Ecopetrol at Risk from $2.2B Colombian Tax Claim: Union

Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE

Ecopetrol at Risk from $2.2B Colombian Tax Claim: Union

Ecopetrol SA’s finances are at risk from a $2.2 billion claim from Colombia’s tax agency, according to the state oil producer’s main workers union. The union, known as USO, said in a May 4 statement that tax agency DIAN is charging Ecopetrol 9.4 trillion pesos for value added tax on gasoline imported since 2022 […]

Ecopetrol SA’s finances are at risk from a $2.2 billion claim from Colombia’s tax agency, according to the state oil producer’s main workers union.

The union, known as USO, said in a May 4 statement that tax agency DIAN is charging Ecopetrol 9.4 trillion pesos for value added tax on gasoline imported since 2022 to supply the local market. This decision is a “biased interpretation of the tax statute,” the union said.

Ecopetrol didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. DIAN said it is planning to publish a statement later Monday.

Colombia’s budget deficit ballooned to 6.8 percent of gross domestic product last year, the highest since the pandemic, and overshooting the limit imposed by the nation’s anchor, known as the “fiscal rule,” which is meant to limit the government’s ability to run up debt.

Ecopetrol’s shares fell 1.7 percent in early Bogotá trading. Its dollar bonds are among the worst performers Monday in Latin America, according to a Bloomberg Index.

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.

Stay Ahead

Explore More Insights

Stay ahead with more perspectives on cutting-edge power, infrastructure, energy, bitcoin and AI solutions. Explore these articles to uncover strategies and insights shaping the future of industries.

Network and security vulnerabilities linked to 60% of zero-day cyberattacks

According to Casey Charrier, senior analyst at GTIG: “Zero-day exploitation continues to grow at a slow but steady pace. However, we have also started to see vendors’ work to mitigate zero-day exploitation begin to pay off. For example, we have seen fewer instances of zero-day exploitation targeting products that have

India takes first big step in Quantum Computing supremacy race

The broader vision is to create high-end jobs, attract global investment, and enable enterprises to solve previously intractable problems — such as drug discovery and real-time logistics optimization — through quantum-powered solutions. The new tech park at Amaravati will host research labs, startup incubators, and training programs to build a

Pantheon of college football gets a Wi-Fi upgrade

Notre Dame has fully adopted mobile ticketing and introduced grab-and-go concession stands, with plans to expand them further. Alcohol sales were recently approved, prompting efforts to support new services like mobile carts. In premium areas, fans can stream various games during events. Notre Dame also tested mobile ordering for concessions

The U.S. leads the world in AI (job) anxiety

The Americans have the highest search volume with a population-adjusted value of 440,000 search queries on the topic of AI job loss, while their attitude towards AI is moderately positive at 54.5%. The intensity score of 3 for the U.S. shows that the concern of losing jobs to AI is

Russia Mulls Tightening Budget Rule Over Slumping Oil Prices

Russia is considering changing its key budget-building mechanism in response to sliding oil revenue, in a sign the Kremlin expects crude prices will remain lower for longer while the war in Ukraine continues to drain state coffers. The government may reduce the threshold of its so-called budget rule to around $50 per barrel from $60 currently from next year if crude prices remain low, according to a person familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified because the considerations aren’t public. Discussions are at an early stage and a key challenge for officials is that it would require cuts in state spending while the war continues absorbing resources, according to that person. Russia has long used the budget rule as a kind of insurance against falling oil prices. That mechanism allows the state to transfer surplus energy revenue to its National Wellbeing Fund when Russian crude costs more than $60 per barrel. The accumulated reserves then help compensate for when oil prices are lower. A Russian Finance Ministry spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment. Crude has slumped to around a four-year low on expectations that US President Donald Trump’s trade war will hurt demand, and as the OPEC+ alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Russia abandons its longstanding strategy of supporting oil prices. Russia depends on revenue from oil and gas sales for 30% of the state’s income. The debate about lowering the threshold under the budget rule indicates the government is increasingly certain that the slump in global oil prices will continue and that it can’t expect a significant rebound any time soon. That would force the Kremlin to find other ways of replenishing its war chest amid record levels of spending on the military. The wellbeing fund has already been heavily depleted due to the

