How 2024, the Year That Re-Energized Nuclear Power, Foretells Ongoing ‘New Nuclear’ Developments for Data Centers in 2025

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How 2024, the Year That Re-Energized Nuclear Power, Foretells Ongoing ‘New Nuclear’ Developments for Data Centers in 2025

In a world increasingly focused on advanced nuclear technologies and their integration with energy-intensive sectors like data centers, nuclear power could change the way that the world gets its electricity and finally take its place as a clean, renewable, source of power. Evidence of this shift toward nuclear energy and data centers’ role in it came […]

We saw Microsoft, Constellation, AWS, Talen, and Meta with major data center nuclear energy announcements in the Second Half of 2024. With the surge in nuclear stakes has also come a wave of landmark PPAs representing the “new nuclear” industry’s ascendance. To wit, in the latter half of 2024, the data center industry witnessed significant developments concerning “new nuclear” energy integration, specifically in the area of plans for forthcoming nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) deployments by cloud hyperscalers.

Some of the most notable announcements included:

Amazon’s Investment in Nuclear Small Modular Reactors (SMRs): October 2024 saw Amazon reveal partnerships with Dominion Energy and X-energy to develop and deploy 5 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear energy, in a bid for future powering of its data centers with carbon-free energy.
Google’s SMR Pact with Kairos Power: Also in October 2024, Google announced plans to collaborate with Kairos Power to build up to seven SMRs, providing up to 500 megawatts of power. The first unit is expected to come online by 2030, with the entire project slated for completion by 2035.
Oracle’s Gigawatt-Scale SMR Plans: In September 2024, Oracle announced plans to construct a gigawatt-scale data center powered by three small modular reactors (SMRs). Company Founder and CTO Larry Ellison revealed that building permits for these reactors have been secured, and that the project was currently in its design phase. The company said the initiative aims to meet the escalating energy demands of AI and cloud services while advancing Oracle’s sustainability objectives.

The surge in such data center “new nuclear” agreements has also been exemplified by recent major announcements from key “new nuclear” companies such as Oklo Inc. — seen notably last year furthering data center SMR plans with the likes of Equinix and Wyoming’s Prometheus Hyperscale — and microreactor pioneer NANO Nuclear Energy, representing a move toward a cleaner, greener energy future.

Oklo Aims to Become the ‘Powerhouse ‘of Data Center Nuclear Power

Among the latest announcements between data centers and potential nuclear power providers is the Master Power Agreement between Oklo Inc., the pioneering nuclear technology company building on the established breeder reactor technology demonstrated by the long career of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II — and now Switch, a provider of AI, cloud and enterprise data centers.

The non-binding deal provides the basis for the construction of 12 gigawatts (GW) of Oklo Aurora powerhouses across the United States by 2044, one of the largest corporate clean power contracts ever. Projections have estimated that by 2030, data centers will require 35 GW of power annually, which indicates that the Oklo Aurora powerhouses would have a significant impact on energy availability, depending on their rate of deployment.

Under the agreement, Oklo will design, build and manage its Aurora powerhouses to provide clean, reliable power to Switch’s facilities. Such sophisticated nuclear reactors, powered by recycled nuclear fuel, are a breakthrough in renewable-energy technology. Through easing clean energy access, and the ability to sell power instead of plants, Oklo’s business model creates a direct route for industries to become nuclear energy users.

Switch has always taken sustainability seriously, with every data center running on 100 percent renewable power since 2016. Yet artificial intelligence and data-intensive services have further complicated the need for reliable, 24-hour power. Rob Roy, Founder and CEO of Switch, remarked:

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European Commission data stolen in a cyberattack on the infrastructure hosting its web sites

The Commission said the Europa websites remain available, and that its “swift response ensured the incident was contained and risk mitigation measures were implemented to protect services and data.” Its internal systems weren’t affected by the attack, the statement added. The incident comes after the Commission revealed on January 30

Equinix launches AI platform to simplify control of distributed AI resources

Fabric Intelligence is a software layer that enhances Equinix Fabric, the company’s on-demand global interconnection service, with real-time awareness and automation for AI and multicloud workloads. It is integrated with AI orchestration tools to automate connectivity decisions, taps into live telemetry for deep observability, and dynamically adjusts routing and segmentation

AI’s need for speed, optical connectivity in focus at OFC 2026

“While the scale-up domain today is largely serviced by passive copper, data rates and rack densities are necessitating a shift to alternatives,” Naji wrote. “While many of the optical providers like Marvell (following its acquisition of Celestial AI), Broadcom, and Nvidia believe that co-packaged optic is the right solution, others

