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Valero to acquire former LyondellBasell Houston oil refinery, restart 165,000 b/d by end-2027

Valero Energy Corp. plans to acquire a former LyondellBasell Industries NV Houston refinery and restart 165,000 b/d of light sweet crude oil processing by yearend 2027. Valero Refining-Texas LP has agreed to acquire the shuttered full-conversion refinery from LyondellBasell for $320.5 million. The transaction includes about 700 acres on the Houston Ship Channel adjacent to the Valero Houston Refinery, 13.5 million bbl of storage capacity, and logistics infrastructure including marine docks, rail-loading facilities, and truck racks. The acquisition will help address intermediate feedstock shortages across Valero’s US Gulf Coast refining system, reducing reliance on third-party purchases while creating opportunities to integrate refining and logistics operations, the company said in an Oct. 30 presentation. Incremental FCC and hydrocracker feed production would reduce external feedstock sourcing, while excess hydrotreating capacity could be used to upgrade intermediates from other Valero US Gulf Coast refineries, the company said. By yearend 2027, Valero expects to restart light sweet crude oil processing and said the site could support future investment in heavy sour crude processing, according to chairman, chief executive officer, and president Lane Riggs. The company did not provide financial details or a timetable for potential heavy sour crude processing projects. LyondellBasell announced plans in April 2022 to cease operation of subsidiary Houston Refining LP’s 268,000-b/d refinery as part of its exit from the crude oil refining business. Following delays, the refinery was shuttered in March 2025. Over the years, LyondellBasell evaluated options for the site, including a potential plan to transition the refinery into a hydrogen production site. Ultimately, the company said, it determined selling the asset “offered the most compelling opportunity” to advance the company’s priorities. Closing of the transaction is expected by yearend, subject to customary closing conditions.

The Download: GLP-1s and eating disorders, self-aware cities, and forever chemicals

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Eating disorders are on the rise. GLP-1s could make things worse. GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are one of the biggest biotech breakthroughs of the last decade. But to some clinicians, they can represent something sinister—a potential trigger for eating disorders. A new report suggests the global incidence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa shot up by 71% between 1990 and 2023. And clinicians are already seeing GLP-1s exacerbate the issue.
Here’s how they could make an already growing problem worse. —Jessica Hamzelou
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. Love is infrastructure —“Love is Infrastructure” is a short fictional story by Charlie Jane Anders, author of a forthcoming novel titled Good Things Are Coming Your Way. Mainspring and St. Barnabas are two neighboring cities with different personalities. They’ve never particularly liked each other, but that changes when both develop minds of their own, shaped by the votes of their residents. As the cities begin to fall for each other, a third city enters the picture. Turnbull promises Mainspring a more efficient future, but its vision of urban life comes with a troubling price. Read the full short story about self-aware cities, direct democracy, and a steamy romance. This story is from the latest edition of our print magazine. Subscribe now to get every issue as soon as it lands. Are we there yet? Cleaning up PFAS Used for decades in everything from nonstick pans to firefighting foams, PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” are linked to increased risks of fertility challenges, developmental delays, cancer, and reduced immune response. Scrubbing PFAS-contaminated soil could eliminate a list of woes for people and planet. The concept is still in its infancy, but we can limit their buildup by pulling the chemicals out of water systems.

Find out how close we are to ridding the world of forever chemicals. —Sara Kiley Watson This story is part of “Are we there yet?”, our series that takes stock of six technologies that have long promised to change the world—and scores them on a progress meter. We’re exploring each one in The Download, so stay tuned, and subscribe to read the rest of the stories in our new Impossible issue. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Binance has suffered the biggest crypto hack in historyThe exchange says $6.3 billion in assets were affected. (BBC)+ Analysts blamed the hack on North Korea. (Guardian)+ The Bitcoin stolen will likely never be recovered. (Bloomberg $)+ Binance has suspended all deposits and withdrawals. (NBC News)+ How a pastor’s crypto scheme lost investors millions. (MIT Technology Review) 2 Nvidia’s Jensen Huang was targeted by an alleged Chinese spyThe suspect is an executive at a Singapore data center firm. (NYT $)+ US intelligence believes she cultivated ties with Huang. (Guardian)+ Her company was investigated over alleged chip diversion. (CNBC)+ Nvidia says their dealings were “normal.” (Bloomberg $) 3 Alphabet just shed $500 billion in market valueThe record loss is due to AI taking a bite out of its search profits. (CNBC)+ Amazon and Intel further a further fall in tech stocks. (Bloomberg $)+ Hyperscalers are making a trillion-dollar gamble. (MIT Technology Review)
4 The Pentagon suspects freezers at military bases were hackedThe malfunctions spoiled food. (Reuters $)+ They may be linked to similar hacks in French supermarkets. (Gizmodo) 5 The US midterms could reshape the future of American scienceA Democratic Congress could curb Trump’s science cuts. (Nature)+ Trump has already dealt big blows to science. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Data centers are set to send US climate pollution skyrocketingGas plants could push power-sector emissions up 42% by 2030.(Verge)+ Europe’s data centre workers face dangerous conditions. (Guardian) 7 SpaceX is pulling away from NASAThe company is prioritising Starlink and AI. (Ars Technica)+ But Cape Canaveral is busier than during the space race. (Axios) 8 Battery makers are finding a new market in the USThey’re pivoting from EVs to grid storage. (WSJ $)+ Batteries just broke another record in the US. (MIT Technology Review) 9 A humanist has received a religious exemption from using AI at workHe argued that using it undermined human flourishing. (Gizmodo) 10 Psychics are fighting back against computerized clairvoyanceHuman practitioners say chatbots lack the divine touch. (Guardian) Quote of the day
“Rizz is in more and more demand because it’s something that only people have.” —Steven Strogatz, a mathematics professor at Cornell University, tells Business Insider that personal appeal will become more valuable as AI increasingly takes over intellectual work. One more thing The Bay Area’s animal welfare movement wants to recruit AI In early February, animal welfare advocates and AI researchers arrived in stocking feet at Mox, a shoes-free coworking space in San Francisco. They gathered to discuss a provocative idea: if artificial general intelligence is on the horizon, could it prevent animal suffering? Some brainstormed using custom agents in advocacy work, while others pitched cultivating meat with AI tools. But the real talk of the event was a flood of funding they expect will soon flow to animal welfare charities, not from individual megadonors, but from AI lab employees.
Some attendees also probed an even more controversial idea: AI may develop the capacity to suffer, which could constitute a moral catastrophe. We investigated why their ideas are gaining momentum—and sparking controversy. —Michelle Kim & Grace Huckins We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. Today, it’s a Halloween special. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.) + Meet the “Picasso of Pumpkin Carvers”, bringing artistry to a Halloween tradition.+ Mashup maestro Bill McClintock’s Ghostmashers is the ideal soundtrack for your All Hallows’ Eve party.+ Want to give someone a proper fright this year? The pros behind America’s haunted attractions have tips.+ This incredible Halloween light show combines 210 drones, fire, lasers, projection, fountains, and the Beastie Boys.

