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SASE 2025: Impact grows despite adoption hurdles

Complexity of managing access policies across multiple platforms: 23% Rising costs due to increased capacity and bandwidth needs: 16% Lack of visibility into use activity and traffic: 14% Inflexibility of technologies to support both remote and in-office work: 11% Excessive user privileges increasing security risk: 10% Lack of contextual data trust: 9% These challenges are […]

  • Complexity of managing access policies across multiple platforms: 23%
  • Rising costs due to increased capacity and bandwidth needs: 16%
  • Lack of visibility into use activity and traffic: 14%
  • Inflexibility of technologies to support both remote and in-office work: 11%
  • Excessive user privileges increasing security risk: 10%
  • Lack of contextual data trust: 9%

These challenges are driving network and security leaders to consider SASE as a solution to both their network access and security needs. For instance, 45% of respondents cited secure remote access for a distributed workforce as the leading driver, while 42% pointed to the need to enhance cloud security and visibility. Another 40% indicated that they want to simplify network and security architectures, and 39% said they believe SASE will help them improve network performance and bandwidth optimization. More than one-third (39%) said they thought they could achieve cost savings by consolidating network and security tools, and 37% cited enhanced scalability and flexibility as one of their drivers for adopting SASE.

The survey results show that among respondents, SASE adoption is in full swing, with a majority of those polled either already implementing the technology or indicating they have plans to do so within the next year.

  • Fully implemented: 8%
  • Currently implementing: 32%
  • Planning to implement within 12 months: 24%
  • Currently evaluating SASE solutions: 31%
  • No plans to implement: 5%

The perceived and expected benefits of SASE are pushing organizations to pursue the technology. According to the Hughes report, “54% of respondents report an enhanced security posture, showing that organizations prioritize SASE’s ability to integrate security directly into the network, thereby reducing vulnerabilities. 52% value the simplified management of security and networking functions, reflecting SASE’s consolidation of tools and reduced complexity in managing hybrid environments.”

Other benefits noted by those polled include enhanced productivity and secure access for a remote workforce for 50% and improved application performance and bandwidth optimization for 49%. Forty-seven percent of respondents cited the scalability and flexibility needed to adapt to business needs, and 46% said cost reduction through the consolidation of tools and services was a desired outcome. Another 45% indicated the consolidation of SD-WAN and security into a unified platform was an appealing benefit, and 43% pointed to consistent security policy enforcement across the network as a positive result.

Additional responses included: support for cloud adoption and digital transformation (40%), improved user experience with reduced latency (38%), and streamlined compliance with regulatory requirements (37%).

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SASE 2025: Impact grows despite adoption hurdles

Complexity of managing access policies across multiple platforms: 23% Rising costs due to increased capacity and bandwidth needs: 16% Lack of visibility into use activity and traffic: 14% Inflexibility of technologies to support both remote and in-office work: 11% Excessive user privileges increasing security risk: 10% Lack of contextual data

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Nile dials-up AI to simplify network provisioning, operation

Other features in Nile Nav offer real-time deployment data and visibility as well as instant feedback during setup and activation ensures IT teams can monitor progress and address issues promptly, Kannan stated.  “Post-deployment, the app offers insights into network health and performance, enabling swift diagnostics and resolution,” Kannan stated. Nile

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Trump Team Readies Oil Sanctions Plan for Russia Deal, Iran Squeeze

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are crafting a wide-ranging sanctions strategy to facilitate a Russia-Ukraine diplomatic accord in the coming months while at the same time squeezing Iran and Venezuela, people familiar with the matter said. The outgoing Biden administration on Friday imposed the most disruptive sanctions on Russia’s oil trade by any Western power to date. The move created an open question about how Trump views the measures, given his commitment to quickly ending the war in Ukraine. There are two main approaches under consideration by the Trump team. One set of policy recommendations — if the incoming administration believes a resolution to the Ukraine war is in sight — involves some good-faith measures to benefit sanctioned Russian oil producers that could help seal a peace deal, said the people, requesting anonymity as the deliberations are private. A second option would build on the sanctions, ramping up pressure even further to increase leverage, they said.  The approach that Trump ultimately chooses is pivotal to the global oil market. Brent futures have gained almost $5 a barrel since Biden’s measures were announced. Some analysts anticipate further gains, something that would drive up fuel costs around the world. The Trump team’s plans are in the early stages and ultimately depend on the president-elect himself, the people said. Last week, Trump said a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was being set up, raising the prospect of potential near-term negotiations to end the war. The strategy discussions include some of Trump’s cabinet nominees as well as former sanctions officials in his first administration, the people said. Several conservative-leaning think tanks are also being sounded out. The transition team has yet to announce Trump’s picks for some key roles involved in economic statecraft. Among the lingering questions are whether Brad Smith and Andrea Gacki, two US Treasury Department

