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Expand curtailing some production ‘in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening’

Expand Energy Corp., Spring, Tex., pulled back on some production during the third quarter, including by dropping a rig in Northeast Appalachia and a completion crew in the Haynesville, because of weaker prices for natural gas. Executives on Oct. 28 told analysts and investors that they’re prepared to curtail more work late this year and […]

Expand Energy Corp., Spring, Tex., pulled back on some production during the third quarter, including by dropping a rig in Northeast Appalachia and a completion crew in the Haynesville, because of weaker prices for natural gas. Executives on Oct. 28 told analysts and investors that they’re prepared to curtail more work late this year and into 2027.

“As we’ve come into the fourth quarter, we’ve ended up reducing some of our activity,” chief operating officer Josh Viets said on a conference call following the release of Expand’s third-quarter results. “That activity reduction, moving from around 12 rigs down to 10, is in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening.”

Viets was responding to a question from JPMorgan analyst Arun Jayaram, who neatly summed up the factors contributing to soft natural gas prices even though demand growth has been solid. The environment next year could be affected by Super El Niño weather patterns, more supply being transported out of the Permian basin and several LNG infrastructure owners being “a little bit more levered to the back end of the year.”

Viets agreed with that assessment of the supply-demand picture for the coming quarters and later said Expand is prepared to revisit the strategy it employed 2 years ago, when it built up its inventory of drilled but uncompleted wells while waiting for prices to climb.

“We pushed out about nine turn-in-lines out of Q3,” he added. “We are waiting on those still to think about the optimal time to bring them online.”

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IBM aims to bring AI agent sprawl under enterprise control

HashiCorp Vault already secures non-human identities for organizations including ABN AMRO, Adobe, athenahealth, BBVA, BlackRock, Canva, Duke Energy, Expedia, London Stock Exchange, Starbucks, and Swiss Federal Railways. Now, HashiCorp will extend those capabilities to AI agents, issuing secured, short-lived credentials that limit each agent to what it needs, IBM says. When used with HashiCorp Vault,

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HPE extends AI-driven networking to SD-WAN and SASE

In a blog post explaining how the system works, Gabriel Gomane, HPE senior product marketing manager, wrote: “In HPE Mist, HPE Mist Networking WAN Assurance aggregates telemetry from HPE Networking EdgeConnect to measure end-user experience using service level expectations (SLEs) and simplify troubleshooting. WAN Insights provides visibility into device status,

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Expand curtailing some production ‘in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening’

Expand Energy Corp., Spring, Tex., pulled back on some production during the third quarter, including by dropping a rig in Northeast Appalachia and a completion crew in the Haynesville, because of weaker prices for natural gas. Executives on Oct. 28 told analysts and investors that they’re prepared to curtail more work late this year and into 2027. “As we’ve come into the fourth quarter, we’ve ended up reducing some of our activity,” chief operating officer Josh Viets said on a conference call following the release of Expand’s third-quarter results. “That activity reduction, moving from around 12 rigs down to 10, is in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening.” Viets was responding to a question from JPMorgan analyst Arun Jayaram, who neatly summed up the factors contributing to soft natural gas prices even though demand growth has been solid. The environment next year could be affected by Super El Niño weather patterns, more supply being transported out of the Permian basin and several LNG infrastructure owners being “a little bit more levered to the back end of the year.” Viets agreed with that assessment of the supply-demand picture for the coming quarters and later said Expand is prepared to revisit the strategy it employed 2 years ago, when it built up its inventory of drilled but uncompleted wells while waiting for prices to climb. “We pushed out about nine turn-in-lines out of Q3,” he added. “We are waiting on those still to think about the optimal time to bring them online.”

