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Energy Department Announces Over $35 Million to Advance Emerging Energy Technologies

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced more than $35 million for 42 projects through DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) to help move emerging energy technologies related to grid security, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing from DOE National Laboratories, plants, and sites to market. The selected projects will leverage over $21 […]

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced more than $35 million for 42 projects through DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) to help move emerging energy technologies related to grid security, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing from DOE National Laboratories, plants, and sites to market. The selected projects will leverage over $21 million in cost share from private and public partners, bringing total funding to more than $57.5 million. 

The TCF program, managed through the Office of Technology Commercialization’s Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call, strengthens America’s economic and national security by supporting public-private partnerships that maximize taxpayer investments, advance American innovation, and ensure the United States stays ahead in global competitiveness. 

“The Energy Department’s National Labs play an important role in ensuring the United States leads the world in innovation,” said Secretary Wright. “These projects have the potential to accelerate technological breakthroughs that will define the future of science and help secure America’s energy future.” 

This year’s selections span across 19 DOE National Labs, plants, and sites. Highlights include: 

  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will launch America’s Cradle to Commerce (AC2C), building on the Cradle to Commerce (C2C) program, providing wraparound support for lab-to-market innovation. In just 18 months, C2C has proven impact with more than $15M raised by participating startups and five commercial pilots launched.  
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will strengthen and expand the free-to-use Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS) tool through a VIPS 2.0 project. The updated platform will provide seamless search capabilities across a comprehensive list of National Lab innovations available for licensing or open-source use.
  • Argonne National Laboratory will advance commercialization of the OpenMC Monte Carlo particle transport code through the Exascale Computing Project, supporting nuclear safety and analysis code, addressing remaining barriers to market readiness and helping accelerate design and licensing timelines for U.S. nuclear reactor projects. 

The full list of the 2025 selections is available here.  

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Cisco launches dedicated wireless certification track

CCIE Wireless The CCIE Wireless certification validates networking professionals’ ability to “maximize the potential of any enterprise wireless solution from designing and deploying to operating and optimizing,” Cisco says. “Our Cisco CCIE Wireless certification also reflects the growth and evolution of wireless technologies. It includes Cisco’s cloud-based network management solution,

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Energy Department Announces Over $35 Million to Advance Emerging Energy Technologies

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced more than $35 million for 42 projects through DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) to help move emerging energy technologies related to grid security, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing from DOE National Laboratories, plants, and sites to market. The selected projects will leverage over $21 million in cost share from private and public partners, bringing total funding to more than $57.5 million.  The TCF program, managed through the Office of Technology Commercialization’s Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call, strengthens America’s economic and national security by supporting public-private partnerships that maximize taxpayer investments, advance American innovation, and ensure the United States stays ahead in global competitiveness.  “The Energy Department’s National Labs play an important role in ensuring the United States leads the world in innovation,” said Secretary Wright. “These projects have the potential to accelerate technological breakthroughs that will define the future of science and help secure America’s energy future.”  This year’s selections span across 19 DOE National Labs, plants, and sites. Highlights include:  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will launch America’s Cradle to Commerce (AC2C), building on the Cradle to Commerce (C2C) program, providing wraparound support for lab-to-market innovation. In just 18 months, C2C has proven impact with more than $15M raised by participating startups and five commercial pilots launched.   Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will strengthen and expand the free-to-use Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS) tool through a VIPS 2.0 project. The updated platform will provide seamless search capabilities across a comprehensive list of National Lab innovations available for licensing or open-source use. Argonne National Laboratory will advance commercialization of the OpenMC Monte Carlo particle transport code through the Exascale Computing Project, supporting nuclear safety and analysis code, addressing remaining barriers to market readiness and helping accelerate

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Daenerys Discovery Is a Game Changer for Talos