Eating disorders are on the rise. GLP-1s could make things worse.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are one of the biggest biotech breakthroughs of the last decade. But to some clinical psychologists, they can represent something more sinister—a potential trigger for eating disorders. A new report suggests that the global incidence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa shot up between 1990 and 2023—by a whopping 71%. By 2023, there were an estimated 18.1 million people living with one of these two disorders. What’s worse is that the number is likely to be much higher than that once we factor in other eating disorders. And, disturbingly, those in the field are already starting to see GLP-1 weight-loss drugs exacerbating the issue. Cheri Levinson is a clinical psychologist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky who has specialized in eating disorders for almost 20 years. She says she’s now seeing more patients with more severe symptoms than at any other time in her career, and that many of them are misusing GLP-1s. “This is the worst I’ve seen things,” she says.
Eating disorders are mental health conditions in which people’s eating behaviors impact their health. They include anorexia nervosa (defined by a fear of weight gain), bulimia nervosa (in which people binge and purge), binge eating disorder, and others. It’s thought that some people have a genetic predisposition to certain eating disorders, but that some external factor is what triggers their onset. That might be stress, or social pressure to be skinny. Often, simply restricting food intake can trigger an eating disorder, says Levinson.
Eating disorders—along with the pressure to look thin—were already prevalent in the 1990s (the heroin chic era springs to mind). To find out how things might have changed since then, Ruhai Bai at the Children’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University in China and his colleagues pulled together data from studies and surveys conducted on populations around the world. The team used statistical models to fill in any data gaps. That research allowed the researchers to estimate the annual incidence of two eating disorders—anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa—for each of 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2023. They also estimated the impact those disorders had on global health by calculating their disability-adjusted life years (one DALY represents a year of healthy life lost). The findings, published in JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday, are unsettling. Between 1990 and 2023, there was a 71% increase in the incidence of those two eating disorders, the team found. Those conditions had a huge impact on global health, too. In 2023, they “cost the world the equivalent of about 3.83 million years of healthy life,” says Bai. Bai and his colleagues expect these figures to continue to rise. In 2023, an estimated 18.1 million people had either anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa; by 2050, the team predict, the two conditions could affect 21.8 million people. It gets worse. Those two conditions represent less than half of all eating disorders, says Levinson, who was not involved in Bai’s study. The true impact of these disorders is “probably three times the rate that they’re reporting,” she says. Bai and his colleagues didn’t explore the reasons for this rise (although Bai points out that it can’t be entirely explained by population growth). So how did we get here? Social media may have played a role. “Social media comparisons, influencers, challenges, diet trends can all be precipitating … events for an eating disorder,” says Cynthia Bulik, a clinical psychologist at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved in the new study. Bulik has been studying and treating eating disorders since the early 1980s. “Between 1990 and 2023 there has clearly been an upsurge of those types of environmental exposures,” she says. Many social media users are exposed to filtered and modified images of skinny influencers who may have undergone cosmetic surgery or extreme dieting and who are promoting “thinspiration” or “fitspiration” content. But users with eating disorders appear to be more likely to engage with this content—and to be fed more of it as a result.

When researchers at the University of Melbourne investigated this phenomenon a couple of years ago, they found that the algorithms of TikTok users with eating disorders delivered 4343% more “toxic eating disorder videos” than those of users who didn’t have the disorders. They also got more content focused on dieting or exercising. Many were fed over 1000 problematic videos per month. Bulik describes social media as “quicksand” for people with, or at risk of, eating disorders. The covid-19 pandemic—and the social isolation that accompanied lockdowns—also appears to have contributed to the rise in eating disorders. Research conducted in 2021 found that the number of people hospitalized with eating disorders in the US doubled between 2018 and 2020. Researchers don’t yet have good data on how trends in eating disorders might have progressed since 2023. But anecdotally, things seem to be getting even worse. “There are more eating disorders, more severe eating disorders… and we’re seeing earlier ages of onset,” says Levinson. “We’re seeing eight- and nine-year-olds with eating disorders.” “From what I’m hearing and seeing, I am not going to be surprised if that number isn’t at least doubling again,” she adds. Levinson particularly worries about the impact of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. A Gallup survey conducted earlier this year suggested that 15% of Americans had used one of these drugs for weight loss. And they’re becoming more accessible—drug companies are working on new formulations that are both easier to take and more effective, and many people can buy versions of these drugs from compound pharmacies or dubious online sources. In a small study published earlier this year, Levinson and her colleagues found that 30% of people with eating disorders had used GLP-1 drugs. The drugs might benefit some of those people. But 10% appeared to have misused the drugs. And Levinson thinks that figure is also an underestimate. Levinson says she and her colleagues have seen children develop eating disorders after being prescribed GLP-1s for medical reasons. They’ve seen others—even children as young as 11—buy versions of these drugs over TikTok. “We’re very concerned that GLPs will lead to even faster and more extreme weight loss in people with anorexia nervosa, and that patients will come to us in even more advanced stages of illness that become difficult to reverse,” says Bulik.
Both Bulik and Levinson are continuing to study the impacts of these drugs in eating disorders. In the meantime, both urge medical professionals to consider the risks GLP-1s might pose to people with those disorders. Bulik contributed to a set of research and clinical guidelines, published earlier this month, that recommends doctors screen for eating disorders before prescribing the drugs, for example. The guidelines also recommend more patient education and more robust monitoring of people who take GLP-1s. If you think you or someone you know might have an eating disorder, you can find information and support at the National Eating Disorders Association. This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