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Equinor nearly doubles third-quarter earnings on higher commodity prices, production gains

Equinor ASA reported adjusted operating income of $12.35 billion for third-quarter 2026, nearly double the $6.22 billion recorded a year earlier, supported by higher oil and natural gas prices, increased production, and stronger refining margins. The Norwegian energy major posted net income of $2.54 billion, compared with a net loss of $204 million in the year-earlier quarter. Adjusted net income reached $2.86 billion, or $1.20/share. Equinor realized an average liquids price of $92.30/bbl and a European natural gas price of $20/MMbtu during the quarter, reflecting tighter energy markets amid Middle East supply disruptions. Production, outlook Equinor’s equity oil and gas production averaged 2.166 MMboe/d in the quarter, up 2% year over year. Production on the Norwegian continental shelf remained broadly stable as contributions from new fields, including Halten East and Verdande, and new wells offset natural declines and unplanned losses at Johan Castberg and Troll. International production increased 21%, driven by higher volumes from Adura in the UK and Bacalhau offshore Brazil, as well as reduced maintenance activity. US production declined due to planned offshore downtime and natural field declines. Citing stronger operational performance, Equinor raised its full-year 2026 oil and gas production growth guidance to about 4% from 3%. “High production in the third quarter enabled us to capture additional value from higher prices,” said Anders Opedal, Equinor’s president and chief executive officer. Refining, financial performance Equinor’s Marketing, Midstream and Processing segment benefited from stronger refining margins, high utilization, and LNG trading activity. The Mongstad refinery in Norway delivered a record earnings contribution during the quarter. Cash flow from operations after taxes reached $8.14 billion. Organic capital expenditures totaled $3.28 billion, while the company’s adjusted net debt-to-capital-employed ratio declined to 3.8% at quarter-end from 10.4% in the previous quarter. Portfolio developments Equinor continued reshaping its upstream portfolio, including acquiring

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EIA: US crude oil inventories down 1.9 million bbl

US crude oil inventories for the week ended Oct. 23, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 1.9 million bbl from the previous week, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). At 410.6 million bbl, US crude oil inventories are 4% below the 5-year average for this time of year, the EIA report indicated. Gasoline inventories increased 3.9 million bbl, 2% below the 5-year average. Propane-propylene inventories decreased 100,000 bbl, 12% above the 5-year average. Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 3.0 million bbl for the week. Distillate inventories decreased 1.5 million bbl, 10% below the 5-year average. US crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.5 million b/d for the week ended Oct. 23, which was 123,000 b/d less than the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 92.8% of capacity. Gasoline output averaged 9.2 million b/d, and distillate production decreased to 5.2 million b/d. Crude oil imports increased 616,000 b/d to 6.4 million b/d. The 4-week average of 6.3 million b/d is 9.3% above the year-ago level. Gasoline imports averaged 399,000 b/d; distillate imports averaged 157,000 b/d. Over the past four weeks, total product supplied averaged 20.8 million b/d, up 0.2% year over year. The 4-week average for gasoline product supplied decreased 0.7% year over year to 8.6 million b/d, while the 4-week average for distillate product supplied decreased 0.6% to 4.0 million b/d. The 4-week average for jet fuel product supplied decreased 3.5% year over year.

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Energy Department Closes $5.1 Billion Loan to Lower Electricity Costs and Strengthen Grid Reliability in Iowa and Wisconsin

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) today announced the financial close of a $5.1 billion loan package to Alliant Energy to lower electricity costs, expand firm power generation, and strengthen grid reliability in Iowa and Wisconsin. The investments will add more than 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of new or upgraded power generation capacity and deliver more than $1 billion in electricity cost savings for American families and businesses across both states. Today’s announcement advances President Trump’s Executive Order Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid by ensuring our nation has the dependable power needed to meet growing electricity demand and strengthen American energy security. “The Energy Department is delivering on President Trump’s promise to lower electricity costs and unleash the full potential of American energy,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “These investments will drive down energy costs for families and businesses in Iowa and Wisconsin, strengthen our nation’s electric grid, and fuel American prosperity for decades to come.” The projects will add enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 2 million homes—lowering costs and strengthening grid reliability in Iowa and Wisconsin. The investments will support new natural gas-fired power plants, energy storage systems, and upgrades to existing generation facilities, create hundreds of construction-related jobs, and deliver affordable, reliable energy for American families and businesses. “Thanks to President Trump and Secretary Wright’s leadership, EDF is putting capital to work to expand America’s reliable energy infrastructure,” said EDF Director Gregory A. Beard. “By bringing new, dependable power online, we are strengthening our nation’s energy security and lowering electricity costs for families and businesses across Iowa and Wisconsin.” This loan marks the Trump Administration’s tenth financial close, and the sixth and seventh utility financing completed through the Energy Dominance Financing Program.

