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Aramco CEO Sees ‘Good’ China Oil Demand Driving Growth

China is still driving growth in global oil demand, the head of Saudi Aramco said, dismissing concerns about peaking consumption in the world’s biggest energy user.  “We still see good demand coming out of China,” Aramco’s Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said in a Bloomberg television interview in Davos. The country, along with India, make […]

China is still driving growth in global oil demand, the head of Saudi Aramco said, dismissing concerns about peaking consumption in the world’s biggest energy user. 

“We still see good demand coming out of China,” Aramco’s Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said in a Bloomberg television interview in Davos. The country, along with India, make up about 40% of the rise in global consumption and, “demand is increasing year on year.”

Aramco has long been positive about demand in China, its largest market and a target for major investments, even as the Asian nation was sluggish to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Nasser’s said back in October that he was bullish on China after a series of government stimulus measures aimed at reviving the economy.

The optimism contrasts with signals of a slowdown, with even the country’s largest energy producer, China National Petroleum Corp., predicting oil demand may cease growing after 2025 as a shift toward electric vehicles gathers pace. Nasser said that while the EV push will erode gasoline demand, the country’s appetite for chemicals produced from oil will keep expanding.

“Even with the transition and going to electric vehicles, you need oil as a feedstock to produce the materials that would be required for any transition,” Nasser said. “The growth is still there.”

Aramco has invested in several refineries in China that can churn out more chemical products and less transport fuel. The company aims to take stakes 10%-20% in such projects while securing contracts to supply about 60% of the facility’s oil needs, thereby locking in long-term demand, Nasser said.

Oil Slowdown

Last year, Asia’s biggest economy increased oil use by just 180,000 barrels a day — less than a fifth of the rise seen in 2023 — as it grappled with an array of economic challenges, according to the International Energy Agency. Growth will pick up marginally to 220,000 barrels a day in 2025, the Paris-based IEA predicts, while remaining capped by signs of a deepening deflationary spiral.

The Chinese weakness was partly responsible for the 3% decline in oil prices last year, outweighing geopolitical risks in the Middle East. Crude in London has increased 6% this month following aggressive US sanctions on Russia.

Those restrictions are already starting to tighten the oil market, Nasser said. But it’s too early to see if the prospect of sanctions obstructing the flow of some 2 million barrels of daily Russian seaborne crude will have a lasting impact, he said.

Nasser expects global oil demand to rise by about 1.3 million barrels a day this year to 106 million a day. That’s slightly higher than the 1.05 million barrel-a-day growth forecast by the International Energy Agency.



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Hackers gain root access to Palo Alto firewalls through chained bugs

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Tokyo Gas Invests in Philippine LNG Sector

Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. has acquired a 20 percent stake in FGEN LNG Corp., which owns one of two operational liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals in the Philippines. The FGEN LNG facility in Batangas province, south of Manila, “marks Tokyo Gas’ first investment in a commercially operational overseas LNG terminal project”, the Japanese company said in an online statement. It said it had already helped with the development of the terminal, completed 2023, via earlier agreements with First Gen Corp., the 80 percent local owner of FGEN LNG. “Tokyo Gas will leverage its extensive expertise in the optimal operation of LNG terminals, accumulated over many years in Japan, to support the operation and maintenance of the Terminal”, Tokyo Gas said. The facility regasifies LNG for feeding into First Gen’s gas-fired power plants, which have a total generating capacity of 2,107 megawatts, according to First Gen. “This subscription will deepen our partnership and enhance synergy that will boost our efforts in support of the Philippines’ energy security and stability, even as we all pursue decarbonization,” Giles Puno, vice chair and chief executive of FGEN LNG and president of First Gen, said in a separate statement. Tokyo Gas added, “In the Philippines, robust economic growth and population increase are expected to drive higher demand for electricity”. “By participating in the Terminal project, Tokyo Gas aims to contribute to the expansion of natural gas utilization and the establishment of an LNG value chain in the country”, it said. Last month President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed a law to establish a downstream gas industry in the Southeast Asian country. The legislation aims to raise the share of gas in the domestic energy mix and position the archipelago as an LNG transshipment hub in the Asia-Pacific. The Philippine Natural Gas Industry Development Act seeks

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USA EIA Forecasts WTI Oil Price Drop in 2025 and 2026