Charging Forward: Drax pulls Cruachan II from long duration energy storage cap and floor

In this week’s Charging Forward, Drax will not bid its Cruachan II pumped storage hydro project into the UK government’s long duration energy storage scheme. Elsewhere, renewable energy developer Elmya has launched plans for a battery energy storage system (BESS) project at the Kelburn Estate in North Ayrshire. This week’s energy storage headlines: Drax pulls Cruachan II bid from LDES cap and floor Elmya launches 400 MW Kelburn Estate BESS Reform warns off battery storage developers after local election wins Grenergy Renewables 20 MW Peak District BESS approved Macquarie takes over UK solar and BESS developer Island Green Power Scottish government approves Ladyfield Renewable Energy Park Gresham House approved for 300 MW Mossmorran BESS Masdar Arlington Energy 100 MW Upton Lane BESS approved International energy storage news: Australian startup MGA Thermal claims “world’s first industrial steam heat energy storage demonstrator” Drax pulls Cruachan II cap and floor bid UK power generation firm Drax Group has said it will not enter its £500 million Cruachan II pumped storage hydro project into a government support scheme. The UK government launched the long duration energy storage (LDES) cap and floor scheme in 2024, aiming to accelerate the development of LDES projects. The scheme is targeted at LDES technologies including pumped hydro, liquid air energy storage, compressed air energy storage and flow batteries. A boy and his dog view Cruachan hydro electric power station in Argyll. But Drax said due to a “significant rise in the capital costs” associated with its Cruachan II expansion in Scotland, the company will not enter the cap and floor. ‘The projected cost of Cruachan II has risen over the past two years, whilst at the same time, the recoverability of all capital invested in the project remains unclear,” the company said in a trading update. “Therefore, Drax will not participate

Why Is the Oil Price Rising?

Why is the oil price rising today? That was the question Rigzone asked Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, and Rebecca Babin, a senior equity trader for CIBC Private Wealth in New York. Responding to the query, Varga told Rigzone, “after Houthi rebels launched an attack on Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport, Israeli planes struck Houthi targets in Yemen leading to a jump in geopolitical risk premium, hence the rally”. In a video posted on the Associated Press website on May 5, Yahya Saree, who the video describes as the “Houthi military spokesman”, states, “the Yemeni Armed Forces announce that they will work to impose a comprehensive aerial blockade on the Israeli enemy by repeatedly targeting airports, foremost among them Lod airport, named by Israel as Ben-Gurion airport”. The video included subtitles. Saree describes himself on his X page as the “spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces”. In a statement posted on its X page on May 6, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said IDF fighter jets “struck and dismantled” Houthi infrastructure at the “main airport in Sana’a”. The IDF added in the statement that “several central power plants were struck in, and surrounding, the Sana’a area”. A statement posted on the IDF’s X page on May 5 announced that IAF fighter jets struck Houthi targets along the Yemen coastline. In her response to Rigzone’s question, Babin said, “crude is up today largely because the market was very short heading into the OPEC meeting – not just on flat price, but particularly through put spreads”. “While the 400,000 barrel per day increase from OPEC was widely expected, some participants were positioning for a more aggressive signal – specifically, guidance toward a full unwind of the 2.2 million barrel per day cut by October, which didn’t materialize,” Babin added. “The relatively muted