Celebrate National Bioenergy Day: Explore the Possibilities of Biomass

How can biomass power new possibilities for energy innovation and the products we use every day? Today is National Bioenergy Day, an annual opportunity to recognize the role biomass and innovative technologies can play in strengthening the U.S. bioeconomy. Bioenergy is a form of energy produced from alternative feedstocks called biomass. These resources, which include agricultural and forestry residues, purpose-grown crops, algae, and waste materials, can be converted into chemicals, fertilizers, alternative fuels, and other materials to support farmers, ranchers, and consumers while also lowering prices through increased supply. The United States has an abundant supply of biomass. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office (AFFO) Billion-Ton Report establishes America’s potential to produce more than 1 billion tons of biomass annually, highlighting the scale of resources available to support a growing bioeconomy and energy security and dominance. In celebration of National Bioenergy Day, AFFO is highlighting recent investments, research accomplishments, and resources that demonstrate the possibilities of biomass and the innovative technologies that transform these resources into valuable products. Exploring Bioenergy in Action What does that transformation look like? Explore AFFO resources that cover the basics of bioenergy and offer a closer look at how researchers are advancing technologies across the bioenergy supply chain. Watch the Bioenergy 101 video to learn how biomass is broken down and refined through various methods, including combustion, gasification, and fermentation, to advance technology development and innovation across the entire biomass-to-bioenergy supply chain. Take a look inside the Idaho National Laboratory’s Biomass Feedstock National User Facility, which offers technology and expertise to help the U.S. bioenergy industry overcome challenges associated with the scale-up and integration of biomass preprocessing facilities. Investing in Emerging Chemical Technologies These efforts are part of a broader push to move promising technologies from research to commercial application. AFFO recently announced the Accelerating Scale-up

Energy Department Awards Contracts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as Part of President Trump’s Emergency Exchange

WASHINGTON–The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced contract awards for an exchange of more than 40 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), including volumes offered through previous solicitations. Today’s awards are part of DOE’s execution of President Trump’s 172-million-barrel release, which contributes to a coordinated 400-million-barrel action by International Energy Agency (IEA) member nations’ strategic reserves. “DOE’s latest awards of more than 40 million barrels complete our commitment to release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” said DOE Under Secretary Kyle Haustveit. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we have secured the return of more than 216 million barrels to the Reserve beginning early next year—including 44 million additional premium barrels—with a value of more than $4 billion, at no additional cost to hardworking American taxpayers. By securing the return of more than we released, we are strengthening America’s energy security and ensuring the Strategic Petroleum Reserve remains ready for the future.” Crude oil under the awarded contracts will be supplied from the SPR’s Big Hill and Bryan Mound storage sites. DOE will coordinate with awardees, pipelines, terminals, and refining partners to support the safe and efficient movement of crude oil. These awards reinforce the Trump Administration’s commitment to energy security, long-term SPR readiness, and responsible stewardship of this critical national energy security asset. For more information on the SPR, please visit DOE’s website.

New Cisco firewall zero-day being actively exploited

A high-severity flaw in the Remote Access SSL VPN service of Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) is under active exploitation to crash vulnerable devices. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-76418 and rated 8.6 in severity, is due to logic errors when secondary authentication is configured on a tunnel group, Cisco said in its advisory. It could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to send a crafted request when connecting to the SSL remote access VPN that results in a device reload and thus denial of service. Vulnerable products “If the running configuration contains the webvpn keyword and SSL VPN is enabled on at least one interface, the configuration is vulnerable,” the advisory said. “If tunnel-group-list enable is configured, check all tunnel groups, including the default tunnel group, DefaultWEBVPNGroup, for secondary-authentication-server-group. If tunnel-group-list enable is absent or has been removed using the no tunnel-group-list enable command, check the default tunnel group, DefaultWEBVPNGroup, for secondary-authentication-server-group because disabling the group list does not remove exposure when that default group uses secondary authentication.”

Valero to acquire former LyondellBasell Houston oil refinery, restart 165,000 b/d by end-2027

The Download: GLP-1s and eating disorders, self-aware cities, and forever chemicals

Eating disorders are on the rise. GLP-1s could make things worse.

Celebrate National Bioenergy Day: Explore the Possibilities of Biomass

Energy Department Awards Contracts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as Part of President Trump’s Emergency Exchange

New Cisco firewall zero-day being actively exploited

Energy Department Awards Contracts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as Part of President Trump’s Emergency Exchange

QatarEnergy continues LNG supply diversification effort with new Woodside deal

QatarEnergy has agreed to purchase up to 3 million tonnes/year (tpy) of LNG from Woodside Energy’s Louisiana LNG project under a 20-year contract, further expanding its US LNG portfolio as the export project advances toward first production. The agreement follows QatarEnergy’s recently signed LNG purchase deals with Cheniere and supports the company’s strategy of growing and diversifying its global LNG supply portfolio. His Excellency Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and president and chief executive officer of QatarEnergy, said the additional volumes make QatarEnergy “the largest buyer of LNG from the US” and strengthen the company’s ability to meet growing global LNG demand. Under the terms of the agreement, deliveries will be on an FOB basis and are expected to begin in 2030. Woodside chief executive officer Meg O’Neill said the agreement, coupled with Woodside’s 2025 LNG supply agreement with Germany’s Uniper, help establish the project’s long-term customer base and provide revenue certainty for a portion of Louisiana LNG’s planned production. Louisiana LNG project update Louisiana LNG is under construction near Lake Charles, La., in Calcasieu Parish. The foundation project includes three trains with a combined capacity of 16.5 million tpy and is targeting first LNG in 2029. In its third-quarter report released Oct. 21, Woodside said the project is 32% complete and remains on budget. Train 1 is 41% complete with structural steel and above-ground piping installation progressed. Trains 2 and 3 were 27% and 22% complete respectively at the end of the quarter, with above-ground piping installation started for Train 2 and first concrete foundation poured for Train 3. Woodside said ongoing disruptions in the Middle East continue to affect structural steel supply, but the company is mitigating the impact through alternative logistics routes and fabrication sources.