In its latest short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released on February 11, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected that the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) spot price average will drop this year and next year. According to its February STEO, the EIA sees the WTI spot price averaging $70.62 per barrel in 2025 and $62.46 per barrel in 2026. The WTI spot price averaged $76.60 per barrel in 2024, the STEO highlighted. In its previous STEO, which was released in January, the EIA projected that the WTI spot price would average $70.31 per barrel in 2025 and $62.46 per barrel in 2026. That STEO also highlighted that the 2024 WTI spot price average was $76.60 per barrel. The EIA’s February STEO forecast that the WTI spot price will come in at $73.62 per barrel in the first quarter of this year, $71.00 per barrel in the second quarter, $70.00 per barrel in the third quarter, $68 per barrel in the fourth quarter, $64.97 per barrel in the first quarter of 2025, $63.33 per barrel in the second quarter, $61.68 per barrel in the third quarter, and $60.00 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026. In its January STEO, the EIA projected that the WTI spot price would average $72.34 per barrel in the first quarter of 2025, $71.00 per barrel in the second quarter, $70.00 per barrel in the third quarter, $68 per barrel in the fourth quarter, $64.97 per barrel in the in the first quarter of 2026, $63.33 per barrel in the second quarter, $61.68 per barrel in the third quarter, and $60.00 per barrel in the fourth quarter. A research note sent to Rigzone by the JPM Commodities Research team on February 14 showed that J.P. Morgan is forecasting that the WTI crude price

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Pertamina Boosts 2C Resources by 34 Percent

Indonesia’s PT Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE), PT Pertamina’s upstream unit, said it has recorded its largest exploration reserve discovery in the past fifteen years. For 2024, Pertamina Upstream Subholding Group’s 2C contingent recoverable resources reached 652 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) or 2C oil in place of 1.75 billion barrels of oil equivalent (Bboe), including existing structures reassessment evaluations, the company said in a news release. The 2C contingent resource discovery represents a significant increase compared to previous years, marking a growth of 34 percent, compared with the 2023 figure of 488 MMboe, Pertamina said. The contingent resource discovery was primarily driven by the company’s high impact discovery at the Tedong (TDG)-001 well, which holds 548 billion cubic feet of gas of 2C recoverable resources and 13.51 million barrels of condensate within the Pertamina EP Working Area, operated by PHE’s affiliate, PT Pertamina EP Cepu, in Region IV Zone 13, according to the release. The drilling of the Tedong (TDG)-001 well is part of a frontier area exploration initiative across five key locations: East Wolai (EWO)-001, West Wolai (WWO)-001, Julang Emas (JLE)-001, Yaki Emas (YKE)-001, and Tedong (TDG)-001. The initiative aims to confirm the hydrocarbon potential of the Minahaki and Tomori Formation Limestone, Pertamina said. Another significant discovery in Padang Pancuran (PPC)-1, located administratively in South Sumatra within the Jambi Merang Working Area, further contributed to the 2C contingent resources realization in the Pertamina Upstream Subholding Group last year. The PPC-1 well, drilled to a depth of 3,750 feet (1,143 meters), recorded 140.6 MMboe of 2C recoverable resources, the company stated. PHE completed drilling 22 exploration wells in 2024. Additionally, PHE conducted a 2D seismic survey covering 769 kilometers and a 3D seismic survey spanning 4,990 square kilometers. “This achievement is concrete evidence of our exploration team’s dedication and

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Santos Extends Productive Life of Greater East Spar Field

Santos Ltd. has started up the Halyard-2 infill well, maintaining production in the Greater East Spar field offshore Western Australia as Halyard-1 has been depleted. Halyard-2 will send an incremental 65 million standard cubic feet a day of natural gas to Valarus Island for processing via an existing pipeline, according to an online statement by the Australian gas and oil company. The well “is a valuable short-cycle capex project, delivering incremental low-cost volumes into the portfolio through to 2027, and supporting a reduction in unit production costs in 2025”, Santos said. Santos initially planned to drill a sidetrack to Halyard-1, which started production 2011, but opted for a complete replacement due to technical challenges, according to the Environment Plan for Halyard-2 published on the website of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority. According to the plan Santos would also disconnect the existing Halyard-1 Christmas tree production tie-in and install a long-term cap. Halyard-2 will convert about nine million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) of sales gas and condensate to proven and probable (2P) developed reserves, Santos said. A day earlier it updated its reserve figures, reporting 2P volumes of 1.56 billion boe as of year-end 2024. “While additions across a number of assets provided an organic reserves increase of 15 mmboe, there was a 30 mmboe reduction arising from the sale of a 2.6 percent interest in PNG LNG to Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited”, Santos said. Gas comprised 84 percent of the total figure, with the rest liquids. Overseas assets accounted for 41 percent of Santos’ year-end 2P reserves. Meanwhile 2P contingent resources grew to 3.34 billion boe. Santos added, “We continue to hold 2P CO2 [carbon dioxide] storage capacity of 9 million tonnes and 2C contingent storage resources increased by 47 million tonnes to 178 million

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What Trends Will Shape Oil and Gas Hiring In 2025?