Reform victories raise alarm bells for UK clean energy sector

Reform leader Nigel Farage has branded the debate around net zero as the “next Brexit” after his party stormed to unprecedented success in English local elections last week. Farage’s party seized control of ten local authorities, alongside defeating Labour in the Runcorn and Helsby Westminster by-election. Reform candidates also won two newly created mayoral positions in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire, where there are billions expected to be invested in clean energy schemes. Former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns becomes Greater Lincolnshire’s first mayor, while former boxer and Olympic gold medallist Luke Campbell won in Hull and East Yorkshire. The Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority (GLCCA) is host to the £2 billion Humber Zero project led by VPI and Phillips 66. North Sea operator Harbour Energy leading the £7bn Viking carbon capture and storage scheme (CCS) in the region. In addition to CCS and hydrogen investments, the offshore wind sector is also having a transformative effect in places like Hull and Grimsby. Reform takes aim at net zero ‘lunacy’ The victory for Reform in the northern regions, which comes amidst a growing political backlash against net zero policies, could pose significant challenges for the energy sector. In the wake of its electoral wins, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice said the party will use its newfound council powers to use “every lever” to block renewable energy projects including solar farms and electricity pylons. “Whether it’s planning blockages, whether it’s judicial reviews, whether it’s lawsuits, whether it’s health and safety notices, we will use every available legal measure to an extreme way in order to frustrate these people,” Tice said. Similarly, Farage told reporters that any council staff in Reform-controlled authorities who work in roles related to climate change should be looking for “alternative employment”. The Reform leader has made

Venture Global Secures $3B Loan for CP2 LNG

Venture Global Inc. has secured $3 billion in syndicated borrowings to help fund the under-construction CP2 LNG in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. “This new capital, on top of the more than $4 billion we have already invested to date, will enable continued fabrication, manufacturing and procurement at an accelerated pace, similar to Plaquemines”, Venture Global chief executive Mike Sabel said in an online statement. Sabel was referring to another Venture Global liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Louisiana that dispatched its first cargo about two years earlier than the normal Energy Department timeframe. In March the Department of Energy (DOE) granted a conditional permit for CP2 LNG to export to countries with no free-trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. The project has already secured authorization for its export volume, the equivalent of about 1.45 trillion cubic feet a year of natural gas, when it won FTA export approval April 2022. A final permit for the non-FTA portion has been withheld pending a DOE review of permitting considerations concerning greenhouse gas emissions, environmental impact, energy prices and domestic gas supply. “DOE expects to issue a final order to CP2 LNG in the coming months”, the department said in an online statement March 19. The loan from a group of 19 banks follows the launch of CP2 LNG’s FID (final investment decision) process in March. SMBC served as left lead arranger and sole bookrunner. Caixabank and LBBW served as right lead arrangers. Bank of America, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, ING, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Mizuho, MUFG, NBC, RBC, Santander, Scotiabank and Wells Fargo served as coordinating lead arrangers. ICBC, NordLB and Regions served as joint lead arrangers. Last month Venture Global closed a two-tranche offering of senior secured notes with a principal amount of $2.5 billion for the Plaquemines LNG facility in Plaquemines

Commonwealth LNG Inks 20-Year Offtake

Commonwealth LNG has roped in an unnamed “major” Asian customer with the signing of a deal for the supply of 1 million metric tons per annum for 20 years. “This offtake agreement marks another important milestone for Commonwealth as we work toward a final investment later this year and first offtake planned for 2029”, Ben Dell, managing partner of project owner Kimmeridge, said in an online statement. “We look forward to working with this Buyer, a longstanding leader in LNG, as we further our integrated wellhead-to-water strategy in delivering LNG to critical markets around the world”. “This Buyer is one of the world’s leading energy corporations, operating comprehensively across the oil and gas value chain from upstream to downstream”, added the statement by Kimmeridge and Commonwealth. “In the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, this Buyer is currently one of the largest global suppliers of LNG”. Located along the Calcasieu River on the Gulf Coast near Cameron, Louisiana, the project has a planned capacity of 9.5 MMtpa, equivalent to about 441.4 billion cubic feet per year of natural gas according to Commonwealth. “Commonwealth’s phase 1 development is expected to bring an investment of more than $11 billion to Louisiana and generate an estimated $3.5 billion in annual export revenue”, the statement added. “The project is expected to employ approximately 2,000 workers at the peak of construction and provide approximately 275 high-paying jobs when the facility begins operations in late 2029”. In February the Department of Energy (DOE) granted the project a conditional permit to export to countries with no free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. This was the first LNG-related order issued by the DOE under Donald Trump’s second non-consecutive administration, which immediately ended ex-President Joe Biden’s pause of pending decisions on LNG export to countries with no FTA