Shell’s third-quarter earnings rise on record refining margins, stronger gas results

Shell plc reported third-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $10.81 billion, up from $9.84 billion in the second quarter and nearly double the $5.43 billion reported a year earlier, as record refining margins and stronger Integrated Gas results more than offset lower upstream earnings. Income attributable to shareholders reached $12.06 billion, compared with $10.82 billion in the previous quarter. Higher refining margins, improved realized LNG prices, and increased gas production supported the results despite continued disruptions to Middle Eastern energy supplies. These gains were partly offset by weaker crude and oil products trading, lower realized liquids prices, and higher exploration well write-offs. Cash flow from operations reached $21.04 billion, compared with $21.43 billion in the previous quarter, while free cash flow was $16.32 billion, down from $17.52 billion. Net debt declined to $39.73 billion from $41.75 billion at end-June, reducing gearing to 16.6%. Chief executive officer Wael Sawan credited strong operational performance for the results amid continued disruptions to global energy markets. Shell announced a new $5-billion share buyback program and maintained its quarterly dividend at $0.3906/share. The company lowered its full-year 2026 cash capital expenditure guidance to $23-25 billion from $24-26 billion. Segment results Chemicals & Products adjusted earnings climbed to $3.86 billion from $2.88 billion in the second quarter, driven by record refining margins. Shell’s global indicative refining margin surged to $42/bbl from $24/bbl, while refinery utilization averaged 96%, down from 102%. Processing intake declined to 1.21 million b/d from 1.27 million b/d. Integrated Gas adjusted earnings increased to $3.04 billion from $2.69 billion, supported by higher realized prices and increased production. Production rose to 772,000 boe/d from 631,000 boe/d, mainly reflecting the completion of the ARC Resources acquisition in September. LNG liquefaction volumes declined to 7.4 million tonnes from 7.7 million tonnes due to planned maintenance, while LNG

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.”

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

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.

LG rolls out new AI services to help consumers with daily tasks

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More LG kicked off the AI bandwagon today with a new set of AI services to help consumers in their daily tasks at home, in the car and in the office. The aim of LG’s CES 2025 press event was to show how AI will work in a day of someone’s life, with the goal of redefining the concept of space, said William Joowan Cho, CEO of LG Electronics at the event. The presentation showed LG is fully focused on bringing AI into just about all of its products and services. Cho referred to LG’s AI efforts as “affectionate intelligence,” and he said it stands out from other strategies with its human-centered focus. The strategy focuses on three things: connected devices, capable AI agents and integrated services. One of things the company announced was a strategic partnership with Microsoft on AI innovation, where the companies pledged to join forces to shape the future of AI-powered spaces. One of the outcomes is that Microsoft’s Xbox Ultimate Game Pass will appear via Xbox Cloud on LG’s TVs, helping LG catch up with Samsung in offering cloud gaming natively on its TVs. LG Electronics will bring the Xbox App to select LG smart TVs. That means players with LG Smart TVs will be able to explore the Gaming Portal for direct access to hundreds of games in the Game Pass Ultimate catalog, including popular titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and upcoming releases like Avowed (launching February 18, 2025). Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members will be able to play games directly from the Xbox app on select LG Smart TVs through cloud gaming. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and a compatible Bluetooth-enabled

Big tech must stop passing the cost of its spiking energy needs onto the public

Julianne Malveaux is an MIT-educated economist, author, educator and political commentator who has written extensively about the critical relationship between public policy, corporate accountability and social equity. The rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. is not only reshaping the digital economy but also threatening to overwhelm our energy infrastructure. These data centers aren’t just heavy on processing power — they’re heavy on our shared energy infrastructure. For Americans, this could mean serious sticker shock when it comes to their energy bills. Across the country, many households are already feeling the pinch as utilities ramp up investments in costly new infrastructure to power these data centers. With costs almost certain to rise as more data centers come online, state policymakers and energy companies must act now to protect consumers. We need new policies that ensure the cost of these projects is carried by the wealthy big tech companies that profit from them, not by regular energy consumers such as family households and small businesses. According to an analysis from consulting firm Bain & Co., data centers could require more than $2 trillion in new energy resources globally, with U.S. demand alone potentially outpacing supply in the next few years. This unprecedented growth is fueled by the expansion of generative AI, cloud computing and other tech innovations that require massive computing power. Bain’s analysis warns that, to meet this energy demand, U.S. utilities may need to boost annual generation capacity by as much as 26% by 2028 — a staggering jump compared to the 5% yearly increases of the past two decades. This poses a threat to energy affordability and reliability for millions of Americans. Bain’s research estimates that capital investments required to meet data center needs could incrementally raise consumer bills by 1% each year through 2032. That increase may

Final 45V hydrogen tax credit guidance draws mixed response

Dive Brief: The final rule for the 45V clean hydrogen production tax credit, which the U.S. Treasury Department released Friday morning, drew mixed responses from industry leaders and environmentalists. Clean hydrogen development within the U.S. ground to a halt following the release of the initial guidance in December 2023, leading industry participants to call for revisions that would enable more projects to qualify for the tax credit. While the final rule makes “significant improvements” to Treasury’s initial proposal, the guidelines remain “extremely complex,” according to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. FCHEA President and CEO Frank Wolak and other industry leaders said they look forward to working with the Trump administration to refine the rule. Dive Insight: Friday’s release closed what Wolak described as a “long chapter” for the hydrogen industry. But industry reaction to the final rule was decidedly mixed, and it remains to be seen whether the rule — which could be overturned as soon as Trump assumes office — will remain unchanged. “The final 45V rule falls short,” Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber’s Global Energy Institute, said in a statement. “While the rule provides some of the additional flexibility we sought, … we believe that it still will leave billions of dollars of announced projects in limbo. The incoming Administration will have an opportunity to improve the 45V rules to ensure the industry will attract the investments necessary to scale the hydrogen economy and help the U.S. lead the world in clean manufacturing.” But others in the industry felt the rule would be sufficient for ending hydrogen’s year-long malaise. “With this added clarity, many projects that have been delayed may move forward, which can help unlock billions of dollars in investments across the country,” Kim Hedegaard, CEO of Topsoe’s Power-to-X, said in a statement. Topsoe