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WTI Corrects After Five-Month Highs

Oil retreated from a five-month high as the market adjusts to new sanctions on Russian crude and digested mixed signals from President-elect Donald Trump on his intent to uphold the measures. West Texas Intermediate slid 1.7% to settle below $79 a barrel after hitting the highest since July on Wednesday. Saudi Aramco has received inquiries from Indian and Chinese buyers for as much as 750,000 barrels a day of extra crude to make up for any shortfalls caused by the Russian sanctions. Meanwhile, the amount of oil stranded off the Chinese coast has swelled as traders and shippers try to avoid being caught in the curbs. Traders are parsing mixed signals on how the incoming Trump administration will approach Russian sanctions. Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee, said he would support sanctioning Russian oil majors. Earlier, Trump’s advisers were reported to be crafting a strategy that could benefit Russian oil producers and help end the war with Ukraine. Market participants are also using the four-day stretch ahead of Trump’s inauguration to shuffle positions in preparation for potential tariffs on Canadian oil and moves to encourage domestic production. “Crude may take a pause to consolidate its recent gains as the market looks ahead to Monday,” said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. Biden’s last-minute sanctions “have shifted the landscape for Trump’s first day in office, potentially requiring adjustments to his strategy.” Futures also may be experiencing a corrective phase after spending days in overbought territory on the relative strength index. Still, West Texas Intermediate has rallied about 10% to start the year as cold weather bolsters demand for heating fuels and threatens North American output. In the US, inventories fell for the eighth straight week to hit the lowest since April 2022. Crude’s gain on Wednesday came

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Extreme Cold From NY to Texas Threatens to Topple Records

A blast of extreme cold is poised to descend on the central US this weekend before spreading to New York and the rest of the East Coast, testing power grids and threatening to break temperature records. Frigid conditions will sweep the Midwest and South, including Texas, starting on Saturday and then shift east early next week. The low in Dallas is poised to reach 21F (minus 6C) Monday night, while temperatures in Manhattan will drop near 10F late Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.  The cold will start in the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains and “by Sunday spread all the way to the Gulf Coast and much of the eastern US,” said Marc Chenard, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. “There will be below-normal temperatures in Texas during the day on Saturday. Most of the state gets below freezing through Wednesday.” Bone—chilling weather across the densely populated areas of the central and eastern US will raise energy demand and could send utilities scrambling to meet the spike in consumption, since much of the South relies on electricity for heating. A winter storm four years ago killed more than 200 people and led to the collapse of Texas’ electric grid. Cold temperatures can also disrupt the production of oil and natural gas by causing water in wells and pipelines to freeze.  The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state grid, has an advisory in place for Jan. 19 through noon on Jan. 23 because temperatures are expected to stay below freezing. Power demand is forecast to reach about 78.5 gigawatts on the morning of Jan. 21, which would edge over the record set last January. Still, Ercot expects to have enough supply to meet soaring electricity usage.  PJM Interconnect, which manages the grid serving

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USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop 2MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) decreased by 2.0 million barrels from the week ending January 3 to the week ending January 10, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report. Crude oil stocks, excluding the SPR, stood at 412.7 million barrels on January 10, 414.6 million barrels on January 3, and 429.9 million barrels on January 12, 2024, the EIA report revealed. Crude oil in the SPR came in at 394.3 million barrels on January 10, 393.8 million barrels on January 3, and 355.6 million barrels on January 12, 2024, the report showed. The EIA report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding. 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 1.625 billion barrels on January 10, the report revealed. This figure was down 2.9 million barrels week on week and up 6.6 million barrels year on year, the report outlined. “At 412.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA noted in its report. “Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 5.9 million barrels from last week and are sightly below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories and blending components inventories increased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories increased by 3.1 million barrels last week and are about four percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 4.7 million barrels from last week and are seven percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it continued. U.S. crude