What trends will shape oil and gas hiring in 2025? That was the question Rigzone posed to Dave Mount, Executive Vice President of Louisiana-based OneSource Professional Search, a Xenspire Company, and Brian Binke, the President and CEO of Michigan based the Birmingham Group, an affiliate of Sanford Rose Associates. Responding to the query, Mount told Rigzone that OneSource Professional Search sees “a mixed hiring market in 2025 as several factors play out”.  “First the bad news – continuing energy sector M&A activity and larger company staff reductions … will put more qualified people on the street and also accelerate early retirements,” Mount said. Chevron Corporation Vice Chairman Mark Nelson confirmed that the company expects to cut up to 20 percent of its workforce in a statement sent to Rigzone recently by the Chevron team. In a statement sent to Rigzone last month by the BP team, BP confirmed thousands of job cuts. “Good news would be that 2025 will be a great year to pick up talented people who would normally not make moves from larger ‘stable’ companies and multiple deepwater projects will bring on first oil in 2025,” Mount added. Mount told Rigzone that “more cash from new oil production, lessening regulatory burdens, and continued retirements of the boomer generation could increase hiring, albeit incrementally”.  The OneSource Professional Search Executive Vice President also highlighted to Rigzone that the company recently attended the North American Prospect Expo (NAPE), which is described on the event’s website as “the energy industry’s marketplace for the buying, selling and trading of prospects and producing properties”. “The buzz we got from our recent NAPE attendance suggests that natural gas development is gaining interest due to expected increase in demand, due to a confluence of lifting of LNG export facility permitting bans and AI driven data center expansions

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Malaysia Awards Two PSCs Offshore Borneo

Petroliam Nasional Bhd. (Petronas) has signed two production sharing contracts (PSCs) for exploration blocks in the waters of Sabah state, the last leases awarded by Malaysia’s national oil and gas company under the 2024 bid round. Last year’s area auction saw a total of 14 licenses go to 12 operators. The PSCs involved 11 so-called Discovered Resource Opportunities (DROs) and three exploration blocks, Petronas said in an online statement Tuesday. A consortium comprising Japan’s INPEX Corp., Petronas and Sabah’s state-owned SMJ Energy Sdn. Bhd. won the last two PSCs: SB306A and SB306B. In both PSCs, INPEX, through INPEX Malaysia E&P SB306A Sdn. Bhd., is operator with a 50 percent stake. Petronas, through Petronas Carigali Sdn. Bhd., holds 42.5 percent. SMJ Energy owns 7.5 percent, according to a separate press release by INPEX. “The newly acquired blocks are expected to contribute to INPEX’s expansion of natural gas and LNG business as outlined in INPEX Vision 2035 announced in February 2025 as well as expand the company’s operations in Southeast Asia”, INPEX said, noting it has now increased its exploration blocks in Malaysia to six. “INPEX is committed to further strengthening its business in Malaysia and will continue to actively engage in this effort”. Petronas also announced Tuesday the signing of two Technical Evaluation Agreements for the Langkasuka Basin in the Straits of Malacca and the Layang-Layang Basin offshore Sabah, one of two Malaysian states in Borneo, an island shared with Brunei and Indonesia. “These agreements, made with seven leading oil and gas companies – BP, Eni, INPEX, PETRONAS Carigali, Pertamina, PTTEP and TotalEnergies – underscore PETRONAS’ commitment to unlocking frontier basins and driving exploration at these promising regions”, Petronas said. Concurrently Petronas launched area bidding for 2025. The round offers five exploration blocks in the Malay and Penyu basins offshore Peninsular Malaysia and

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Data center spending to top $1 trillion by 2029 as AI transforms infrastructure

His projections account for recent advances in AI and data center efficiency, he says. For example, the open-source AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek seems to have shown that an LLM can produce very high-quality results at a very low cost with some clever architectural changes to how the models work. These improvements are likely to be quickly replicated by other AI companies. “A lot of these companies are trying to push out more efficient models,” says Fung. “There’s a lot of effort to reduce costs and to make it more efficient.” In addition, hyperscalers are designing and building their own chips, optimized for their AI workloads. Just the accelerator market alone is projected to reach $392 billion by 2029, Dell’Oro predicts. By that time, custom accelerators will outpace commercially available accelerators such as GPUs. The deployment of dedicated AI servers also has an impact on networking, power and cooling. As a result, spending on data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) will also increase, though at a more moderate pace, growing by 14% annually to $61 billion in 2029.  “DCPI deployments are a prerequisite to support AI workloads,” says Tam Dell’Oro, founder of Dell’Oro Group, in the report. The research firm raised its outlook in this area due to the fact that actual 2024 results exceeded its expectations, and demand is spreading from tier one to tier two cloud service providers. In addition, governments and tier one telecom operators are getting involved in data center expansion, making it a long-term trend.