Zyxel launches 100GbE switch for enterprise networks

Port specifications include: 48 SFP28 ports supporting dual-rate 10GbE/25GbE connectivity 8 QSFP28 ports supporting 100GbE connections Console port for direct management access Layer 3 routing capabilities include static routing with support for access control lists (ACLs) and VLAN segmentation. The switch implements IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagging, port isolation, and port mirroring for traffic analysis. For link aggregation, the switch supports IEEE 802.3ad for increased throughput and redundancy between switches or servers. Target applications and use cases The CX4800-56F targets multiple deployment scenarios where high-capacity backbone connectivity and flexible port configurations are required. “This will be for service providers initially or large deployments where they need a high capacity backbone to deliver a primarily 10G access layer to the end point,” explains Nguyen. “Now with Wi-Fi 7, more 10G/25G capable POE switches are being powered up and need interconnectivity without the bottleneck. We see this for data centers, campus, MDU (Multi-Dwelling Unit) buildings or community deployments.” Management is handled through Zyxel’s NebulaFlex Pro technology, which supports both standalone configuration and cloud management via the Nebula Control Center (NCC). The switch includes a one-year professional pack license providing IGMP technology and network analytics features. The SFP28 ports maintain backward compatibility between 10G and 25G standards, enabling phased migration paths for organizations transitioning between these speeds.

Engineers rush to master new skills for AI-driven data centers

According to the Uptime Institute survey, 57% of data centers are increasing salary spending. Data center job roles that saw the highest increases were in operations management – 49% of data center operators said they saw highest increases in this category – followed by junior and mid-level operations staff at 45%, and senior management and strategy at 35%. Other job categories that saw salary growth were electrical, at 32% and mechanical, at 23%. Organizations are also paying premiums on top of salaries for particular skills and certifications. Foote Partners tracks pay premiums for more than 1,300 certified and non-certified skills for IT jobs in general. The company doesn’t segment the data based on whether the jobs themselves are data center jobs, but it does track 60 skills and certifications related to data center management, including skills such as storage area networking, LAN, and AIOps, and 24 data center-related certificates from Cisco, Juniper, VMware and other organizations. “Five of the eight data center-related skills recording market value gains in cash pay premiums in the last twelve months are all AI-related skills,” says David Foote, chief analyst at Foote Partners. “In fact, they are all among the highest-paying skills for all 723 non-certified skills we report.” These skills bring in 16% to 22% of base salary, he says. AIOps, for example, saw an 11% increase in market value over the past year, now bringing in a premium of 20% over base salary, according to Foote data. MLOps now brings in a 22% premium. “Again, these AI skills have many uses of which the data center is only one,” Foote adds. The percentage increase in the specific subset of these skills in data centers jobs may vary. The Uptime Institute survey suggests that the higher pay is motivating workers to stay in the

ExtraHop looks to eliminate ‘extra hops’ in NDR stack

This deep visibility allows ExtraHop to provide insights across the entire network stack, from basic connectivity to application-level transactions. “The benefit of going all the way through Layer 7 is I can actually see a database transaction going through on the wire,” Vasani said. “If you have application teams complaining about database query latency, we can map it to what session was that tied to and what flows was it tied to from a network perspective and is this really an app server issue, or is it a network issue, or is it an endpoint issue?” The new sensor integrates with ExtraHop’s RevealX platform, feeding telemetry into the company’s cloud-scale ML/AI engine that powers its detection and analysis capabilities. “The sensor collects the telemetry, feeds it into an ML/AI engine that sits in the cloud, and then we layer in workflow engines on top to enable the various use cases,” Vasani said. In modern distributed enterprise environments, network visibility must extend beyond traditional data centers. ExtraHop’s all-in-one sensor is designed to address this reality with deployment options that span physical appliances, virtual machines and cloud environments. ExtraHop has both virtual and physical hardware appliances for sensor deployment. ExtraHop sensors can plug into a network through multiple methods including, Network Tap, SPAN (Switched Port Analyzer) port, packet broker or a cloud provider’s vTAP capabilities.