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Chevron adds operated Gulf of Mexico positions in interest swap with TotalEnergies

@import url(‘https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@100..900&display=swap’); .ebm-page__main h1, .ebm-page__main h2, .ebm-page__main h3, .ebm-page__main h4, .ebm-page__main h5, .ebm-page__main h6 { font-family: Inter; } body { line-height: 150%; letter-spacing: 0.025em; } button, .ebm-button-wrapper { font-family: Inter; } .label-style { text-transform: uppercase; color: var(–color-grey); font-weight: 600; font-size: 0.75rem; } .caption-style { font-size: 0.75rem; color: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 60%, transparent); } Chevron Corp. has agreed to acquire operatorship and a 75% working interest in two exploration leases in the US Gulf of Mexico from TotalEnergies as part of a deal that will see the companies shuffle interest positions in jointly held acreage, TotalEnergies said in a release Oct. 28. As part of the same transaction, TotalEnergies has taken a 25% working interest in 26 Chevron-operated exploration leases. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acreage package includes 24 leases in the Green Canyon area and two in Walker Ridge, located 150-250 km offshore. The blocks target what TotalEnergies described as well-proven geological plays. TotalEnergies said the deal strengthens collaboration between the two companies, while expanding its US offshore exploration portfolio, building on its 2025 entry into 40 Chevron-operated exploration blocks. Since 2022, TotalEnergies has invested nearly $12 billion in the US to accelerate development in oil, LNG, and electricity.

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Energy Department Announces $5 Billion Loan to Boost Nuclear Power and Help Lower Costs in Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) today announced a conditional loan commitment of up to $5 billion to finance nuclear uprates and modernization across Constellation Energy’s nuclear fleet in Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The modernization efforts will add nearly 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, strengthening the grid and lowering costs for millions of Americans across the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) and Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) regions. The loan advances President Trump’s Executive Order, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base, which calls for DOE to facilitate 5 GW of power uprates from existing nuclear reactors. In March 2026, in accordance with the Executive Order, DOE launched its Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort (UPRISE) to accelerate the expansion of the nation’s nuclear capacity by maximizing power generation from existing reactors. To date, 95% of President Trump’s 5-GW uprate and restart goal has been identified. “The Energy Department is accelerating President Trump’s American nuclear renaissance and unlocking the full potential of our nation’s nuclear fleet,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Uprates that maximize power generation from our existing nuclear facilities are yet another example of the commonsense energy addition policies the Trump Administration is embracing—ensuring more affordable, reliable, and secure energy for American families and businesses.” The projects will add enough electricity to power more than 930,000 homes—lowering costs and strengthening grid reliability in Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and across the PJM and MISO regions. The investments will support more than 10,000 project-related jobs across Constellation’s nuclear fleet while delivering affordable, reliable power to American homes and businesses. “EDF is delivering on President Trump and Secretary Wright’s commitment to unleash American nuclear power by financing projects that modernize and expand our nation’s existing nuclear plants,” said EDF Director Gregory A. Beard. “These investments will add

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HPE’s Quantum Computing Bet: A Multi-Vendor Path to the Data Center

