US capital could flow to UK offshore wind in wake of Empire Wind halt

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US capital could flow to UK offshore wind in wake of Empire Wind halt

Upheavals in US offshore wind, such as the US government’s order to halt work on Empire Wind, could see funding flowing into projects in Europe. Speaking during All Energy in Glasgow, Haventus chief executive Lewis Gillies said: “There’s a tonne of money in the US looking for a home and it’s looking to Europe. If […]

Upheavals in US offshore wind, such as the US government’s order to halt work on Empire Wind, could see funding flowing into projects in Europe.

Speaking during All Energy in Glasgow, Haventus chief executive Lewis Gillies said: “There’s a tonne of money in the US looking for a home and it’s looking to Europe. If we can take advantage of that, it’s a great opportunity.”

Equinor has been developing the 810MW Empire Wind 1 project in New York since 2017 when it received the lease agreement.

However, US president Donald Trump has long been sceptical about offshore wind, having been involved in a legal battle with the Scottish government over the Aberdeen Bay project, which is visible from his Balmedie golf course.

On starting his regime in January, he was quick to place an injunction on leasing new seabed for wind energy projects, with the order specifically saying it did not apply to oil and gas developments.

And then the US government issued an order to stop work on Empire Wind 1 in April pending a review, bringing the recently started offshore construction to a halt.

The decision to stop such a well-progressed project has sent shockwaves through the US offshore wind industry, creating concern that other projects could suffer similar orders. Equinor has even said that it may even abandon the project altogether.

But the US’s loss could be the UK’s gain.

Gillies noted that there’s still a large appetite among US private equity to invest in companies involved in the global energy transition.

“There are now very few opportunities to do that in a US context,” he said.

“It’s a huge change from last year, especially considering the US Inflation Reduction Act which ploughed so much money into the energy transition.”

However, the UK is still producing poor signals to the market, such as Ørsted’s decision to discontinue its mammoth 2.4GW Hornsea 4 project.

“Hornsea failing is not a great signal,” Gillies said. “We’re really trying to build momentum as we’re essentially building an industry from scratch, which is no different from what we did with the oil and gas industry in the North Sea of the ’70s and ’80s.

“Signals like that really don’t help, but I still believe that the general direction of travel is positive.”

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New England Patriots kick off network upgrade

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CompTIA cert targets operational cybersecurity skills

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NOAA stops tracking cost of extreme weather and climate disasters

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Network data hygiene: The critical first step to effective AI agents

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Russia Oil Export Revenue at Lowest Since 2023 as Prices Slump

Russia’s oil-export revenues in April fell to the lowest in nearly two years as global crude prices declined amid sluggish demand, according to the International Energy Agency. The nation earned $13.2 billion from the export of crude oil and petroleum products last month, the lowest since June 2023, the Paris-based agency said in its monthly market report on Thursday. The decline came as the average-weighted price for Russian crude slumped further down in April, reaching $55.6 a barrel, well below the price-cap imposed by the international Group of Seven nations, the IEA estimated. “Russian oil prices followed international trends,” the agency said in the report. “Increased trade uncertainty is expected to weigh on the world economy and, by extension, oil demand.” The price of the Brent benchmark is more than 14% down so far this year as concerns mount over the global effects of US tariff policies and lower demand in China. Increased oil flows from Iran, which is currently in talks with the US, could add to a potential glut later this year after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies last month started bringing back some of the barrels withheld since 2022. Russia’s budget is especially vulnerable to oil-price declines, as the oil and gas industry account for roughly 30% of its revenues. The nation’s budget deficit widened in April, underscoring the Kremlin’s financial challenges if oil prices remain lower for longer amid record levels of spending on the war in Ukraine. Total Russian oil export volumes in April remained slightly above levels shown in the previous two months, at 7.55 million barrels a day, the IEA estimated. Flows of the nation’s premium ESPO crude reached a record high, exceeding 1 million barrels a day, according to the agency. “The deeper discounts attracted alternative buyers,” even