Arm shifts course, moves into silicon business

With a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 300 watts, the AGI CPU draw significantly less power than X86 based CPUs from Intel and AMD. It supports high-density 1U server chassis that allow air-cooled deployments with up to 8,160 cores per rack, and liquid-cooled systems delivering 45,000+ cores per rack. Meta

DOE and GSA Announce Collaborative Effort for a New Headquarters for the U.S. Department of Energy

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), announced today that DOE’s headquarters will relocate from the James V. Forrestal Building to the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) building. LBJ currently serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Education (ED). The relocation to the LBJ building will save taxpayers over $350 million in deferred maintenance and modernization costs, advancing President Trump’s commitment to eliminating waste and promoting efficiency within government agencies.“Relocating to the LBJ building will deliver significant taxpayer savings and will ensure the Energy Department continues to deliver on its mission,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “We look forward to working closely with the General Services Administration and the Education Department throughout this process.” The LBJ building has been modernized to a Class A building with minimal deferred maintenance. All DOE Forrestal staff will be reassigned to LBJ, DOE Germantown Campus, Portals, or 950 L’Enfant. “GSA is partnering with the Department of Education and the Department of Energy to match their missions of tomorrow with ideal environments that powers their talented workforce, cuts waste, and lowers costs,” said GSA Administrator Edward C. Forst. “This is the government working smarter for the American people. I want to thank Secretary Wright and Secretary McMahon for their positive energy and collaboration in executing President Trump’s directive to strengthen the government’s real estate portfolio.” This effort aligns with the Trump Administration’s broader strategy to streamline the federal real estate footprint, reduce wasteful spending, and support a high-performing government workforce with facilities that reflect modern expectations for efficiency and accountability. For more information, please visit the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and Accelerated Disposition Website. ###

Energy Department Announces $50 Million Investment to Advance Affordable, Reliable, and Secure Energy for Tribes

These new investments will support Tribal-led energy project planning and development, strengthening energy reliability and increasing electricity access across Tribal communities WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Indian Energy (IE) today announced a $50 million notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) aimed at fostering affordable, reliable, and secure energy solutions in Indian Country. This investment will support Tribal-led community-scale energy project planning and development and large-scale energy project planning. In accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order, Unleashing American Energy, this NOFO highlights the fundamental role of energy in strengthening Tribal economies. “This investment reflects the Trump Administration’s commitment to ensuring Tribal communities have access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “By strengthening local energy infrastructure, we are supporting long-term economic growth, energy independence, and resilience across Indian Country. “This $50 million competitive funding opportunity for Tribal entities is directly aligned with the priorities of the U.S. Department of Energy,” said DOE’s Office of Indian Energy Director Eric Mahroum. “This funding will unleash Tribal energy development— supporting energy projects that aim to cut energy costs, expand electricity access, and advance economic opportunities. It’s exciting and like nothing we have offered before.” Through the Unleashing Tribal Energy Development NOFO, the Office of Indian Energy is soliciting applications from Indian Tribes, which include Alaska Native regional corporations and Village corporations, Tribal and intertribal organizations, Tribal Energy Development Organizations, and Tribal Colleges and Universities—or any consortium of these eligible groups–to focus on: Construction and installation of Tribal community-scale energy projects to meet the needs of the community Predevelopment activities required to identify community-scale energy opportunities and bring projects from concept to implementation ready Planning, assessment, and feasibility activities to de-risk and advance development for large-scale Tribal energy projects that provide opportunities for revenue generation and economic development DOE works comprehensively from inception through commercialization, helping Tribes develop solutions

Trump Administration Keeps Indiana Coal Plants Open to Ensure Affordable, Reliable and Secure Power in the Midwest

Emergency orders address critical grid reliability issues, lowering risk of blackouts and ensuring affordable electricity access WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today issued emergency orders to keep two Indiana coal plants operational to ensure Americans in the Midwest region of the United States have continued access to affordable, reliable, and secure electricity. The orders direct the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), CenterPoint Energy, and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (MISO) to take all measures necessary to ensure specified generation units at both the R.M. Schahfer and F.B. Culley generating stations in Indiana are available to operate. Certain generation units at the coal plants were scheduled to shut down at the end of 2025. The orders prioritize minimizing electricity costs for the American people and minimizing the risk and costs of blackouts. “The last administration’s energy subtraction policies had the United States on track to likely experience significantly more blackouts in the coming years—thankfully, President Trump won’t let that happen,” said Energy Secretary Wright. “The Trump Administration will continue taking action to keep America’s coal plants running to ensure we don’t lose critical generation sources. Americans deserve access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy to power their homes all the time, regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.” The reliable supply of power from these two coal plants was essential in powering the grid during recent extreme winter weather. From January 23–February 1, Schahfer operated at over 285 megawatts (MW) every day and Culley operated at approximately 30 MW almost every day. These operations serve as a reminder that allowing reliable generation to go offline would unnecessarily contribute to grid reliability risks. Since the Department of Energy’s (DOE) original orders were issued on December 23, 2025, the coal plants have proven critical to MISO’s operations, operating during periods of high energy demand and low levels of intermittent