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AEP, DTE and 6 other utilities win $22.9B in conditional loan guarantees from DOE

Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday announced conditional loan commitments for eight utilities totaling almost $23 billion. If finalized, the loans would support investments in transmission, energy storage, grid modernization, gas pipelines and more. “Projects planned by the utilities announced today will add much-needed transmission capacity by building new transmission lines, reconductoring existing lines, and implementing grid-enhancing technologies that will get more out of existing grid,” DOE said. Additional investments include substation upgrades, virtual power plants and “strategically placed energy storage … New generation from wind, solar, and hydropower are planned at gigawatt scale,” DOE said. And along with investments in the power grid, the conditional loans would support replacing over 3,000 miles of “leaky natural gas distribution and main lines.” The loan guarantees would be provided through the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, and go to utilities serving almost 15 million customers across 12 states. Retrieved from U.S. Department of Energy. The largest award would go to DTE Electric, which could receive up to $7.17 billion in loan guarantees to help finance generation and battery storage in Michigan. Sister utility DTE Gas could receive up to $1.64 billion in loan guarantees to update large natural gas pipes and service distribution lines and to move metering infrastructure outdoors. Consumers Energy, a subsidiary of CMS Energy, could receive a $5.23 billion loan guarantee for investments through 2031 in solar generation, wind generation, battery storage, virtual power plant projects and the replacement of legacy natural gas pipelines. “If finalized, the loan guarantee will enable Consumers Energy to invest in reliability and energy security while significantly lowering costs for its customers,” DOE said. PacifiCorp could receive a $3.5 billion loan guarantee

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2025 FERC, DOE Outlook: Surging demand growth to drive power-sector agenda

Listen to the article 13 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. President-elect Donald Trump, set to be sworn in on Monday, is returning to the White House amid surging electricity demand, partly driven by planned data centers, new manufacturing facilities and electrification of the building and transportation sectors. That reality — starkly different from the flat demand growth during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021 — will drive the incoming administration’s power-related policies, according to experts. At the same time, there are more barriers to new power supply than probably during any previous era, such as state policies that make it hard to build infrastructure, according to Devin Hartman, director of energy and environmental policy at the R Street Institute, a market-oriented think tank. “You just cannot reconcile massive barriers to new supply with growing demand, and the situation that you inherit in the power sector is also the same set of conditions that constrain decarbonization,” he said. Hartman contends there is significant overlap between Republican priorities for lowering energy costs and boosting reliability with Democratic desires for developing clean energy. Those goals, for example, can all be facilitated by new transmission, he said. Trump moves quickly on nominations At least three agencies — the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the departments of Energy and Interior — will play major roles in the Trump administration’s efforts to spur new power supplies and slash energy costs. The Environmental Protection Agency will also have a role in those efforts. The incoming administration moved quickly with nominations to lead Energy, Interior and the EPA all announced in mid-November. The Senate is holding hearings this week on North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, R, Trump’s Interior secretary nominee and and prospective energy czar; former Rep. Lee Zeldin,

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Biden’s clean AI infrastructure plan could be hanging by a thread