The Daenerys discovery is a game changer for Talos in the Gulf of America (GoA). That’s what Wood Mackenzie said in a note sent to Rigzone by the Wood Mackenzie team this week, adding that the find could add more than 50 million barrels of oil equivalent to Talos’ net proved reserves. “For Talos, the discovery is a game changer,” Miles Sasser, Wood Mackenzie Upstream Senior Research Analyst, said in the note. “The company’s GoA portfolio was ageing, but Daenerys could add more than 50 million… barrels of oil equivalent [to] net proved reserves. That would increase its YE2024 proved reserves of 194 million barrels of oil equivalent more than 25 percent,” he added. “This is the company’s largest discovery to date in the GoA. While Talos has not released volumes, a 200 million barrel of oil equivalent discovery would make Daenerys GoA’s biggest find since Shell’s Whale in 2017,” he continued. In the note, Wood Mackenzie highlighted that the discovery well was drilled to a total vertical depth of 33,228 feet and pointed out that it was finished 12 days early and $16 million under budget, “demonstrating strong operational execution by the Talos-led consortium”. Wood Mackenzie stated in the note that its preliminary prospect valuation suggests peak production could reach 65,000 barrels per day. The company added in the note that the discovery “marks a strategic shift for Talos, which has traditionally focused on lower-risk infrastructure-led exploration (ILX) projects”. “Beyond Daenerys, the company has two additional large exploration projects in its pipeline – Enterprise and Hershey – both with pre-drill estimates exceeding 100 million barrels of oil equivalent each, signaling Talos’ embrace of a more aggressive high-impact exploration strategy,” Wood Mackenzie said in the note. Combined with BP’s Far South discovery in April, 2025 is the best year for

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ATCO Gets Key Approval for Yellowhead Gas Pipeline Project in Alberta

The Alberta Utilities Commission has certified the need for Canadian Utilities Ltd.’s multi-billion-dollar Yellowhead natural gas pipeline project. The project is proposed to carry over 1,200 terajoules, or 1.1 billion cubic feet, per day through over 230 kilometers (142.92 miles) of pipeline from the Peers area to Fort Saskatchewan. “The Need Assessment Application is the first of two key regulatory filings that require approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission to advance the project”, parent company ATCO Ltd. said in a statement online. “Canadian Utilities’ operating entity ATCO Energy Systems will file a separate facilities application later this year to seek AUC approval for construction and operation of the physical infrastructure and expects construction to commence in 2026”. Nancy Southern, chair and chief executive of ATCO, said, “This Alberta Utilities Commission decision affirms the strategic importance of the Yellowhead Pipeline in supporting Alberta’s long-term energy resilience with infrastructure that will empower communities, enable industrial growth and reinforce our commitment to responsible development across the province”. Southern said consultation had been conducted with communities along the proposed route and that the proposed project “reflects both local priorities and broader energy needs”. ATCO’s initial investment estimate for Yellowhead is CAD 2.8 billion ($2.04 billion). “The project is expected to create 2,000 direct jobs and support an average of 12,000 jobs annually through related downstream investments”, ATCO added. “Once operational, the downstream investments are estimated to contribute CAD 3.9 billion annually to Alberta’s GDP”, it said, citing an internal study by Oxford Economics. In its quarterly report last month Canadian Utilities said it continued to pursue engagements with prospective Indigenous partners for equity arrangements. Yellowhead “continues to advance on-going stakeholder consultation, land acquisition, long-lead pipeline materials procurement and design work”, the report said. Canadian Utilities is progressing another project, the Central East Transfer-Out power transmission line (CETO), which started construction in the third

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Kallas Touts Secondary Sanctions Against Russia

Secondary sanctions and measures aimed at Russia’s energy sector would be most effective in curbing Moscow’s ability to wage war against Ukraine, according to the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. Russia’s attack this week on Kyiv, which also damaged the EU’s representative offices in the capital, is yet another reason to increase pressure on Russia, Kallas told reporters in Copenhagen Friday ahead of an informal meeting of defense ministers. Bloomberg previously reported that the EU is mulling the use of secondary sanctions to prevent third countries from helping the Kremlin circumvent the bloc’s existing penalties, as well as further measures on the country’s oil and gas and financial sectors.  “We are working on the next package, there are several options on the table,” Kallas said. “Of course, what will hurt them the most is any sanctions on energy and secondary sanctions that Americans have put for example, but also financial services.” Foreign ministers on Saturday are expected to discuss the use of the so-called anti-circumvention tool that was adopted in 2023 but that hasn’t been used yet. This tool can prohibit the export, supply or transfer of certain goods to third countries that are considered aiding sanctions circumvention. They’ll also discuss the bloc’s 19th package of sanctions that’s for now mainly expected to focus on Russia’s alleged abductions of Ukrainian children. The challenge in the coming days is to agree on new sanctions, security guarantees and funding for Ukraine, according to a European official who spoke on condition of anonymity.  The important thing is to keep up the pressure on the Kremlin, and that would require the US to take decisions, particularly about sanctions, the person said. On Tuesday, Trump warned of “an economic war” if Russia and Ukraine did not end their conflict, saying he had “very serious” consequences in mind