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The Future of Property Values and Power in Virginia’s Loudoun County and ‘Data Center Alley’

Loudoun County’s FY 2026 Proposed Budget Is Released This week, Virginia’s Loudoun County released its FY 2026 Proposed Budget. The document notes how data centers are a major driver of revenue growth in Loudoun County, contributing significantly to both personal and real property tax revenues. As noted above, data centers generate almost 50% of Loudoun County property tax revenues. Importantly, Loudoun County has now implemented measures such as a Revenue Stabilization Fund (RSF) to manage the risks associated with this revenue dependency. The FY 2026 budget reflects the strong growth in data center-related revenue, allowing for tax rate reductions while still funding critical services and infrastructure projects. But the county is mindful of the potential volatility in data center revenue and is planning for long-term fiscal sustainability. The FY 2026 Proposed Budget notes how Loudoun County’s revenue from personal property taxes, particularly from data centers, has grown significantly. From FY 2013 to FY 2026, revenue from this source has increased from $60 million to over $800 million. Additionally, the county said its FY 2026 Proposed Budget benefits from $150 million in new revenue from the personal property tax portfolio, with $133 million generated specifically from computer equipment (primarily data centers). The county said data centers have also significantly impacted the real property tax portfolio. In Tax Year (TY) 2025, 73% of the county’s commercial portfolio is composed of data centers. The county said its overall commercial portfolio experienced a 50% increase in value between TY 2024 and TY 2025, largely driven by the appreciation of data center properties. RSF Meets Positive Economic Outlook The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors created the aformentioned Revenue Stabilization Fund (RSF) to manage the risks associated with the county’s reliance on data center-related revenue. The RSF targets 10% of data center-related real and personal property tax

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Deep Diving on DeepSeek: AI Disruption and the Future of Liquid Cooling

We know that the data center industry is currently undergoing a period of rapid transformation, driven by the increasing demands of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads and evolving cooling technologies. And it appears that the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, alongside supply chain issues for NVIDIA’s next-generation GB200 AI chips, may be prompting data center operators to reconsider their cooling strategies. Angela Taylor, Chief of Staff at LiquidStack, provided insights to Data Center Frontier on these developments, outlining potential shifts in the industry and the future of liquid cooling adoption. DeepSeek’s Market Entry and Supply Chain Disruptions Taylor told DCF, “DeepSeek’s entry into the market, combined with NVIDIA’s GB200 supply chain delays, is giving data center operators a lot to think about.” At issue here is how DeepSeek’s R1 chatbot came out of the box positioned an energy-efficient AI model that reportedly requires significantly less power than many of its competitors. This development raises questions about whether current data center cooling infrastructures are adequate, particularly as AI workloads become more specialized and diverse. At the same time, NVIDIA’s highly anticipated GB200 NVL72 AI servers, designed to handle next-generation AI workloads, are reportedly facing supply chain bottlenecks. Advanced design requirements, particularly for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and power-efficient cooling systems, have delayed shipments, with peak availability now expected between Q2 and Q3 of 2025.  This combination of a new AI player and delayed hardware supply has created uncertainty, compelling data center operators to reconsider their near-term cooling infrastructure investments. A Temporary Slowdown in AI Data Center Retrofits? Taylor also observed, “We may see a short-term slowdown in AI data center retrofits as operators assess whether air cooling can now meet their needs.” The efficiency of DeepSeek’s AI models suggests that some AI workloads may require less power and generate less heat, making air

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Georgia Follows Ohio’s Lead in Moving Energy Costs to Data Centers

