HPC and AI factories in mind, each OneCore block can scale from 96 to 944 racks, accommodating extreme-density workloads such as GPU clusters or HPC nodes. Modules are optimized for liquid cooling and support 5 MW to 50 MW of power. Key Vertiv technologies integrated into the platform include: Trinergy UPS systems, switchgear and busways for power distribution. CoolChip CDU, perimeter cooling, CoolLoop Trim Cooler, Liebert® AFC chiller for thermal management. SmartRun for overhead IT infrastructure. Unify centralized monitoring and control. Meeting Efficiency and Sustainability Demands Each block is engineered for high efficiency. Cooling is delivered through a mix of liquid (e.g., CDU and Trim Cooler) and perimeter systems, with support for advanced formats such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling — improving thermal performance and reducing energy use. Efficient UPS architectures help lower PUE and energy overhead, while power and cooling can be tailored to each module’s IT load, minimizing the risks of over- or under-provisioning. Every module comes fully integrated with Vertiv Unify, the company’s scalable platform

Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs). In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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