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MPLX Sells Rockies Midstream Gas Assets to Harvest for $1B

MPLX LP has signed a definitive agreement to divest its Rockies natural gas gathering and processing network to Harvest Midstream Co. for $1 billion in cash, the companies said. The assets serve the Uinta and Green River basins across Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The Uinta Basin assets include around 700 miles of gathering pipelines and about 345 million cubic feet a day (MMcfd) of processing capacity at the Ironhorse and Stagecoach facilities, which are being expanded. The Green River Basin assets include approximately 800 miles of gathering and transport pipelines and about 500 MMcfd of processing capacity from the Blacks Fork and Vermilion facilities, and 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) of fractionator capacity. “These assets significantly expand Harvest’s geographic reach, enhance connectivity across major production basins, and create meaningful platforms for future organic and acquisition-driven growth”, Houston, Texas-based Harvest said in a statement online. Harvest chief executive Jason C. Rebrook said, “This acquisition is the beginning of the next chapter of Harvest’s ambitious and disciplined growth story. We are executing on a long-term vision to build a scaled, resilient midstream network capable of supporting America’s energy needs for decades to come – and these premier MPLX assets fit squarely into that strategy”. Harvest agreed to deliver about 12,000 bpd of natural gas liquids from the assets to MPLX for seven years starting 2028 after the expiration of a pre-existing commitment. Service for the existing customers of the assets under the transaction will not be affected. The parties expect to complete the transaction in the fourth quarter subject to closing conditions including the receipt of anti-trust clearance. For Findlay, Ohio-based oil and gas infrastructure company MPLX, “The divestiture of these assets better positions our portfolio for growth, anchored in the Marcellus and Permian basins”, said MPLX president and chief executive Maryann

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Block Energy Completes Initial Injection in Georgia CCS Project

Block Energy plc said it has completed the initial injection of carbon dioxide (CO2) of its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the Eastern European region of Georgia. No CO2 leakage on the surface was detected after the injection, Block Energy said in a news release. Previous work has confirmed connectivity between the injector well (PAT-49) and the four monitoring wells, the company said. Liquid CO2 was delivered to the wellsite by Block Energy’s partner in the pilot study, Indorama Corporation subsidiary Rustavi Azot, and injected in solution with water, according to the release. Block Energy said it has implemented a monitoring and verification program, in which the company will collect subsurface samples and analyze data to determine if the injected CO2 has mineralized into solid calcium carbonate and is able to be permanently stored. The company said it expects to take four to six months to determine if the CO2 has successfully mineralized in the reservoir and therefore proceed with the next steps in the project. The company noted that this is the first successful pilot test of its kind in the broader Eastern European region. Assuming that mineralization is proven in the pilot, the project will provide a credible and tangible pathway to commercialization opportunities through third-party verification and a solution to carbon emissions reduction within Georgia and potentially in the wider region, Block Energy said. According to the release, commercial efforts are currently focused on direct air capture technologies as well as engagement with industrial emitters seeking carbon reduction solutions, including in response to the European Union’s (EU) upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Georgia and the EU have a zero-tariff free-trade agreement in place, offering additional opportunities in the space, the company said. Block Energy said it is working on commercialization options, including discussions with materials

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AI networking success requires deep, real-time observability

Most research participants also told us they need to improve visibility into their data center network fabrics and WAN edge connectivity services. (See also: 10 network observability certifications to boost IT operations skills) The need for real-time data Observability of AI networks will require many enterprises to optimize how their tools collect network data. For instance, most observability tools rely on SNMP polling to pull metrics from network infrastructure, and these tools typically poll devices at five minute intervals. Shorter polling intervals can adversely impact network performance and tool performance. Sixty-nine percent of survey participants told EMA that AI networks require real-time infrastructure monitoring that SNMP simply cannot support. Real-time telemetry closes visibility gaps. For instance, AI traffic bursts that create congestion and packet drops may last only seconds, an issue that a five-minute polling interval would miss entirely. To achieve this level of metric granularity, network teams will have to adopt streaming network telemetry. Unfortunately, support of such technology is still uneven among network infrastructure and network observability vendors due to a lack of industry standardization and a perception among vendors that customers simply don’t need it. Well, AI is about to create a lot of demand for it.  In parallel to the need for granular infrastructure metrics, 51% of respondents told EMA that they need more real-time network flow monitoring. In general, network flow technologies such as NetFlow and IPFIX can deliver data nearly in real-time, with delays of seconds or a couple minutes depending on the implementation. However, other technologies are less timely. In particular, the VPC flow logs generated by cloud providers are do not offer the same data granularity. Network teams may need to turn to real-time packet monitoring to close cloud visibility gaps.  Smarter analysis for smarter networks Network teams also need their network