The rule also mandates that any new contracts between Georgia Power and large-load customers exceeding 100 MW be submitted to the PSC for review. This provision ensures regulatory oversight and transparency in agreements that could significantly impact the state’s power grid and ratepayers. Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald points out that this is one of a number of actions that the PSC is planning to protect ratepayers, and that the PSC’s 2025 Integrated Resource Plan will further address data center power usage. Keeping Ahead of Anticipated Energy Demand This regulatory change reflects Georgia’s proactive approach to managing the increasing energy demands associated with the state’s growing data center industry, aiming to balance economic development with the interests of all electricity consumers. Georgia Power has been trying very hard to develop generation capacity to meet it’s expected usage pattern, but the demand is increasing at an incredible rate. In their projection for increased energy demand, the 2022 number was 400 MW by 2030. A year later, in their 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, the anticipated increase had grown to 6600 MW by 2030. Georgia Power recently brought online two new nuclear reactors at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, significantly increasing its nuclear generation capacity giving the four unit power generation station a capacity of over 4.5 GW. This development has contributed to a shift in Georgia’s energy mix, with clean energy sources surpassing fossil fuels for the first time. But despite the commitment to nuclear power, the company is also in the process of developing three new power plants at the Yates Steam Generating Plant. According to the AJC newspaper, regulators had approved the construction of fossil fuel power, approving natural gas and oil-fired power plants. Designed as “peaker” plants to come online at times of increased the demand, the power plants will

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Chevron, GE Vernova, Engine No.1 Join Race to Co-Locate Natural Gas Plants for U.S. Data Centers

Other Recent Natural Gas Developments for Data Centers As of February 2025, the data center industry has seen a host of significant developments in natural gas plant technologies and strategic partnerships aimed at meeting the escalating energy demands driven by AI and cloud computing. In addition to the partnership between Chevron, Engine No. 1, and GE Vernova, other consequential initiatives include the following: ExxonMobil’s Entry into the Electricity Market ExxonMobil has announced plans to build natural gas-fired power plants to supply electricity to AI data centers. The company intends to leverage carbon capture and storage technology to minimize emissions, positioning its natural gas solutions as competitive alternatives to nuclear power. This announcement in particular seemed to herald a notable shift in industry as fossil fuel companies venture into the electricity market to meet the rising demand for low-carbon power. Powerconnex Inc.’s Natural Gas Plant in Ohio An Ohio data center in New Albany, developed by Powerconnex Inc., plans to construct a natural gas-fired power plant on-site to meet its electricity needs amidst the AI industry’s increasing energy demands. The New Albany Energy Center is expected to generate up to 120 megawatts (MW) of electricity, with construction beginning in Q4 2025 and operations commencing by Q1 2026. Crusoe and Kalina Distributed Power Partnership in Alberta, Canada AI data center developer Crusoe has entered into a multi-year framework agreement with Kalina Distributed Power to develop multiple co-located AI data centers powered by natural gas power plants in Alberta, Canada. Crusoe will own and operate the data centers, purchasing power from three Kalina-owned 170 MW gas-fired power plants through 15-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). Entergy’s Natural Gas Power Plants for Data Centers Entergy plans to deploy three new natural gas power plants, providing over 2,200 MW of energy over 15 years, pending approval

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Podcast: Phill Lawson-Shanks, Chief Innovation Officer, Aligned Data Centers

In the latest episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, DCF Editor-in-Chief Matt Vincent sits down with Phill Lawson-Shanks, Chief Innovation Officer at Aligned Data Centers, for a wide-ranging discussion that touches on some of the most pressing trends and challenges shaping the future of the data center industry. From the role of nuclear energy and natural gas in addressing the sector’s growing power demands, to the rapid expansion of Aligned’s operations in Latin America (LATAM), in the course of the podcast Lawson-Shanks provides deep insight into where the industry is headed. Scaling Sustainability: Tracking Embodied Carbon and Scope 3 Emissions A key focus of the conversation is sustainability, where Aligned continues to push boundaries in carbon tracking and energy efficiency. Lawson-Shanks highlights the company’s commitment to monitoring embodied carbon—an effort that began four years ago and has since positioned Aligned as an industry leader. “We co-authored and helped found the Climate Accord with iMasons—taking sustainability to a whole new level,” he notes, emphasizing how Aligned is now extending its carbon traceability standards to ODATA’s facilities in LATAM. By implementing lifecycle assessments (LCAs) and tracking Scope 3 emissions, Aligned aims to provide clients with a detailed breakdown of their environmental impact. “The North American market is still behind in lifecycle assessments and environmental product declarations. Where gaps exist, we look for adjacencies and highlight them—helping move the industry forward,” Lawson-Shanks explains. The Nuclear Moment: A Game-Changer for Data Center Power One of the most compelling segments of the discussion revolves around the growing interest in nuclear energy—particularly small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors—as a viable long-term power solution for data centers. Lawson-Shanks describes the recent industry buzz surrounding Oklo’s announcement of a 12-gigawatt deployment with Switch as a significant milestone, calling the move “inevitable.” “There are dozens of nuclear

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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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