Texas, Utah, Last Energy challenge NRC’s ‘overburdensome’ microreactor regulations

Dive Brief: A 69-year-old Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule underpinning U.S. nuclear reactor licensing exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and creates an unreasonable burden for microreactor developers, the states of Texas and Utah and advanced nuclear technology company Last Energy said in a lawsuit filed Dec. 30 in federal court in Texas. The plaintiffs asked the Eastern District of Texas court to exempt Last Energy’s 20-MW reactor design and research reactors located in the plaintiff states from the NRC’s definition of nuclear “utilization facilities,” which subjects all U.S. commercial and research reactors to strict regulatory scrutiny, and order the NRC to develop a more flexible definition for use in future licensing proceedings. Regardless of its merits, the lawsuit underscores the need for “continued discussion around proportional regulatory requirements … that align with the hazards of the reactor and correspond to a safety case,” said Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. Dive Insight: Only three commercial nuclear reactors have been built in the United States in the past 28 years, and none are presently under construction, according to a World Nuclear Association tracker cited in the lawsuit. “Building a new commercial reactor of any size in the United States has become virtually impossible,” the plaintiffs said. “The root cause is not lack of demand or technology — but rather the [NRC], which, despite its name, does not really regulate new nuclear reactor construction so much as ensure that it almost never happens.” More than a dozen advanced nuclear technology developers have engaged the NRC in pre-application activities, which the agency says help standardize the content of advanced reactor applications and expedite NRC review. Last Energy is not among them. The pre-application process can itself stretch for years and must be followed by a formal application that can take two

Qualcomm unveils AI chips for PCs, cars, smart homes and enterprises

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Qualcomm unveiled AI technologies and collaborations for PCs, cars, smart homes and enterprises at CES 2025. At the big tech trade show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm Technologies showed how it’s using AI capabilities in its chips to drive the transformation of user experiences across diverse device categories, including PCs, automobiles, smart homes and into enterprises. The company unveiled the Snapdragon X platform, the fourth platform in its high-performance PC portfolio, the Snapdragon X Series, bringing industry-leading performance, multi-day battery life, and AI leadership to more of the Windows ecosystem. Qualcomm has talked about how its processors are making headway grabbing share from the x86-based AMD and Intel rivals through better efficiency. Qualcomm’s neural processing unit gets about 45 TOPS, a key benchmark for AI PCs. The Snapdragon X family of AI PC processors. Additionally, Qualcomm Technologies showcased continued traction of the Snapdragon X Series, with over 60 designs in production or development and more than 100 expected by 2026. Snapdragon for vehicles Qualcomm demoed chips that are expanding its automotive collaborations. It is working with Alpine, Amazon, Leapmotor, Mobis, Royal Enfield, and Sony Honda Mobility, who look to Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions to drive AI-powered in-cabin and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Qualcomm also announced continued traction for its Snapdragon Elite-tier platforms for automotive, highlighting its work with Desay, Garmin, and Panasonic for Snapdragon Cockpit Elite. Throughout the show, Qualcomm will highlight its holistic approach to improving comfort and focusing on safety with demonstrations on the potential of the convergence of AI, multimodal contextual awareness, and cloudbased services. Attendees will also get a first glimpse of the new Snapdragon Ride Platform with integrated automated driving software stack and system definition jointly

Oil, Gas Execs Reveal Where They Expect WTI Oil Price to Land in the Future

Executives from oil and gas firms have revealed where they expect the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price to be at various points in the future as part of the fourth quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which was released recently. The average response executives from 131 oil and gas firms gave when asked what they expect the WTI crude oil price to be at the end of 2025 was $71.13 per barrel, the survey showed. The low forecast came in at $53 per barrel, the high forecast was $100 per barrel, and the spot price during the survey was $70.66 per barrel, the survey pointed out. This question was not asked in the previous Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which was released in the third quarter. That survey asked participants what they expect the WTI crude oil price to be at the end of 2024. Executives from 134 oil and gas firms answered this question, offering an average response of $72.66 per barrel, that survey showed. The latest Dallas Fed Energy Survey also asked participants where they expect WTI prices to be in six months, one year, two years, and five years. Executives from 124 oil and gas firms answered this question and gave a mean response of $69 per barrel for the six month mark, $71 per barrel for the year mark, $74 per barrel for the two year mark, and $80 per barrel for the five year mark, the survey showed. Executives from 119 oil and gas firms answered this question in the third quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey and gave a mean response of $73 per barrel for the six month mark, $76 per barrel for the year mark, $81 per barrel for the two year mark, and $87 per barrel for the five year mark, that

Gemini 4 Carbon: Our next frontier model

Today, we’re announcing the next frontier model: Gemini 4 Carbon, our strongest model with state-of-the-art cybersecurity and long horizon capabilities.Carbon ranks #1 on the recently updated v5.0 of Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at 59. It shows significant gains across coding and agentic tasks as well as across key capabilities critical for cybersecurity defense, landing a firm lead in SEC-bench Pro (88.2%) for finding vulnerabilities, ExploitGym (54.8%) for exploitation, and CWE-bench (71.0%) for patching. On internal benchmarks, Carbon drives a strong uplift in generating secure code, and in live coding environments with our own teams it shows reduced misalignment and fabrication rates.Building on Gemini 4 Argon, which was launched two weeks ago, Carbon illustrates the pace at which we’re pushing the frontier forward. Our researchers and models are working hand in hand to advance capabilities faster, while strengthening our safeguards in tandem.We’re taking a deliberate approach to rollout and are actively engaged in the U.S. government’s voluntary process for pre-release model testing. Starting this week, we will make Carbon available to a subset of cyber defenders and will gradually phase access to additional trusted partners through our Fairwind Program. We’re continuing to gather feedback and iterate on guardrails before making Carbon available to developers, businesses, and consumers via our product surfaces as soon as possible.Gemini 4 Carbon will launch at the same introductory price

as Argon at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached input tokens priced at 95% off input token price.