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Equinix Bets on Nuclear and Fuel Cells to Meet Exploding Data Center Energy Demand

A New Chapter in Data Center Energy Strategy Equinix’s strategic investments in advanced nuclear and fuel cell technologies mark a pivotal moment in the evolution of data center energy infrastructure. By proactively securing power sources like Oklo’s fast reactors and Radiant’s microreactors, Equinix is not merely adapting to the industry’s growing energy demands but is actively shaping the future of sustainable, resilient power solutions. This forward-thinking approach is mirrored across the tech sector. Google, for instance, has partnered with Kairos Power to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) in Tennessee, aiming to supply power to its data centers by 2030 . Similarly, Amazon has committed to deploying 5 gigawatts of nuclear energy through partnerships with Dominion Energy and X-energy, underscoring the industry’s collective shift towards nuclear energy as a viable solution to meet escalating power needs . The urgency of these initiatives is underscored by projections from the U.S. Department of Energy, which anticipates data center electricity demand could rise to 6.7%–12% of total U.S. production by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. This surge, primarily driven by AI technologies, is straining existing grid infrastructure and prompting both public and private sectors to explore innovative solutions. Equinix’s approach, i.e. investing in both immediate and long-term energy solutions, sets a precedent for the industry. By integrating fuel cells for near-term needs and committing to advanced nuclear projects for future scalability, Equinix exemplifies a balanced strategy that addresses current challenges while preparing for future demands. As the industry moves forward, the collaboration between data center operators, energy providers, and policymakers will be crucial. The path to a sustainable, resilient energy future for data centers lies in continued innovation, strategic partnerships, and a shared commitment to meeting the digital economy’s power needs responsibly.

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Evolving to Meet AI-Era Data Center Power Demands: A Conversation with Rehlko CEO Brian Melka

On the latest episode of the Data Center Frontier Show Podcast, we sat down with Brian Melka, CEO of Rehlko, to explore how the century-old mission-critical power provider is reinventing itself to support the new realities of AI-driven data center growth. Rehlko, formerly known as Kohler Energy, rebranded a year ago but continues to draw on more than a century of experience in power generation and backup systems. Melka emphasized that while the name has changed, the mission has not: delivering reliable, scalable, and flexible energy solutions to support always-on digital infrastructure. Meeting Surging AI Power Demands Asked how Rehlko is evolving to support the next wave of data center development, Melka pointed to two major dynamics shaping the market: Unprecedented capacity needs driven by AI training and inference. New, “spiky” usage patterns that strain traditional backup systems. “Power generation is something we’ve been doing longer than anyone else, starting in 1920,” Melka noted. “As we look forward, it’s not just about the scale of backup power required — it’s about responsiveness. AI has very large short-duration power demands that put real strain on traditional systems.” To address this, Rehlko is scaling its production capacity fourfold over the next three to four years, while also leveraging its global in-house EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) capabilities to design and deliver hybrid systems. These combine diesel or gas generation with battery storage and short-duration modulation, creating a more responsive power backbone for AI data centers. “We’re the only ones out there that can deliver that breadth of capability on a full turnkey basis,” Melka said. “It positions us to support customers as they navigate these new patterns of energy demand.” Speed to Power Becomes a Priority In today’s market, “speed to power” has become the defining theme. Developers and operators are increasingly considering

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Data Center Chip Giants Negotiate Political Moves, Tariffs, and Corporate Strategies