QuEra Deal Targets On-Premises Quantum Integration Under the expanded collaboration, HPE and QuEra intend to develop integrated testbeds, software interoperability, hybrid algorithms and performance benchmarks to support future quantum deployments alongside HPE Cray supercomputing infrastructure. The work is intended to address the practical requirements of coordinating quantum processors with the classical computing systems that prepare workloads, process results and support quantum error correction. QuEra Chief Commercial Officer Yuval Boger, who previously discussed the development of hybrid quantum-classical infrastructure on the DCF Show, emphasized that integrating quantum hardware into an HPC environment presents different engineering challenges than providing access through the cloud. Boger said, “HPE’s deep experience in supercomputing gives organizations the benefit of working with a partner who can solve that problem at the scale they need.” The collaboration envisions deploying future fault-tolerant quantum hardware at customer facilities rather than requiring organizations to rely exclusively on cloud-based quantum computing services. That option could appeal to national laboratories, defense organizations, pharmaceutical researchers and other institutions managing classified information, proprietary intellectual property or data subject to sovereignty requirements. QuEra’s neutral-atom architecture uses individual atoms as qubits, manipulating them with lasers and electromagnetic controls. Unlike superconducting quantum processors, which generally require dilution refrigerators operating at temperatures measured in millikelvin, neutral-atom systems can operate without extreme cryogenic refrigeration. They still require specialized laser systems, vacuum equipment, precision optics and environmental controls, presenting facility requirements substantially different from those of conventional servers. On-premises quantum-HPC integration is already being tested. In Japan, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) operates QuEra’s 260-physical-qubit Gemini neutral-atom computer as part of its ABCI-Q research platform, which also incorporates an NVIDIA H100-based AI supercomputer. An October 26 case study published by QuEra describes Gemini operating in a separate building approximately 350 meters from the main GPU installation,

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At 7×24 Exchange, AI Data Center Growth Confronts New Realities of Power, Grid Reliability and Community Trust

DC BLOX: Community Engagement Must Go Beyond Public Relations The afternoon program shifted attention from electrical infrastructure to the growing challenges surrounding data center development and community acceptance. In a discussion moderated by Juli Ierulli, strategic account manager at Environmental Air Systems and vice president of 7×24 Exchange International, Michael Clark, senior vice president of data center construction at DC BLOX, described how the company has revised its approach to engaging communities as it expands into new markets. Clark acknowledged that DC BLOX had encountered significant opposition after entering markets where it lacked the established relationships that had supported earlier developments across the Southeast. “We made multiple stumbles in some of those new markets,” he said, describing how the company sometimes found itself responding to negative publicity rather than presenting a clear explanation of its plans and commitments. The experience led DC BLOX to develop a more systematic approach to community engagement, emphasizing early communication, site-specific websites, accessible explanations of resource consumption and written commitments that residents and officials can evaluate. Clark also pointed to what he called the industry’s “NDA hangover,” reflecting years of development activity conducted under confidentiality agreements that frequently left neighboring communities unaware of what was being planned. But perhaps the most revealing moment came when Clark recounted a conversation with residents near a DC BLOX development in Rockdale County, Georgia. After the company outlined the countywide economic and community benefits expected from the project, one neighbor challenged the distribution of those benefits. “So the rest of the county gets the benefit and we have to pay all the costs,” the resident observed, according to Clark. The question captured a fundamental tension in the industry’s community engagement efforts: tax revenues and economic development benefits may extend across a county, while nearby residents experience the immediate effects

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NVIDIA’s DSX POD Pushes AI Factory Construction Toward the Assembly Line