Eni selects ABB as main automation contractor for HyNet North West

Eni has chosen ABB to be the main automation contractor for the HyNet North West carbon capture and storage (CCS) cluster, which received approval to begin construction in late April. HyNet is one of two CCS clusters in the UK government’s Track 1 industrial decarbonisation programme. The project centres around a network of CCS infrastructure that is expected to support several low-carbon industries in North West England and North Wales, including cement manufacturing, energy-from-waste and hydrogen production. The project will involve both existing infrastructure that will be repurposed and new infrastructure that will be built. Emissions captured across the cluster will be stored in depleted natural gas fields in the Irish Sea, which will form part of Eni’s Liverpool Bay CCS project, financing for which was also announced last month alongside the start of construction on HyNet. Since then, several contractors for HyNet have been announced, of which ABB is the latest. ABB said that under the contract, it would deploy its Ability System 800xA Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS) to manage the automation, telecoms and cyber security project scope for the transportation and storage of the captured carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted across the cluster. “CCS has an important role to play within the current energy transition, but navigating the complexities of operating an industrial cluster is highly technical and challenging,” said ABB Energy Industries president Per Erik Holsten. “The HyNet project is clear evidence of how business and government can combine to implement pragmatic and effective industrial policies to accelerate the energy transition,” added Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi. “ABB’s automation expertise will be invaluable in providing an integrated and end-to-end common control solution spanning all main EPC providers involved in HyNet.” ABB did not provide further details, such as the value of the contract. Development of HyNet aims

Oil Prices Have Risen Strongly Over the Past Week

Oil prices have risen strongly over the past week, analysts at Standard Chartered Bank, including the company’s commodities research head Paul Horsnell, said in a report sent to Rigzone by Horsnell late Tuesday. “At [the] time of writing they had gained more than $8 per barrel from their 5 May low of $58.50 per barrel, breaking above a series of key Fibonacci retracement levels and the 20-day moving average in the process,” the analysts said in the report. “The 14-day Relative Strength Index stood at a near-neutral 51.0 at settlement on 12 May, adding to a market sense of short-term normalization and unwinding from the extremes of recent weeks,” they added. “However, we think the rally from the 5 May low primarily reflects market positioning and macro news flow, rather being an adjustment to a new stable price range,” they warned. In the report, the Standard Chartered analysts said money-managers have not traded crude oil with maximum bearishness recently. “The lowest our crude oil money-manager positioning index reached in April was -67.9, well short of the -100.0 maximum bearishness last reached in September 2024,” they highlighted. “However, money-managers have been sufficiently bearish – particularly in WTI, but across the energy complex in general – for a short-covering rally to be triggered by a flow of more positive macro news,” they added. “Some of this news flow might not mark a decisive turning point in trade wars, but it was still an improvement on the highly recessionary outcomes that the oil market had priced in,” the analysts continued. The Standard Chartered Bank analysts noted in the report that they think oil reacted differently to most other risk assets. “Other markets thought the potential outcomes were so damaging that they would have to be mitigated, whereas oil appeared to price in an

Wood extends Sidara takeover again

Aberdeen-based engineering firm Wood has extended the Sidara takeover deadline as its acquisition saga continues. This prolongs the ongoing uncertainty facing the north-east business, as shares are still unable to be traded due to delays in Wood publishing its financial results. Wood has said there is a possible 35p per share offer on the table, which would value the company at £240 million. Following the extension, the firm’s Middle Eastern suitor has until close of play on 12 June to submit an offer. However, the deadline can be extended further. Last month, Wood extended the Sidara ‘put up or shut up’ (PUSU) date to 15 May after the firm launched a fresh takeover process in April. “The board of Wood is continuing to work with Sidara in relation to the pre-conditions to the possible offer set out in that announcement,” Wood wrote in a shareholder update. “In particular, Wood and Sidara are continuing to engage with Wood’s lenders and noteholders in relation to both the debt modifications and the Sidara Liquidity Arrangements (as defined in that announcement), and Wood is continuing to work with its auditor towards the publication of Wood’s audited accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2024.” Wood said shares would suspend trading on 30 April after it missed the deadline to publish its 2024 financial results. The business confirmed that it would temporarily suspend listing and trading of its shares from 1 May, until it publishes the 2024 results. Sidara was in talks with Wood about a potential takeover last year, which ultimately fell through. Sidara’s previous “final offer” valued the company at 230p per share, valuing Wood at around £1.5bn. However, the deal fell through “in light of rising geopolitical risks and financial market uncertainty,” Sidara explained at the time. Wood has found itself