And with the current restrictions being placed on US manufacturers selling AI parts to China, reporting says NVIDIA is developing a Blackwell-based China chip, more capable than the current H20 but still structured to comply with U.S. export rules. Reuters reported that it would be  a single-die design (roughly half the compute of the dual-die B300), with HBM and NVLink, sampling as soon as next month. A second compliant workstation/inference product (RTX6000D) is also in development. Chinese agencies have reportedly discouraged use of NVIDIA H20 in government work, favoring Huawei Ascend. However, there have been reports describing AI training using the Ascend to be “challenging”, forcing some AI firms to revert to NVIDIA for large-scale training while using Ascend for inference. This keeps China demand alive for compliant NVIDIA/AMD parts—hence the U.S. interest in revenue-sharing. Meanwhile, AMD made its announcements at June’s “Advancing AI 2025” to set MI350 (CDNA 4) expectations and a yearly rollout rhythm that’s designed to erase NVIDIA’s time lead as much as fight on absolute perf/Watt. If MI350 systems ramp aligns with major cloud designs in 2026, AMD’s near-term objective is defending MI300X momentum while converting large customers to multi-vendor strategies (often pairing MI clusters with NVIDIA estates for redundancy and price leverage). The 15% China license fee will shape how AMD prices MI-series export SKUs and whether Chinese hyperscalers still prefer them to the domestic alternative (Huawei Ascend), which continue to face software/toolchain challenges. If Chinese buyers balk or Beijing discourages purchases, the revenue-share may be moot; if they don’t, AMD has a path to keep seats warm in China while building MI350 demand elsewhere. Beyond China export licenses, the U.S. and EU recently averted a larger trade war by settling near 15% on certain sectors, which included semiconductors, as opposed to the far more

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Johnson Controls Brings Data Center Cooling into the “As-a-Service” Era

Cooling Without the Risk Johnson Controls’ Data Center Cooling as a Service (DCCaaS) approach is designed to take cooling risk off the operator’s shoulders. The company doesn’t just provide the technology—it delivers a comprehensive, long-term service package that covers design, build, operation, maintenance, and life cycle management. The model shifts cooling from a capital expense to an operating expense, providing financial flexibility at a time when operators are pouring billions into AI-ready infrastructure. “We take on the risk of performance and uptime,” Renkis explained. “If we don’t meet the agreed-upon KPIs, there are financial consequences for us—not the customer.” The AI Advantage A key differentiator in Johnson Controls’ approach is its integration of AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics. Through its OpenBlue and Metasys platforms—supplemented by partnerships with three to four external AI providers—the company is able to continuously optimize cooling system performance. These AI-driven systems not only extend the life of equipment but also deliver financially guaranteed outcomes. “We tie our results to customer-defined KPIs,” said Renkis. “If we miss, we pay. That accountability drives everything we do.” Modularity with Flexibility While the industry is trending toward modularity and prefabricated builds, Renkis stressed that every DCCaaS project remains unique. Johnson Controls designs contracts with “detour functionality”—flexible pathways to upgrade and adapt as technology shifts. That flexibility is crucial given the rapid emergence of AI factory-scale demands. New chip architectures and ultra-dense racks—600kW, 1MW, even 1.5MW—are reshaping expectations for cooling and power. “Nobody knows exactly how this will evolve,” Renkis noted. “That uncertainty makes the as-a-service model the most prudent path forward.” Beyond Traditional Facilities Management Cooling-as-a-service is distinct from conventional facilities management in both scope and financial muscle. Johnson Controls brings to the table its own capital arm—Johnson Controls Capital—and a joint venture with Apollo Group, known as Ionic

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Meta’s Dual-Track Data Center Strategy: Owning AI Campuses, Leasing Cloud, and Expanding Nationwide

Provisioning the Power is a Major Project All its Own Powering a data center campus on this scale in an area like rural Louisiana is not a simple task. News reports and a utility commission filing by power company Entergy are starting to reveal the scope of project preparation already in process to get the site the power it will need. To bring in outside power, Entergy plans a 100-mile, 500kV transmission project (at an approximate cost of $1.2 billion) to move bulk power into the area. Substations & lines tied to the site will include a new “Smalling” 500/230kV substation, a new “Car Gas Road” 500kV switchyard, six customer substations on Meta’s property, two 30-mile 500kV lines, and multiple 230kV feeders into the campus. Additionally, Entergy has sought approval for three combined-cycle gas plants generating abou 2.25 GW of power and associated lines to meet the immediate load while broader transmission is built out; state hearings are underway with a vote on this part of the project expected before the end of August 2025.   Approval is being sought from the Louisiana Public Service Commision to build these three new gas plants and their associated infrastructure at a cost of just under $4 billion. Concerns are being raised by local community groups as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Louisiana-based Alliance for Affordable Energy (AAE) not just about how much of the initial costs will be passed on to Louisiana ratepayers, but also on issues related to what happens as the first series of contracts for power begin to expire in 15 years. The plans being presented were initially scheduled to be voted on in October 2025 and the fast tracking of project approval has highlighted the concerns of the opposition. Both the short- and long-term

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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.

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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

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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

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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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