“There is barely an aspect of our society that will remain untouched by this force of change,” said UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a foreword to the report. “This government will not sit back passively and wait for change to come. It is our responsibility to harness it and make it work for working people.” Litan described the UK plan as “farther reaching and addressing AI data and the workforce, so it is more comprehensive and seems more thoughtful.” Asked for comment on the two strategies, Phil Brunkard, executive counselor at Info-Tech Research Group UK, said, “the US plans to lead the global AI race by combining its national security goals with sustainable infrastructure. Under the new executive order, the DoD and DoE will lease federal land for the private sector to build out AI data centers powered by clean energy, like nuclear, solar, or wind. The gist of their plan is to lead the way in responsible AI development to keep the US as the technology leader while being mindful of the environmental impact.” Meanwhile, the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, he said, “is heavily reliant on collaboration with academia and industry partners, backed by significant private sector investments in AI infrastructure. But its success will depend on how effectively it can solve energy and cooling challenges, especially in areas with limited resources.” Brunkard added, “by focusing on domestic AI production and ethical oversight, the UK is hoping to balance innovation with responsibility, which is an essential step in building long-term technological resilience.” Both plans, he said, “recognize that AI dominance requires more than just the latest and greatest cutting-edge technology; it’s about building solid infrastructure, securing data, and governing AI ethically. While the US emphasizes security and clean energy, the UK focuses on self-reliance and strong regulatory

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Qualcomm purloins Intel’s chief Xeon designer with eyes toward data center development

If Intel was hoping for a turnaround in 2025, it will have to wait at least a little bit longer. The chief architect for Intel’s Xeon server processors has defected to chip rival Qualcomm, which is making yet another run at entering the data center market. Sailesh Kottapalli, a 28-year Intel veteran and a senior fellow and chief architect for the company’s Xeon processors, made the announcement on LinkedIn on January 13, stating that he joined Qualcomm as a senior vice president. “My journey took me through roles as a validation engineer, logic designer, full-chip floor planner, post-silicon debug engineer, micro architect, and architect,” he wrote. “I worked on CPU cores, memory, IO, and platform aspects of the system, spanning multiple architectures across x86 and Itanium, and products including CPU and GPU, most importantly shaping the Xeon product line.”

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8 Trends That Will Shape the Data Center Industry In 2025

What lies ahead for the data center industry in 2025? At Data Center Frontier, our eyes are always on the horizon, and we’re constantly talking with industry thought leaders to get their take on key trends. Our Magic 8 Ball prognostications did pretty well last year, so now it’s time to look ahead at what’s in store for the industry over the next 12 months, as we identify eight themes that stand to shape the data center business going forward. We’ll be writing in more depth about many of these trends, but this list provides a view of the topics that we believe will be most relevant in 2025. A publication about the future frontiers of data centers and AI shouldn’t be afraid to put it’s money where its mouth is, and that’s why we used AI tools to help research and compose this year’s annual industry trends forecast. The article is meant to be a bit encyclopedic in the spirit of a digest, less than an exactly prescriptive forecast – although we try to go there as well. The piece contains some dark horse trends. Do we think immersion cooling is going to explode this year, suddenly giving direct-to-chip a run for its money? Not exactly. But do we think that, given the enormous and rapidly expanding parameters of the AI and HPC boom, the sector for immersion cooling could see some breakthroughs this year? Seems reasonable. Ditto for the trends forecasting natural gas and quantum computing advancements. Such topics are definitely on the horizon and highly visible on the frontier of data centers, so we’d better learn more about them, was our thought. Because as borne out by recent history, data center industry trends that start at the bleeding edge (pun intended – also, on the list) sometimes

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Podcast: Data Center and AI Sustainability Imperatives with iMasons Climate Accord Executive Director, Miranda Gardiner

Miranda was a featured speaker at last September’s inaugural Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. The call for speakers is now open for this year’s event, which will be held again in Reston, Virginia from Aug. 26-28. DCF Show Podcast Quotes from Miranda Gardiner, Executive Director, iMasons Climate Accord On Her Career Journey and Early Passion for Sustainability:   – “My goals have always been kind of sustainability, affordable housing. I shared a story last week on a panel that my mother even found a yearbook of me from my elementary school years. The question that year was like, what do you hope for the future? And mine was there’d be no pollution and everyone would have a home.” On Transitioning to Data Centers:   – “We started to see this mission-critical focus in facilities like data centers, airports, and healthcare buildings. For me, connecting sustainability into the performance of the building made data centers the perfect match.” Overview of the iMasons Climate Accord:   – “The iMasons Climate Accord is an initiative started in 2022. The primary focus is emission reductions, and the only requirement to join is having an emission reduction strategy.”   – “This year, we refined our roadmap to include objectives such as having a climate strategy, incentivizing low-GHG materials like green concrete, and promoting equity by supporting small, women-owned, and minority-owned businesses.” On Industry Collaboration and Leadership:   – “This year, through the Climate Accord, we issued a call to action on the value of environmental product declarations (EPDs). It was signed by AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, and Meta—talk about a big initiative and impact!” On EPDs and Carbon Disclosure:   – “EPDs provide third-party verification of materials coming into buildings. Pairing that with the Open Compute Project’s carbon disclosure labels on equipment creates vast opportunities for transparency and