INEOS Declares Milestone for Europe with Launch of CO2 Carrier

INEOS Group and its partners on Wednesday named and launched what they call the first Europe-built carbon dioxide (CO2) carrier for capture and storage. Adapted for handling CO2 under pressure and at low temperatures, Carbon Destroyer 1 was built at the Royal Niestern Sander shipyard in the Netherlands to serve the Denmark-based Project Greensand. The vessel used the EasyMax design developed by Dutch shipping majors Royal Wagenborg and Royal Niestern Sander. The Project Greensand partners – diversified British company INEOS, London-based Harbour Energy PLC and Danish national oil and gas company Nordsøfonden – expect the ship and the other CCS components to become fully operational by the end of 2025 or early 2026. Project Greensand aims to store 400,000 metric tons a year of CO2, with plans to ramp up to as much as 8 million metric tons annually by 2030. “The launch of Carbon Destroyer 1 is an important next step for Carbon Capture and Storage in Europe. We are demonstrating that Carbon Storage is commercially viable and a far better way to decarbonize Europe without its deindustrialization”, INEOS chair Jim Ratcliffe said in a joint statement by the Project Greensand partners and the shipbuilders. Wagenborg chief executive Egbert Vuursteen said, “As the first European-built offshore CO2 carrier, this vessel positions us – and our partners – at the forefront of the energy transition in Europe”. In Denmark’s Port of Esbjerg construction is underway on a new CO2 terminal that will serve as the onshore hub for receiving, storing and loading liquefied CO2 onto Carbon Destroyer 1. The terminal is designed to have six large storage tanks and infrastructure to support continuous and scalable CO2 transport to the offshore storage site. Captured CO2, initially from Danish biogas plants, will be delivered to the terminal by truck, temporarily stored then transferred to the

Why Is the Oil Price Dropping Today?

In an exclusive interview with Rigzone on Thursday, Bill Farren-Price, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Gas Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said the oil price is down today on U.S. President Donald Trump “saying [the] U.S. [is] in serious talks with Iran for long term peace”. Farren-Price told Rigzone this implies the possible lifting of sanctions on Iran oil. Lucas Herrmann, the Head of Oil & Gas Equity Research at BNP Paribas Exane, told Rigzone in a separate exclusive interview on Thursday that the oil price is dropping today because of “dovish Iranian dialogue [on a] U.S. and Iran nuclear [deal]”. Herrmann added that there is “less perceived risk of Trump going hard on Iranian exports”. In an oil report sent to Rigzone by the Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB) team on Thursday, Ole R. Hvalbye, a Commodities Analyst at the company, stated that “Iran is currently in the spotlight, having signaled its willingness to sign a nuclear deal with the U.S. in exchange for lifting economic sanctions”. In a separate oil report sent to Rigzone by the SEB team on Tuesday, Hvalbye said the market was “pricing in relaxed restrictions on Iranian crude exports after President Trump signaled progress in nuclear negotiations over the weekend”. “Further talks are expected within the next week,” Hvalbye added in that report. Inki Cho, Financial Markets Strategist Consultant to Exness, said in a market analysis sent to Rigzone on Monday that “U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations have the potential to bring additional Iranian crude to the market should a deal be reached, elevating the risk of renewed price pressure in the short term”. Rigzone has contacted the White House and the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment on Farren-Price, Herrmann, Hvalbye, and Cho’s statements. At the time of writing, neither have responded

HPE ‘morphs’ private cloud portfolio with improved virtualization, storage and data protection