Energy Department Begins Delivering SPR Barrels at Record Speeds

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the award of contracts for the initial phase of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) Emergency Exchange as directed by President Trump. The first oil shipments began today—just nine days after President Trump and the Department of Energy announced the United States would lead a coordinated release of emergency oil reserves among International Energy Agency (IEA) member nations to address short-term supply disruptions. Under these initial awards, DOE will move forward with an exchange of 45.2 million barrels of crude oil and receive 55 million barrels in return, all at no cost to the taxpayer. This represents the first tranche of the United States’ 172-million-barrel release. Companies will receive 10 million barrels from the Bayou Choctaw SPR site, 15.7 million barrels from Bryan Mound, and 19.5 million barrels from West Hackberry. “Thanks to President Trump, the Energy Department began this first exchange at record speeds to address short-term supply disruptions while also strengthening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by returning additional barrels at no cost to taxpayers,” said Kyle Haustveit, Assistant Secretary of the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office. “This exchange not only maintains reliability in the current market but will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in value in the form of additional barrels for the American people when the barrels are returned.” This initial action will ultimately add close to 10 million barrels to the SPR’s inventory when the barrels are returned. Taxpayers will benefit from both the short-term support for global supply and long-term growth of the SPR’s inventory. This helps protects U.S. and global energy security. The Trump Administration continues to pursue additional opportunities to strengthen the reserve and restore its long-term readiness as a cornerstone of American energy security. For more information on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and DOE’s

Then & Now: Oil prices, US shale, offshore, and AI—Deborah Byers on what changed since 2017

In this Then & Now episode of the Oil & Gas Journal ReEnterprised podcast, Managing Editor and Content Strategist Mikaila Adams reconnects with Deborah Byers, nonresident fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies and former EY Americas industry leader, to revisit a set of questions first posed in 2017. In 2017, the industry was emerging from a downturn and recalibrating strategy; today, it faces heightened geopolitical risk, market volatility, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape. The conversation examines how those earlier perspectives have aged—covering oil price bands and the speed of recovery from geopolitical shocks, the role of US shale relative to OPEC in balancing global supply, and the shift from scarcity to economic abundance driven by technology and capital discipline. Adams and Byers also compare the economics and risk profiles of shale and offshore development, including the growing role of Brazil, Guyana, and the Gulf of Mexico, and discuss how infrastructure and regulatory constraints shape market outcomes. The episode further explores where digital transformation—particularly artificial intelligence—is delivering tangible returns across upstream operations, from predictive maintenance and workforce planning to capital project execution. The discussion concludes with insights on consolidation and scale in the Permian basin, the strategic rationale behind recent megamergers, and the industry’s ongoing challenge to attract and retain next‑generation talent through flexibility, technical opportunity, and purpose‑driven work.

Eni plans tieback of new gas discoveries offshore Libya

Eni North Africa, a unit of Eni SPA, together with Libya’s National Oil Corp., plans to develop two new gas discoveries offshore Libya as tiebacks to existing infrastructure. The gas discoveries were made offshore Libya, about 85 km off the coast in about 650 ft of water. Bahr Essalam South 2 (BESS 2) and Bahr Essalam South 3 (BESS 3), adjacent geological structures, were successfully drilled through the exploration well C1-16/4 and the appraisal well B2-16/4 about 16 km south of Bahr Essalam gas field, which lies about 110 km from the Tripoli coast. Gas-bearing intervals were encountered in both wells within the Metlaoui formation, the main productive reservoir of the area. The acquired data indicate the presence of a high-quality reservoir, with productive capacity confirmed by the well test already carried out on the first well. Preliminary volumetric estimates indicate that the BESS 2 and BESS 3 structures jointly contain more than 1 tcf of gas in place. Their proximity to Bahr Essalam field will enable rapid development through tie-back, the operator said. The gas produced will be supplied to the Libyan domestic market and for export to Italy. Bahr Essalam produces through the Sabratha platform to the Mellitah onshore treatment plant.