Pairing industrial AI autonomy and human control

In partnership withAVEVA
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The Download: dead startups fueling AI and interspecies communication

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI labs are buying data from dead startups to train their models When Keelan Miskell began winding down his crypto startup, he didn’t think its data was worth much. But he’s since turned the company’s digital archives into tens of thousands of dollars, selling its codebase and workspace data. He’s part of a growing market in which companies that help shut down startups sell their data to AI labs. Demand has grown as training labs hit the limits of public and synthetic datasets, with buyers seeking real-world records to help train AI agents. But the sales raise legal and ethical questions. Read the full story on the AI labs buying up the remains of failed startups.
—Matthew King Are we there yet? Interspecies communication Humans are far from the only species with a gift for gab, and our furry, feathered, and finned friends could have a lot to tell us.
Decoding how animals communicate with one another could reveal the inner lives of other species—and give humans a window onto how they see the world. A growing arsenal of devices and advances in AI have made it easier to study their howls, squeaks, and clicks, but making sense of it all remains complex. Find out how close we are to interspecies communication. —Cassandra Willyard This story is part of “Are we there yet?”, our series that takes stock of six technologies that have long promised to change the world—and scores them on a progress meter. We’re exploring each one in The Download, so stay tuned, and subscribe to read the rest of the stories in our new Impossible issue. MIT Technology Review Narrated: what it would take to build a city on the moon The US and China are racing to build bases on the moon, with NASA hoping to establish a small lunar city by the end of the century. But the moon is a tremendously hostile place to set up camp. A sprawling lunar base must be safe for its inhabitants, protected from falling asteroids, endless cosmic radiation, razor-sharp lunar dust, and torturous temperature swings. It also must be somewhat self-sustaining. That will require autonomous robots, nuclear power, and a way to use the moon’s resources to keep the base operating. But the chief obstacle may be one of political will. This is our latest story to become an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Hackers have disrupted the US Federal Election Commission’s websiteThe FEC filing system went offline a week before the midterms. (Reuters $)+ The attack is hiding spending data during the costliest midterms ever. (Gizmodo)+ Social media platforms are struggling to contain AI election lies. (Guardian)+ Software flaws in US voting machines threaten election security. (Axios)+ A blueprint for using AI to strengthen democracy. (MIT Technology Review) 2 Starlink restrictions have driven US allies to rethink their dependenceRestrictions in Ukraine have spooked officials across Europe. (Bloomberg $)+ And given European firms a new pitch for their rival services. (Axios)+ An Israeli spy firm allegedly targeted Starlink users. (Reuters $)+ Stratospheric internet could take off this year. (MIT Technology Review) 3 Greenhouse gas levels keep reaching new records worldwideCarbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are all on the up. (New Scientist $)+ Trump is making it easier for fossil fuel companies to leak methane. (Verge)+ The IPCC is fighting for survival. (Nature)+ How to study a swiftly melting climate disaster. (MIT Technology Review) 4 Monkeys’ brains have revealed new clues about consciousnessTheir neural activity encodes images that escape their awareness. (Nature)+ Bees’ feelings are also changing views of consciousness. (New Scientist $)+ Debates over AI consciousness are a trap. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Chinese scientists have developed a catalyst to make Mars rocket fuelIt converts Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide into liquid methanol. (SCMP) 6 Tech billionaires have teamed up against California’s wealth taxSergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and others have funded a major campaign. (NYT $)
7 Delaware plans to let AI agents run entire businessesThe proposal could let owners evade responsibility for harm. (Ars Technica)+ A better web for AI agents could hurt humans. (MIT Technology Review) 8 Palmer Luckey has unveiled plans for American-made military laptopsAnduril will build rugged PCs in Ohio using Qualcomm chips. (WSJ $)
9 Gen Z is turning away from the social media it grew up withYoung people are fueling a boom in digital detox tools. (Guardian) 10 Trump now wants to ban the term “artificial intelligence”He’s demanding we all start using “Super Intelligence.” (Gizmodo) Quote of the day “For the next two years, we’re going to be living in a state where, on average, every week there is a critical, internet-wide vulnerability.” —Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s chief executive, tells the New York Times that AI is currently finding software vulnerabilities quicker than they can be patched. One more thing Inside the controversial tree farms powering Apple’s carbon-neutral goal In 2020, Apple set a goal to become net zero by the end of the decade. To hit that target, the company is offsetting its emissions by planting millions of eucalyptus trees in Brazil.
Apple is betting that the strategy will lead to a greener future. But critics warn that the industrial tree farms will do more harm than good. Here’s why the plans have sparked a backlash. —Gregory Barber We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.) + Ugly shoes have become beautifully mainstream.+ Scientists have built a stunning new simulation of the early universe.+ Guitarist Kent Nishimura has stripped Thriller back to a mesmerising acoustic performance.+ A photographer who snapped punks and mods in 1980 has tracked them down for an emotional reunion 46 years later.