What do you get when combining Morpheus with Aruba? As part of the extensible platform message that HPE is promoting with Morpheus, it’s also working in some capabilities from the broader HPE portfolio. One integration is with HPE Aruba for networking microsegmentation. Bhardwaj noted that a lot of HPE Morpheus users are looking for microsegmentation in order to make sure that the traffic between two virtual machines on a server is secure. “The traditional approach of doing that is on the hypervisor, but that costs cycles on the hypervisor,” Bhardwaj said. “Frankly, the way that’s being delivered today, customers have to pay extra cost on the server.” With the HPE Aruba plugin that now works with HPE Morpheus, the microsegmentation capability can be enabled at the switch level. Bhardwaj said that by doing the microsegmentation in the switch and not the hypervisor, costs can be lowered and performance can be increased. The integration brings additional capabilities, including the ability to support VPN and network address translation (NAT) in an integrated way between the switch and the hypervisor. VMware isn’t the only hypervisor supported by HPE The HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Hypervisor is another new element in the HPE cloud portfolio. The hypervisor is now being integrated into HPE’s private cloud offerings for both data center as well as edge deployments.

AMD targets hosting providers with affordable EPYC 4005 processors

According to Pinkesh Kotecha, chairman and MD of Ishan Technologies, AMD’s 4th Gen EPYC processors stood out because they offer the right combination of high performance, energy efficiency, and security. “Their high core density and ability to optimize performance per watt made them ideal for managing data-intensive operations like real-time analytics and high-frequency transactions. Additionally, AMD’s strong AI roadmap and growing portfolio of AI-optimised solutions position them as a forward-looking partner, ready to support our customers’ evolving AI and data needs. This alignment made AMD a clear choice over alternatives,” Kotecha said. By integrating AMD EPYC processors, Ishan Technologies’ Ishan Cloud plans to empower enterprises across BFSI, ITeS, and manufacturing industries, as well as global capability centers and government organizations, to meet India’s data localization requirements and drive AI-led digital transformation. “The AMD EPYC 4005 series’ price-to-performance ratio makes it an attractive option for cloud hosting and web services, where cost-efficient, always-on performance is essential,” said Manish Rawat, analyst, TechInsights. Prabhu Ram, VP for the industry research group at CMR, said EPYC 4005 processors deliver a compelling mix of performance-per-watt, higher core counts, and modern I/O support, positioning it as a strong alternative to Intel’s Xeon E-2400 and 6300P, particularly for edge deployments. Shah of Counterpoint added, “While ARM-based Ampere Altra promises higher power efficiencies and is ideally adopted in more cloud and hyperscale data centers, though performance is something where x86-based Zen 5 architecture excels and nicely balances the efficiencies with lower TDPs, better software compatibilities supported by a more mature ecosystem.”

Shell’s immersive cooling liquids the first to receive official certification from Intel

Along with the certification, Intel is offering a Xeon processor single-phase immersion warranty rider. This indicates Intel’s confidence in the durability and effectiveness of Shell’s fluids. Yates explained that the rider augments Intel’s standard warranty terms and is available to data center operators deploying 4th and 5th generation Xeon processors in Shell immersion fluids. The rider is intended to provide data center operators confidence that their investment is guaranteed when deployed correctly. Shell’s fluids are available globally and can be employed in retrofitted existing infrastructure or used in new builds. Cuts resource use, increases performance Data centers consume anywhere from 10 to 50 times more energy per square foot than traditional office buildings, and they are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Largely due to the explosion of AI, data center energy consumption is expected to double from 415 terawatt-hours in 2024 to around 945 TWh by 2030. There are several other technologies used for data center cooling, including air cooling, cold plate (direct-to-chip), and precision cooling (targeted to specific areas), but the use of immersion cooling has been growing, and is expected to account for 36% of data center thermal management revenue by 2028. With this method, servers and networking equipment are placed in cooling fluids that absorb and dissipate heat generated by the electronic equipment. These specialized fluids are thermally conductive but not electrically conductive (dielectric) thus making them safe for submerging electrical equipment.