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Accelsius and iM Data Centers Demo Next-Gen Cooling and Sustainability at Miami Data Center

Miami Data Center Developments Update Miami has recently witnessed several significant developments and investments in its data center sector, underscoring the city’s growing importance as a digital infrastructure hub. Notable projects include: Project Apollo:  A proposed 15-megawatt (MW), two-story, 75,000-square-foot data center in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. With an estimated investment of $150 million, construction is slated to commence between 2026 and 2027. The development team has prior experience with major companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Iron Mountain.  RadiusDC’s Acquisition of Miami I:  In August 2024, RadiusDC acquired the Miami I data center located in the Sweetwater area. Spanning 170,000 square feet across two stories, the facility currently offers 3.2MW of capacity, with plans to expand to 9.2 MW by the first half of 2026. The carrier-neutral facility provides connectivity to 11 fiber optic and network service providers.  Iron Mountain’s MIA-1 Data Center: Iron Mountain is developing a 150,000-square-foot, 16 MW data center on a 3.4-acre campus in Central North West Miami. The facility, known as MIA-1, is scheduled to open in 2026 and aims to serve enterprises, cloud providers, and large-scale users in South Florida. It will feature fiber connections to other Iron Mountain facilities and a robust pipeline of carriers and software-defined networks.  EDGNEX’s Investment Plans:  As of this month, Dubai, UAE-based EDGNEX has announced plans to invest $20 billion in the U.S. data center market, with the potential to double this investment. This plan includes a boutique condo project in Miami, estimated to have a $1 billion gross development value, indicating a significant commitment to the region’s digital infrastructure.  All of these developments highlight Miami’s strategic position as a connectivity hub, particularly serving as a gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. The city’s data center market is characterized by steady growth, with a focus on retail colocation and

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Tract Capital Unveils Fleet Data Centers, Specializing In 500 MW+ Build-to-Suit Megacampuses

Tract Capital has announced the launch of Fleet Data Centers, a new platform dedicated to the development of mega-scale data center campuses with capacities of 500 MW or more, specifically designed for single-user customers.  The initiative is led by Grant van Rooyen, CEO of Tract Capital and Executive Chairman of Fleet Data Centers, and Chris Vonderhaar, the newly appointed President of Fleet Data Centers.  Vonderhaar brings extensive experience to the role, having served as Vice President of Demand and Supply Management at Google Cloud and as a senior leader at Amazon Web Services (AWS) for over a decade, where he oversaw the design, planning, construction, and operation of AWS’s global data center platform.  The Fleet leadership team also includes veterans from hyperscalers, wholesale data center providers, network infrastructure firms, and equipment vendors, with a collective track record of deploying dozens of gigawatts of data center capacity across hundreds of facilities globally. A Two Prong Strategy Defining two distinct strategies, Fleet is the mega-campus vertical development arm of Tract Capital, an alternative asset manager specializing in scaling digital infrastructure, which also operates Tract to refine development sites at ground level for data centers in terms of lining up power, fiber, zoning and entitlements.  Fleet Data Centers will aim to address the next phase of hyperscale data center growth by offering customized gigawatt-level campuses that provide predictability, flexibility, and scalability for hyperscalers navigating increasing infrastructure demands. This new venture from Tract Capital underscores the growing need for innovative, large-scale digital infrastructure solutions, particularly as hyperscalers face mounting challenges in scaling their global platforms to meet the demands of the digital age. The unveiling of Fleet is just another example of the way Tract Capital has consistently demonstrated its expertise in accelerating the scaling of responsible technology infrastructure, combining operational capabilities from industry

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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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