Genie 4: A new generation of world simulation

AcknowledgementsGenie 4 was made possible by core contributions from Hang Qi, Diego Rivas, Aleksander Hołyński, Inbar Mosseri, Jack Parker-Holder, Shlomi Fruchter, Tejas Kulkarni, James Assiene, Philip Ball, Jakob Bauer, Eddie Cao, Lucy Chai, Harris Chan, Kleopatra Chatziprimou, Hao Chen, Yoni Choukroun, Mark Collier, Enric Corona, Kurtis David, Ariel Ephrat, Maxime Gazeau, Ruiqi Gao, Chelsee Glover-Odom, Liangke Gui, Swaroop Guntupalli, Shan Han, Tingbo Hou, Jiri Hron, Hui Huang, Drew A. Hudson, Zhouyuan Huo, Linyi Jin, Christos Kaplanis, Dhrupad Karwa, Eunyoung Kim, Congtao Kuang, Eliot Laidlaw, José Lezama, Hao Li, Shuang Li, Yuchen Liu, Hanzi Mao, Mark Matthews, Matt McGill, Kay McKinney, Ricardo Monti, Mark Murphy, Joseph Ortiz, Roni Paiss, Frank Perbet, Ben Poole, Tal Reiss, Konstantinos Rematas, Guy Scully, Jeremy Shar, Shashank Shastry, Sri S, Omer Tov, Ruben Villegas, Andrey Voynov, Hongjie Wang, Luyu Wang, Kaustubh Sridhar, Mo Samsami, Stephen Spencer, Yufei Wang, Will Whitney, Rundi Wu, Joyce (Jingjing) Xie, Jesse Yin, Shiran Zada, Serena Zhang, Xiaofan Zhang, Zhengqi Li, Zhixing Zhang, Yuan Zhong, Shuo-yiin Chang, Dmitry Lagun, Ronny Huang, Yao Su, Ankush Gupta, Genzhi Ye, Haolin Jia, Weiqin Wang, Xi Xiong, Salah Zaiem, Carol Zheng, .Genie 4 also required close collaborations across partner teams, we thank all our cross-functional partners that made this launch possible: Dina Bashkirova, Emil Bergner, Greta Borisko, Irina Blok, Melissa Byun, Gabe Clapper, Viral Carpenter, Michael Y. Chang, Maximo Cudich-Sieburger, Chloe Doan, Alisa Fortin, Shivani Ghanta, Vikram Gopali, Ezra Gorman, Khyatti Gupta, Sam Hasinoff, Philipp Henzler, Hector Hinestroza, Ed Hirst, Tyler Holland, Kristian Holsheimer, Tiffany Hu, Kapil Joshi, Randeep Katari, Pavan Kumar, Vikhyat Kumeria, Sam Kvaalen, Matthew Levine, Yinxiao Li, Yuchi Liu, Miao Luo, Nick Matarese, Kangfu Mei, Signe Nørly, Moises Oliveira, Eric Paskie, Manika Puri, Susanna Ricco, Andrey Ryabtsev, Cai Schumann, Nicole Brichtova, Andy Sekyere, Grace Shih, Melissa Smith, Duncan Noble Smith, Kenda Stewart, Rod Strougo, Jenn Sturgeon, Amy Zeng, Gaby Pearl, Eleanor Tomlinson, Kenyon Watson, Inês Ayer, Luke Talbot, Han-Yun Tsao, Guillaume Vernade, Karen Wang, Changchang Wu, Ian Wilkinson, Weijuan Xi, Jennifer Yick, Yunhan Zhao, Eric Zhang, Jason Zhang, Annie Zhou, James Zhou, Chris Walker, Alan Yam, Alex Chen, Cliff Lungaretti, Dan Motzenbecker, Kaloyan Kolev, Matthew Carey, Nate Zucker, Sam Lawton, Shashwath Santosh, Suz Chambers.Thanks to Raia Hadsell, Aäron van den Oord, Josh Woodward, Steve Seitz, Carlos Hernandez, Elias Roman, Jung E. Kim, Abhishek Bapna, Eli Collins, Tulsee Doshi, Carolina Parada, Jie Tan, Koray Kavukcuoglu and Demis Hassabis for their insightful guidance and support throughout the research process.Lastly, we thank our trusted tester and early access users that have provided feedback to help guide our research forward.

The Download: Anthropic’s IPO, smarter power grids, and exercise pills

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Will the real Anthropic please stand up? After weeks of frenzied speculation, Anthropic has filed its IPO prospectus. The 335-page document (100 pages or so are focused on risks) lays out the company’s unique view of the technology it is building and how it believes it will change the world. But Anthropic has been honing its storytelling skills for years. Its public messaging is a master class in narrative capture, presenting it as different things to different people: an AI safety organization, a profit-driven megacorp, and a group hell-bent on creating superhuman technology. These roles come with huge tensions. Will the IPO reveal the company behind the mask, or lean deeper into the myth-making? Take a new glimpse inside Anthropic.
—Will Douglas Heaven This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
How solid-state transformers could help power the AI boom Transformers are a crucial but nearly invisible part of the US grid, helping efficiently move power across long distances. But they’re complicated and in short supply, and their basic design hasn’t changed much in about a century. As electricity demand rises from EVs, data centers, and more, researchers and companies are looking to modernize these grid staples. Solid-state versions could help ease supply concerns and cut power losses. The technology is still in development, but it could become a crucial part of our future grid. Find out how solid-state transformers could help meet rising electricity demand. —Casey Crownhart Are we there yet? Exercise in a pill We all know exercise is good for us. It builds muscle, strengthens bones, lowers blood pressure, and boosts mood. By deciphering how movement benefits the body, researchers hope to develop medicines that can offer some of the same perks, without the workout. The idea isn’t to replace exercise but to bring its upsides to people who struggle with frailty, disability, or chronic illness. Discover how close researchers are to developing an exercise pill.

—Cassandra Willyard This story is part of “Are we there yet?” from the new Impossible issue of MIT Technology Review. The series takes stock of six technologies that have long promised to change the world—and scores them on a progress meter. Over the next six days, we’ll explore each one in The Download. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Anthropic has filed for its blockbuster IPOThe listing could determine the future of the AI investment boom. (CNBC)+ The filing warns of catastrophic AI risks and huge compute costs. (BBC)+ And exposes safety failures and a month-long training pause. (Reuters $)+ The prospectus reveals soaring revenues but also staggering losses. (NYT $)+ Anthropic’s founders will retain voting control after the IPO. (Verge) 2 Solar is quietly overtaking nuclear as a global power sourceCheap panels and batteries are accelerating the shift. (BBC)+ The balcony solar boom is coming to the US. (MIT Technology Review) 3 OpenAI has announced three new science discoveriesThey span mathematics, computer science, and physics. (Verge)+ It’s enlisted expert “shepherds” to publish its breakthroughs. (Gizmodo) 4 Microsoft is offering buyouts to a quarter of staff amid rising AI costsAround 60,000 employees are eligible for the buyout program. (Bloomberg $)+ Microsoft plans $190 billion in AI spending this year. (NYT $)
5 The plastics industry knew microplastics could enter the body decades agoCompany documents reveal concerns dating back to 1974. (LA Times $)+ No part of the globe is free of human fingerprints. (MIT Technology Review) 6 A demonstration of lighting Earth from space has sparked alarmStartup Reflect Orbital used space mirrors for the California test. (Guardian)+ The tech could jeopardize the night sky. (MIT Technology Review)
7 The US has designated helium a critical materialThe move is due to its importance to semiconductor production. (AP) 8 Hundreds of Boston Dynamics staff have protested its ICE dealThey’ve called for a halt to sales of the robot dogs. (Ars Technica) 9 Treatments for age-related infertility are being developed at lastTwo startups aim to reduce chromosome errors in eggs. (Economist $)+ Here’s how tech transformed babymaking. (MIT Technology Review) 10 Grok says its AI-generated Odyssey is “not historically accurate”The bot itself admitted Elon Musk’s filmmaking plan has failed. (Wired $) Quote of the day “It’s as if they’re making a promise and crossing their fingers behind their backs.” —Kate Brennan, who leads policy at the AI Now Institute, tells the New York Times that the voluntary safety pledges AI executives recently made are toothless and unenforceable.
One more thing The problem with thinking you’re part Neanderthal There’s a theory that many of us have an “inner Neanderthal.” The idea is that Homo sapiens and its cousin species once bred, leaving some people today with a trace of Neanderthal DNA. This DNA is arguably the 21st century’s most celebrated discovery in human evolution. But in 2024, a pair of French geneticists called into question the theory’s very foundations. They proposed that what scientists interpret as interbreeding could instead be explained by population structure—the way genes concentrate in smaller, isolated groups.