Crusoe Brings an Established Modular Model to DSX POD For Crusoe, NVIDIA’s announcement builds on a modular computing strategy already in operation. In its October 21 announcement, Crusoe confirmed that its Spark modular AI data center platform will support DSX POD, extending a manufacturing and deployment approach the company says it has pursued since 2020. Crusoe has expanded its manufacturing capabilities through the acquisition of electrical equipment specialist Easter-Owens Electric and the development of its 352,000-square-foot Crusoe Spark Factory in Brighton, Colorado. The company also introduced Crusoe Spark Liquid, a sixth-generation modular system engineered for ultra-high-density infrastructure, including NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72. Next-generation liquid-cooled units are planned for 2027. Crusoe’s vertically integrated model connects infrastructure design and manufacturing with deployment and cloud operations through Crusoe Cloud. The company says it can deliver productive AI capacity in as little as three months, although that timeline is distinct from NVIDIA’s narrower 14-day prepared-site deployment claim. “Modular isn’t a new strategy or pivot for us. It’s been in our DNA since our founding,” said Bryan Schramm, Crusoe’s head of Spark. Crusoe’s involvement demonstrates that the manufacturing model predates DSX POD. NVIDIA is not inventing modular data center infrastructure; it is attempting to establish a common architecture around capabilities that suppliers such as Crusoe have already spent years developing. That distinction matters as the industry evaluates whether standardized AI factory designs can deliver manufacturing efficiencies at a scale beyond individual suppliers’ existing operations. Vertiv and Polar Put the Deployment Model to Work in Norway The European dimension of NVIDIA’s announcement is reflected in a deployment involving Vertiv and Polar Data Centers at Herøya, Norway. According to Vertiv’s October 21 announcement, Polar is applying a factory-built infrastructure approach to the initial 41 MW phase of a multiphase AI data center campus designed to scale to

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Hyperscalers allow more scrutiny of controversial data center plans

Hyperscalers are getting decidedly twitchy about citizens’ reactions to their secretive data center construction plans, and are looking for ways to de-escalate some of the conflicts. Earlier this month, Amazon announced its Data Center Commitment which, among other things, would disclose more information about energy and water use and consider a moratorium asking government officials to sign non-disclosure agreements covering their planning applications. Amazon is not alone in this. Earlier this week, Meta said that it was reviewing its use of NDAs after the company was widely criticized for its secrecy in proposing Hyperion, a Louisiana data center in July.

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Google will pay people to use less electricity so its data centers can use more

Google has an answer to some of the electricity supply problems that data center construction is causing: It has signed an agreement with energy supplier Voltus to build what it’s calling a 1-gigawatt virtual power plant, expanding on an earlier 100 megawatt deal the two signed earlier this year. This power plant is virtual in the sense that it doesn’t generate any electricity itself, but aggregates so-called flexible grid capacity into one central resource that can be deployed at times of peak demand. This flexible capacity can be in the form of batteries or of load-shedding: asking others to temporarily stop consuming electricity by shutting down industrial processes or adjusting tens of thousands of smart thermostats at once, effectively moving their electricity usage to a time when there is less demand. Voltus operates by offering incentives to companies to reduce their power consumption temporarily, and also offers inducements to electricity resellers that they can pass on to their customers.

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Big Tech’s Next Nuclear Bet: More Power From Reactors Already Running

The next wave of nuclear power for AI data centers may come not from new reactors, but from generating stations that have been operating for decades. In a pair of agreements announced just a week apart, Google and Amazon committed to long-term electricity purchases supporting approximately 1,080 MW of additional nuclear generating capacity from Constellation Energy’s existing fleet. The transactions follow earlier commitments by Meta to support reactor upgrades at operating nuclear facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois, establishing a broader commercial model in which hyperscale technology companies help finance increases in nuclear output. Under its October 6 agreement with Google, Constellation plans to invest more than $4.3 billion in equipment and technology upgrades at 11 operating reactor units across Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The 20-year power purchase agreement supports 890 MW of new generating capacity, with the first upgrades expected to begin delivering additional electricity in 2028. A separate 15-year agreement covers 2,700 MW of existing nuclear generation, underscoring the distinction between securing today’s electricity supply and financing additional capacity. Amazon’s September 30 agreement similarly supports 190 MW of new generation at Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear station, alongside purchases of existing output. Together, the two arrangements underpin more than $7 billion in planned infrastructure investment. Unlike proposed advanced reactors, these facilities already have operating licenses, grid connections, established workforces and decades of operating experience. Increasing their output avoids some of the cost, permitting and construction challenges associated with building entirely new nuclear plants, although significant upgrades still require extensive engineering, equipment modifications and regulatory approval. The potential scale is substantial. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s current application schedule, the agency anticipates 31 applications for reactor power uprates through 2032, representing approximately 2,421 MW of potential additional electrical generating capacity. That is roughly equivalent to the output of

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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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