Return of the PTT: Poste Italiane looks to snap up telco TIM

Poste Italiane sees opportunities in reuniting with the former state-owned telecommunications business: “The creation of an integrated group strategic pillar for the national economy, Italy’s largest connected infrastructure with leading positions in financial and insurance services,” it said in a news release. The company is looking to build some complementary services. “The transaction aims to scale and enhance Poste Italiane’s platform by adding three significant assets: a nationwide fixed and mobile network, a leading position in the country’s cloud and data center infrastructure and the ability to offer secure and seamless connectivity to all stakeholders,” it said. Poste Italiane was already the largest stakeholder in TIM and, as the government is the largest stakeholder in Poste Italiane, we’re getting back to the status quo of the 1980s. There is no sign, however, of other European governments following suit.

Networking terms and definitions

Monitoring: DCIM tools provide real-time visibility into the data center environment, tracking metrics like power consumption, temperature, humidity, and equipment status. Management: DCIM enables administrators to control and manage various aspects of the data center, including power distribution, cooling systems, and IT assets. Planning: DCIM facilitates capacity planning, helping data center operators understand current resource utilization and forecast future needs. Optimization: DCIM helps identify areas for improvement in energy efficiency, resource allocation, and overall operational efficiency. Data center sustainability Data center sustainability is the practice of designing, building and operating data centers in a way that minimizes their environmental by reducing energy consumption, water usage and waste generation, while also promoting sustainable practices such as renewable energy and efficient resource management. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) Hyperconverged infrastructure combines compute, storage and networking in a single system and is used frequently in data centers. Enterprises can choose an appliance from a single vendor or install hardware-agnostic hyperconvergence software on white-box servers. Edge computing Edge computing is a distributed computing architecture that brings computation and storage closer to the sources of data. That is, instead of sending all data to a centralized cloud or data center, processing occurs at or near the edge of the network, where devices like sensors, IoT devices, or local servers are located to process, analyze and retain the data. In short, it’s about processing data closer to where it’s generated, which is designed to minimize latency, reduce bandwidth usage,and enable real-time responses. Edge AI Edge AI is the deployment and execution of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on edge devices or local servers, rather than relying solely on cloud-based, more centralized, AI processing. This involves running machine learning models and AI applications directly on devices at the edge of the network. Some key aspects of edge AI include the

Data center poaching adds to staffing crisis

“You can’t just not have a pipeline and keep drawing from the same talent pool. It’s going to wane. It’s going to dwindle, and then eventually you’re going to be at a point where you are needing to upskill a bunch of people, rapidly all at once, and you don’t have enough senior experts to really pass on that information,” Weinschenk said. Shortages are shifting up the stack In 2023, Uptime data showed most staffing pain at junior and mid-level roles, particularly in facilities. Senior gaps were visible but less severe. By 2024, electrical expertise had become a pressure point, reflecting a broader trade shortage just as infrastructures densified and voltages increased. When asked which roles in the data center have the highest rates of staff turnover, respondents said: Operations junior/mid-level: 57% Operations management: 27% Electrical: 21% Cabling/IT: 20% Senior management/strategy: 12% Design: 7% None: 9% By 2025, a pattern emerged: Operations management roles overtook junior positions as shortage areas, Uptime reported, marking the arrival of the silver tsunami as highly experienced managers and engineers retire without enough trained successors to replace them. As more sites are built—often in regions with limited local expertise—operators are discovering they cannot simply hire experience indefinitely, Uptime said. The pool of ready-made experts is shrinking just as demand rises, according to its data. Poaching masks a deeper talent pipeline failure Uptime survey data revealed how heavily the sector leans on poaching. Roughly a quarter of staff departures are employees hired away by competitors; only a small amount of workers leave the industry entirely. Instead of investing in training and upskilling, many operators are rotating the same set of skilled people around the industry, hoping higher pay will keep them in place. Uptime said that this creates several long-term risks:

Panasonic says datacenter batteries are selling out and AI is to blame

AI servers are rewriting the power rulebook The root cause, Panasonic noted in the statement, is the electrical behavior of AI workloads. Unlike conventional server applications, AI inference and training draw large amounts of electricity in short bursts to sustain GPU processing, causing peak power levels to spike rapidly and voltages to fluctuate. “Peak power levels for such servers can rise rapidly, and voltages can often become unstable,” the statement said. “Securing stable, highly reliable power supplies is an absolute necessity for AI datacenters.” Vertiv warned in its 2025 Data Center Trends predictions that AI racks must handle loads that “can fluctuate from a 10% idle to a 150% overload in a flash,” requiring UPS systems and batteries with significantly higher power densities than current infrastructure provides. Panasonic said the solution gaining traction among hyperscalers is to place a battery backup unit on each server rack rather than rely on centralized UPS infrastructure upstream, absorbing voltage instability at the source. The company said its systems also carry a peak shaving function that stores off-peak electricity and deploys it during demand spikes, reducing peak grid draw at a time when AI-driven consumption faces growing regulatory and utility scrutiny. Several independent research bodies have reached similar conclusions on the severity of the power challenge ahead. Uptime Institute, in its Five Data Center Predictions for 2026, said “developers will not outrun the power shortage,” with research analyst Max Smolaks warning the crisis “is likely to last many years.” The IEA projected global datacenter electricity consumption could exceed 1,000 TWh by 2026, more than double 2022 levels, while Gartner has warned that energy shortages could restrict 40% of AI datacenters by 2027. Gogia said the shift runs deeper than a hardware swap. “This is not backup in the traditional sense. This is active stabilisation,”

Why AI rack densities make liquid cooling non-negotiable

Average rack power density has more than doubled in two years, from 8 kW to 17 kW, and is projected to reach 30 kW by 2027, according to anOctober 2024 McKinsey report, with AI training racks already well ahead of that average. Those limits show up in GPU clock speed. H100 GPUs under inadequate air cooling can throttle to a fraction of their rated clock speed within seconds of a sustained training run. In distributed jobs across thousands of GPUs, one throttled chip can stall the entire run. TheDOE estimates cooling accounts for up to 40% of data center energy use. JLL research establishes three density thresholds: Up to ~20 kW per rack: air cooling is adequate Up to ~100 kW: rear-door heat exchangers extend viability Above ~175 kW: immersion cooling is required Direct-to-chip cooling fills the middle band, handling densities between ~100 and ~175 kW where rear-door exchangers fall short and immersion is not yet warranted. Hot water changes the economics Mechanical chillers are one of the biggest energy draws in any liquid-cooled data center, and until recently there were an unavoidable cost of liquid cooling. Nvidia’s Vera Rubin processor is changing that. At CES in January 2026, Jensen Huang announced that Vera Rubin supports liquid cooling at 45 degrees Celsius, high enough for data centers to reject heat through dry coolers using ambient air rather than mechanical chillers.Nvidia’s CES press release confirmed Rubin is in full production, with customer availability in the second half of 2026. According toNvida’s product specifications, the Vera Rubin NVL72 uses warm-water, single-phase direct liquid cooling at a 45°C supply temperature, allowing data centers to reject heat through dry coolers using ambient air rather than energy-intensive chiller systems.

Executive Roundtable: AI Infrastructure Enters Its Execution Era

Miranda Gardiner, iMasons Climate Accord: Since 2023, the digital infrastructure industry has moved definitively from planning to execution in the AI infrastructure cycle. Industry analysts forecast continued exponential growth, with active capacity at least doubling between now and 2030 and total capacity potentially tripling, quintupling, or more. In practical terms, we’ll see more digital infrastructure capacity come online in the next five year than has been built in the past 30 years, representing a historic industrial transformation requiring trillions of dollars in capital expenditure and a workforce measured in the millions. Design and organizational flexibility, integrated execution of sustainable solutions, and community-centered workforce development will separate those that thrive from those that struggle. Effective organizations will pivot quickly under these constantly shifting conditions and the leaders will be those that build fast but build right, as strategic flexibility balances long-term performance, efficiency, and regulatory compliance. We already know the resource intensity required to bring AI resources online and are working diligently to ensure this short-term, delivering streamlined and optimized solutions for everything from site selection to cooling and power management while lower lifecycle emissions. Additionally, in some regions, grid interconnection timelines and power availability are already the pacing item for data center development. Organizations that align their sustainability targets and energy procurement strategies will have a clearer path to execution. An operational model capable of delivering multiple large-scale facilities simultaneously across regions is another key piece to successful outcomes. Standardized, repeatable frameworks that reduce engineering time and accelerate permitting. We hear often about collaboration and strong partnerships, and these will be critical with utilities, regulators, and equipment manufacturers to anticipate bottlenecks before they impact schedules. Execution discipline will increasingly determine competitive advantage as the industry scales. The world and, especially, our host communities, are watching closely. Projects that move forward

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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