Industrial Intelligence: The next growth opportunity for manufacturing

Provided byMicrosoft Every manufacturer has its own industrial intelligence. Some is documented, and some resides in the knowledge of experienced workers. Consider an experienced operator preparing to restart a line after a changeover. The machine settings matter, but so does knowing how a particular material behaves, what happened during the previous shift, and when an apparently minor variation deserves a closer look. A procedure can describe the sequence, but successful execution depends on the judgment that comes from experience and the organization’s accumulated know-how. That combination is industrial intelligence: a manufacturer’s accumulated know-how, operating practices, production data, and understanding of its own business. The opportunity now is to make more of that intelligence available wherever decisions are made, then connect it to the physical world of manufacturing. The strategic destination is not more agents, but rather to turn the existing business intelligence into an engine for profitable growth.
Individual knowledge can be translated into organizational advantage Expertise has limited reach when it stays with one person, inside one system, or within one plant. Leaders now must determine how to extend that reach without stripping away the context that makes the knowledge useful. For example, an engineer evaluating a process change needs more than a production record. They need to understand the circumstances behind it: the equipment configuration, the quality requirements, and the trade-offs an operator made. Connecting those elements can help people apply experience beyond the place where it originated.
When individual knowledge becomes widely accessible, innovation can spread to the maintenance workshop, the planning office, the engineering team, and the production floor. More people can contribute because more people can work with what the organization knows. But access to knowledge is only part of the opportunity. Manufacturing ultimately is physical, and it depends on materials, machines, and products. When intelligence participates in action Physical AI describes systems that can perceive conditions, reason about them, and take action within the physical world. By connecting machines and processes, manufacturers get a clearer view of what is happening on the factory floor. Agents can then reason on top of that information to identify patterns, predict problems, and determine the best course of action. Physical AI brings business intelligence into the physical process, allowing machines and systems to respond to changing conditions. Consider a robotic-handling operation encountering variation in the parts arriving at its station. Vision can help the system assess a part’s position. A model informed by the material and task can help determine an appropriate movement. Connected controls can then execute an adjustment within validated limits. The value is not merely seeing the variation; it is responding appropriately. The same principle applies to quality operations. When Toyota Industries connected previously fragmented paint shop data, engineering and operations teams were given the context needed to understand defect drivers. The company reports that analysis cycles fell from five days to under four hours, while its pilot reduced relevant paint defects by about 25%. The breakthrough was not simply identifying another signal; it was helping people understand why defects were occurring and respond before the outcome was locked in. This is the type of situation where industrial intelligence has become essential. Data may reveal what is happening, but industrial intelligence provides the context for what should happen, which constraints cannot be breached, and when uncertainty requires human judgment. Simulation offers a way to examine proposed actions before applying them to equipment. Manufacturers can explore how a change might affect a process in a digital environment. That does not remove the need for physical validation, but it creates room to learn without treating the production line as the first experiment. Responsible deployment, therefore, begins with operational discipline. Leaders need to establish clear authority or what systems may change, reliable connections to equipment, defined safety boundaries, and a record of decisions and actions. People must be able to recognize uncertainty, intervene, and bring equipment to a safe state. Trust rests on those practical arrangements, not on confidence in a model alone.

More capable machines, more capable people Manufacturing has long combined human ingenuity with increasingly capable tools. Physical AI extends that relationship. Intelligent equipment can take on suitable repetitive or physically demanding tasks, while agent-assisted operations can help people navigate information-intensive decisions and changing conditions. The aim is not to make machines smarter; it is to see what people can build when knowledge can travel, intelligence can act, and ambition has more room to become reality. Rockwell Automation illustrates the point. At its Singapore plant, technicians use a maintenance copilot that combines manufacturing data, machine manuals, and knowledge captured from experienced workers. This system has reduced the time required for new workers to learn how to troubleshoot hundreds of machines from nine months to three. An engineer could explore more process alternatives before committing to a change. An operator could help improve the system’s response rather than repeatedly managing the same exception. This type of progress requires investment in equipment but also in people: training, time to learn, and playing a meaningful role in shaping how systems work. Machines become more capable so people can become more capable. Industrial Intelligence is the answer to sustainable growth Industrial intelligence connects what a manufacturer knows: the experience of its people, the signals from its operations, and the lessons accumulated over time. Physical AI gives that intelligence a way to act in the physical world, turning knowledge into decisions and decisions into action. The next challenge for industry is not simply to produce more, but to grow without adding complexity at the same rate. Intelligence can help manufacturers turn experience into scalable capability—improving productivity, accelerating innovation, expanding capacity, and enabling people to solve problems that were previously difficult to tackle. The next frontier of industry is not smarter machines or more automated factories; it is businesses that can continuously learn, adapt, and act. The opportunity is to turn the intelligence embedded in every operation into a compounding advantage for growth.
Watch the video series to learn how industrial customers are unlocking intelligence across the value chain, and join Microsoft at Microsoft Ignite to see what’s next for Industrial Intelligence. This content was produced by Microsoft. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.

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