Cisco joins AI infrastructure alliance

“The addition of Cisco reinforces AIP’s commitment to an open-architecture platform and fostering a broad ecosystem that supports a diverse range of partners on a non-exclusive basis, all working together to build a new kind of AI infrastructure,” the group said in a statement. Separately, Cisco announced AI initiatives centered in the Middle East region. Last week, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins visited Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. This week, Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and chief product officer, is in Saudi Arabia, where he is participating in President Trump’s state visit to the region, according to Cisco. Related new projects include: An initiative with HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia’s new AI enterprise to help build an open, scalable, resilient and cost-efficient AI infrastructure: “This landmark collaboration will set a new standard for how AI infrastructure is designed, secured and delivered – combining Cisco’s global expertise with the Kingdom’s bold AI ambitions. The multi-year initiative aims to position the country as a global leader in digital innovation,” Cisco stated. A collaboration with the UAE-basedG42 to co-develop a secure AI portfolio and AI-native services: Cisco and G42 will work together to assess the potential to co-develop and jointly deploy AI-powered cybersecurity packages, as well as a reference architecture that integrates Cisco’s networking, security, and infrastructure solutions specifically designed for high-performance computing. This collaboration aims to help customers build and secure AI-ready data centers and develop AI workloads effectively, according to the companies. Interest in Qatar’s digital transformation: Qatar’s Ministry of Interior and Cisco signed a letter of intent to collaborate on Qatar’s digital transformation, AI, infrastructure development and cybersecurity.

Cato Networks introduces AI-powered policy analysis engine

Cato Networks this week announced a new policy analysis engine for its cloud-based secure access service edge platform that the company says will optimize and improve SASE policies, reduce risk, simplify compliance, and reduce manual maintenance efforts. Cato Autonomous Policies is built into the Cato SASE Cloud Platform and can provide enterprises with AI-driven recommendations to eliminate security exposure, tighten access controls, and improve network performance. The first use case of the policy engine is designed for firewall as a service (FWaaS) environments in which “firewall rule bloat” is present, Cato explained in a statement. The bloat comes from organizations accumulating thousands of rules that were designed to protect the environment, but after becoming outdated or misconfigured, actually lead to increased risk. “Most enterprises rely on a mix of firewalls deployed in data centers, branch offices, and cloud environments. Over time, rule sets grow, become inconsistent, and are filled with redundant, outdated, or conflicting entries,” wrote Demetris Booth, product marketing director at Cato Networks, in a blog post on the product news. “As a result, security policies become hard to manage, even harder to audit, and often misaligned with zero-trust principles. AI-driven firewall policy management is necessary for modern enterprises to streamline and optimize security operations.”

Riverbed bolsters network acceleration for AI’s performance bottlenecks

“Enterprises are worried about bad actors capturing encrypted traffic and saving copies for when quantum computing advances can break the encryption, providing the bad actors with free access to data. It’s a real concern,” Frey explains. “Post-quantum cryptography is a way to get ahead of that now.” Riverbed also introduced the SteelHead 90 series of network acceleration appliances, which the company says will provide resilient network performance to customers. The series includes: SteelHead 8090, which delivers up to 60 Gbps of data movement over a WAN. It supports multiple 100 Gigabyte network interfaces to pull data from the LAN. SteelHead 6090, which delivers up to 20 Gbps of data movement over a WAN, targeted for mid-scale data centers. SteelHead 4090 and 2090, which support mid-sized data center and edge use cases, with 500 Mbps and 200 Mbps of accelerated traffic, as well as up to 10 Gbps of total traffic processing for quality of service (QoS) and application classification use cases. Riverbed SteelHead Virtual, is a software-only version designed for virtualization environments and private cloud deployments, which is compatible with VMWare ESXI, KVM, and Microsoft Hyper-V. “For customers that are familiar with Riverbed, this is a big change in performance. We’ve gone from moving one appliance at 30 Gbps to 60 Gbps. We want to make sure that whether it’s new AI projects or existing data projects, we have ubiquitous availability across clouds,” says Chalan Aras, senior vice president and general manager of Acceleration at Riverbed. “We’re making it less expensive to move data—we are about half the price of traditional data movement methods.” With this announcement, Riverbed also unveiled its Flex licensing subscription offering. According to Riverbed, Flex makes it possible for enterprises to transfer licenses from hardware to virtual to cloud devices at no cost. Enterprises can reassign

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

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

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

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

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

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

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

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

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