AI’s energy appetite drives interest in nuclear power

In its new report, Deloitte said that its analysis of figures from the World Nuclear Association, the American Nuclear Society, the U.S. Department of Energy, and others showed that new nuclear power could potentially meet about 10% of the projected increase in data center demand over the next decade, assuming capacity is also significantly expanded by between 35GW and 62GW, and 30% of the expansion is earmarked for data centers. “Nuclear energy presents a potential solution for meeting some of the growing electricity demands of data centers, with its reliable and clean energy profile,” Deloitte’s report said, noting five key advantages of the technology: Reliable baseload power: Nuclear reactors operate 24/7, regardless of the weather, providing the reliable power so important to data centers. In addition, Deloitte said, “Their capacity factor, exceeding 92.5%, outperforms other sources like natural gas (56%) and renewables like wind (35%) and solar (25%).” High energy density: A small amount of fuel generates a lot of power, which minimizes the need for fuel storage and transportation. “This efficiency can translate to a smaller physical footprint and enhanced sustainability,” Deloitte said. Scalable power output: A full-sized reactor typically generates 800 megawatts (MW) or more of electricity, which accommodates the needs of large data centers. Low carbon emissions: Nuclear power plants produce virtually no greenhouse gas emissions during operation. Enhanced land use efficiency: Compared to other energy sources, nuclear power plants require relatively little land. Gartner’s Johnson echoed these advantages, and also predicted that nuclear energy, and small modular reactors (SMRs) in particular, will “provide a viable answer” to the question of what to do when electricity demand exceeds supply. They can, he said, “ensure independence from grid power fluctuations by providing dedicated on-site power for large data centers.” However, both Gartner and Deloitte also highlighted challenges in

Nvidia AI supercluster targets agents, reasoning models on Oracle Cloud

Oracle has previously built an OCI Supercluster with 65,536 Nvidia H200 GPUs using the older Hopper GPU technology and no CPU that offers up to 260 exaflops of peak FP8 performance. According to the blog post announcing the availability, the Blackwell GPUs are available via Oracle’s public, government, and sovereign clouds, as well as in customer-owned data centers through its OCI Dedicated Region and Alloy offerings. Oracle joins a growing list of cloud providers that have made the GB200 NVL72 system available, including Google, CoreWeave and Lambda. In addition, Microsoft offers the GB200 GPUs, though they are not deployed as an NVL72 machine.

Deep Data Center: Neoclouds as the ‘Picks and Shovels’ of the AI Gold Rush

In 1849, the discovery of gold in California ignited a frenzy, drawing prospectors from around the world in pursuit of quick fortune. While few struck it rich digging and sifting dirt, a different class of entrepreneurs quietly prospered: those who supplied the miners with the tools of the trade. From picks and shovels to tents and provisions, these providers became indispensable to the gold rush, profiting handsomely regardless of who found gold. Today, a new gold rush is underway, in pursuit of artificial intelligence. And just like the days of yore, the real fortunes may lie not in the gold itself, but in the infrastructure and equipment that enable its extraction. This is where neocloud players and chipmakers are positioned, representing themselves as the fundamental enablers of the AI revolution. Neoclouds: The Essential Tools and Implements of AI Innovation The AI boom has sparked a frenzy of innovation, investment, and competition. From generative AI applications like ChatGPT to autonomous systems and personalized recommendations, AI is rapidly transforming industries. Yet, behind every groundbreaking AI model lies an unsung hero: the infrastructure powering it. Enter neocloud providers—the specialized cloud platforms delivering the GPU horsepower that fuels AI’s meteoric rise. Let’s examine how neoclouds represent the “picks and shovels” of the AI gold rush, used for extracting the essential backbone of AI innovation. Neoclouds are emerging as indispensable players in the AI ecosystem, offering tailored solutions for compute-intensive workloads such as training large language models (LLMs) and performing high-speed inference. Unlike traditional hyperscalers (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), which cater to a broad range of use cases, neoclouds focus exclusively on optimizing infrastructure for AI and machine learning applications. This specialization allows them to deliver superior performance at a lower cost, making them the go-to choice for startups, enterprises, and research institutions alike.

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

Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE