Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE

Onscreen’s TV-based AI companion provides help for elder caregivers

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Onscreen has been providing caregivers and seniors with an AI-based companion called Joy to help family members take care of older adults. Now it’s bringing its Joy AI companion app to Android tablets and iPads. The […]

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More


Onscreen has been providing caregivers and seniors with an AI-based companion called Joy to help family members take care of older adults. Now it’s bringing its Joy AI companion app to Android tablets and iPads.

The company knows caregivers are outnumbered by those who need care in this country. I felt the reality of that as I and a team of caregivers took care of my mother before she died from dementia this year. And so it gave me a little hope to see Onscreen working on TV-based technology for AI companions for older adults last year. Now the company has a new way to reach seniors.

Onscreen Joy is an AI companion that reduces social isolation, supports aging in place, and enhances quality of life for older folks. It introduced the products at CES 2025, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week where it will be evident that tech companies are targeting seniors now.

Of course, we can say that it’s always better for the elderly to have human support for their caregiving. But the reality is there just aren’t enough caregivers. And there’s a loneliness epidemic that is making the onset of dementia with the elderly worse.

The new Onscreen Joy tablet app, is designed to enhance communication, companionship, and care for older adults. Unveiled at CES 2025, this new offering expands Onscreen’s mission to address social isolation and make care more accessible for seniors and their families. Onscreen AI-based care solutions will be on display at CES 2025 in AgeTech Atlanta booth (Venetian Expo Level 2 Halls A-D: Booth 54600).

“Here at Onscreen, we are building the TV solution for older adults. Every day, 10,000 people become a senior in this country. There’s over 22 million folks over the age of 75, over 13 million folks over the age of 80, and they all struggle with technology to certain some point as they age,” CEO Costin Tuculescu said in an interview with GamesBeat some weeks ago. “It just gets harder and harder and harder.”

He added, “On the other side of that equation, you have a family members, who are usually their adult children, that just start to worry. They want to see their parents. They want to make sure the parents are thriving, that they’re doing well, but it’s hard trying to get 80-year-old mom or dad on a zoom call.”

To deal with that, Tuculescu said, “We have created a product to make the tech extremely senior friendly. Bring family communication and keep everybody in the loop. Bring socialization to address problems like loneliness and isolation, and bring an AI companion into the home that lets us stay in touch with our older adults. And the AI companion, in essence, is always available to the senior and collects information about how the senior is doing things that they need. And then further, kind of connects the family with the senior to make sure everything they need is handled.”

Expanding Joy AI to tablets

Onscreen’s Joy AI companion can remind seniors when to take medicine.

Building on the success and learnings of its TV-based Moment senior care platform, the Onscreen Joy app eliminates the requirement for a new hardware device, and brings Onscreen’s most important senior care features of the platform to Android tablets and iPads. It’s like Roku for seniors.

This new app enables families to set up a senior care hub using devices they already own, often older generation devices that collect dust once the upgrade cycle comes around. By lowering the barriers to entry and leveraging existing hardware, Onscreen Joy enables more seniors and families to benefit from Onscreen’s broader caregiving platform.

“Launching Onscreen Joy at CES 2025 is a significant step toward opening up the Onscreen ecosystem, and making the powerful capabilities of Onscreen available to more families that need them,” said Tuculescu. “Our goal from day one has been to simplify technology so that seniors feel supported and engaged. By offering a tablet-based solution, we’re removing barriers and empowering families to use their existing devices to provide meaningful care.”

Key Features of Onscreen Joy

The app includes a wide range of capabilities designed to enhance the lives of seniors and
their families:

  • “Joy” the Personal Companion: Offers engaging conversations, trivia, jokes, and creative activities like painting, bringing entertainment and stimulation to seniors.
  • AI Wellness Check-Ins: Joy performs wellness check-ins in the form of friendly reminders for essential activities like taking medication, eating meals, drinking water, and engaging in physical activity.
  • Automatic Video Call Answering: Automatically connects seniors with trusted family members in their “Favorites” list, making communication seamless. Callers using both iOS and Android devices can easily connect with their older loved ones, overcoming the limitations of proprietary video calling systems tied to specific mobile operating systems (ie FaceTime).
  • Family Zoom Sessions: Allows seniors to join family Zoom calls without requiring any effort, ensuring they stay connected to larger family gatherings.
  • Simple Text, Photo and Video Messaging: Displays text messages, photos, and videos in an easy-to-read format, making it simple for seniors to engage with shared content.
  • Live Interactive Events: Provides access to live events and activities, enabling seniors to participate in engaging and interactive experiences from the comfort of their home, with no technical assistance required.
  • YouTube Content Sharing: Plays videos shared by family members directly on the tablet, offering a personalized entertainment experience.
  • Photo Gallery & Slideshow: Organizes shared photos into a dedicated gallery, creating a visual archive of cherished memories. Optionally, when the tablet is idle, photos of loved ones will be rotating through, effectively providing a convenient picture frame.

Updates to the Onscreen family app

Onscreen helps seniors make calls with intuitive controls.

In addition to launching the Onscreen Joy senior care tablet app, the company has rebranded its existing app for family members and caregivers as Onscreen Family. This app continues to provide an intuitive way for families to stay connected with their older loved ones through features like video calls, photo sharing, and real-time updates.

Onscreen Family works seamlessly with Onscreen Joy, creating a comprehensive solution that meets the needs of both seniors and their support networks. Additionally, Onscreen provides a web application for users that prefer to set up Routines on a larger screen, and gives family caregivers the ability to trends and outcomes resulting from Joy’s check-ins with the senior.

The loneliness epidemic

Whether through friendly conversation, mental stimulation with trivia games and brain teasers, or creative sessions like generating a painting, Joy offers daily interactions that reduce loneliness and foster emotional well-being. By engaging older adults in meaningful and fun activities, Joy helps keep their minds active and spirits lifted, all from the comfort of their TV — a familiar device for seniors.

Rolled out this fall, Onscreen provide caregivers and senior care professionals with insights into the daily lives of their loved ones or patients through an accessible TV-based format. As the aging population grows, Joy’s enhanced features promote well-being, support activities of daily living, enable health monitoring, and increase cognitive and emotional engagement, offering a clearer picture of health and safety while reducing feelings of isolation.

“Loneliness and isolation is a massive problem. It affects about 40% of seniors,” Tuculescu said. “Loneliness and isolation gives you a 50% increased risk of dementia, 30% increased risk of stroke, 35% increased risk of heart heart disease.”

Onscreen’s own studies show 88% of caregivers reported reduced loneliness among their loved ones; 76% observed a significant increase in happiness; and 86% noted improvements in overall well-being.

These findings highlight the profound difference that accessible technology can make in the lives of seniors, particularly those facing cognitive challenges.

With regular check-ins and conversations, Joy helps seniors age in place for a longer time by providing helpful reminders, companionship, and mental stimulation, all while reporting insightful details about their daily activity, as well as their physical and mental health, to loved ones and caregivers, said Costin Tuculescu, CEO of Onscreen, in an interview with VentureBeat.

Tuculescu has a personal stake in this, as do we all, as he was inspired to start the business after caring for his mother.

Tuculescu saw how much platforms like Zoom helped in the pandemic, but he also saw the challenges that the older population had, even with something as simple as video communication.

“My parents are in their mid 70s. I connected with my other cofounder for Onscreen, who was Jerry Norton. He previously had a company that was acquired by GoTo Meeting. So we really have this whole conferencing and communication background and he went through the entire journey with his parents aging, having a really hard time staying connected with them, eventually passing away in a senior living facility, seeing the loneliness, seeing how disconnected they become,” Tuculescu said. “So he’s very passionate about this. I got parents in my mid 70s, and I see how their cognitive aspects are changing, and I know that we’re going to need better tools to support the general population.”

Onscreen can perform a general wellness check, giving a comprehensive assessment of the senior’s health, emotional state, and living conditions to ensure well-being and comfort. Joy can also do a meal and hydration check, confirming whether meals have been eaten and if the user has been drinking enough water.

Joy also encourages physical activity, promoting mobility and overall physical well-being. And it performs a sleep quality, monitoring sleep and rest patterns. And Joy offers gentle reminders to maintain personal hygiene and ensure a safe, secure living environment.

A gaming element

There’s also a gaming part of this. Joy offers memory lane and brain teasers. These are engaging sessions for reminiscing or mental stimulation, promoting positive emotions and cognitive sharpness.

And it has daily jokes and trivia games. These are fun, interactive moments that lift spirits and entertain elders. The patients can also paint. Joy can prompt the user to generate a unique painting, fostering creativity and engagement.

Caregivers and family members can see the paintings their loved ones create in the Onscreen mobile app, save them, and even share them with family and friends.

These new capabilities complement Joy’s initial set of check-in routines that have already started to roll out earlier this year:

Joy can also do a casual check-in focused on providing friendly conversation and company, purely for social connection. And it can do a medication check, where Joy reminds users to take prescribed medication, asking about side effects or challenges and ensuring they stay on schedule.

Lastly, Joy can perform a pain and happiness check. It can check on both physical pain and emotional happiness, asking users to rate their well-being to offer personalized empathy and care.

Availability and pricing

Onscreen Joy is available now on the App Store and Google Play Store. Families can start with a 30-day free trial, allowing them to explore the app’s features and benefits. After the trial, the service is available for a subscription fee of $9.99 per month, offering an affordable way to enhance connection, companionship and care for senior loved ones.

A trusted senior care technology partner

Onscreen has established itself as a trusted name in senior care technology by creating solutions that address the unique challenges faced by older adults and their families. The
company’s flagship product, Moment, a TV-based senior care device, along with the
companion Onscreen Family app for caregivers, leverages the familiarity and comfort of
the TV to provide AI-powered companionship, reminders, seamless video calling with loved
ones, live Zoom classes, and even the ability to provide TV tech support from anywhere.

Recognized for its innovative approach, Onscreen has earned accolades such as the CES 2024 CES AARP AgeTech After Dark Pitch Competition win and selection into the AARP AgeTech Collaborative Accelerator. These achievements highlight Onscreen’s ongoing commitment to addressing the challenges of the growing aging population and improving quality of life for seniors.

Beyond senior care, Onscreen’s technology has also demonstrated its potential to serve diverse markets. As one of four finalist companies selected for the CTA Foundation’s Digital Health Innovation Challenge, Onscreen is adapting its AI-driven solutions to improve accessibility and wellness for working-age adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This recognition underscores the flexibility and scalability of Onscreen’s platform to address a variety of unique needs across different demographics.

Safe and trustworthy AI models

Costin Tuculescu is CEO of Onscreen, which helps seniors with an AI companion.

Tuculescu said he understands that trust is one of the most, if not THE most, important issue for its customers and partners. That’s why Joy’s AI operates on highly secure and vetted models, ensuring safety at every step.

Joy filters out harmful content and uses techniques like Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) to ensure responses are accurate, reliable, and aligned with trusted policies.

Powered by OpenAI’s latest models, Joy leverages cutting-edge methods to prevent security vulnerabilities, making it safe for home and senior care environments.

A vision for the future of AI in senior care

These innovations are just the beginning of using AI for senior care, Tuculescu said.

The company is working to enable Joy to provide 24/7 companionship and support for elders both at home and in senior living communities.

With the silver tsunami approaching, these solutions are more critical than ever, Tuculescu said.

In addition to emotional support, Joy’s check-ins provide practical assistance to help older adults maintain healthy routines. From reminding them to take medications and stay hydrated to checking in on sleep quality, safety, and hygiene, Joy ensures that older adults are receiving gentle reminders to stay well while promoting independence. With Joy, older adults can enjoy companionship and care in a seamless, unobtrusive way, improving their day-to-day quality of life.

How Joy benefits family caregivers

Family caregivers can stay more connected and engaged with their loved ones’ well-being through the updated Onscreen mobile apps. These apps now feature a Companion Tab, which allows caregivers to view Joy’s interactions with their loved ones at a glance.

With just one tap, they can see the results of daily health check-ins, medication reminders, and hydration prompts, ensuring their loved ones are maintaining healthy routines. The app also captures moments of creativity and joy, such as paintings generated during interactive sessions, which caregivers can save and share with family members, creating a more connected and engaged caregiving experience.

This easy access to critical information provides caregivers with the peace of mind that they can monitor their loved one’s emotional, physical, and social well-being anytime, no matter where they are. Whether it’s keeping track of meal times, exercise reminders, or simply knowing their loved ones are engaged in meaningful activities, Onscreen’s mobile app empowers caregivers to stay involved in the daily lives of their family members conveniently and compassionately.

How Joy can benefit enterprises

For Enterprise customers—including senior living communities, home care agencies, and healthcare providers—Onscreen’s Enterprise Manager dashboard offers advanced functionality for managing a large number of devices and users.

The dashboard provides detailed insights into health check-ins, wellness metrics, and other data gathered through Joy’s AI interactions, enabling care organizations to deliver personalized and efficient care at scale. With tools to monitor multiple users and devices, the Enterprise Manager dashboard is a powerful solution for organizations looking to enhance care delivery and improve outcomes for seniors in their care.

Onscreen also offers Onscreen Live, which helps older adults participate in live online classes and events from the comfort of their TV. This innovative solution is made possible through new partnerships with The Loop Village and Discover Live, bringing a diverse range of interactive activities directly to the living rooms of older adults.

With Onscreen Live, it is possible to access live and interactive classes and content directly from the TV. Onscreen’s integrated camera and microphone now makes it seamless to fully participate in these live activities for seniors, allowing a fully engaging and interactive experience for older adults that may traditionally struggle to get technology working.

The Onscreen Live offering is an add-on to a user’s existing Onscreen subscription. Customers can choose to subscribe to either provider – The Loop Village or Discover Live, for a flat monthly fee of $50.

Onscreen has participated in the AgeTech Collaborative accelerator program, an eight-week program designed to elevate promising early-stage AgeTech startups. Onscreen also has an application programming interface (API) and an enterprise-grade device management portal.

The API gives Onscreen partners the ability to seamlessly integrate their services with Onscreen’s innovative TV-based video calling platform.

Shape
Shape
Stay Ahead

Explore More Insights

Stay ahead with more perspectives on cutting-edge power, infrastructure, energy,  bitcoin and AI solutions. Explore these articles to uncover strategies and insights shaping the future of industries.

Shape

JPMorgan launches carbon market blockchain app

Dive Brief: JPMorgan Chase is working to allow voluntary carbon markets to issue blockchain tokens at the registry level that represent ownership of carbon credits, permitting market participants to issue, transfer and retire credits, the bank announced Wednesday. JPMorgan is currently exploring testing processes with carbon registries from S&P Global

Read More »

IBM Power11 challenges x86 and GPU giants with security-first server strategy

The IBM Power Cyber Vault solution is designed to provide protection against cyberattacks such as data corruption and encryption with proactive immutable snapshots that are automatically captured, stored, and tested on a custom-defined schedule, IBM said. Power11 also uses NIST-approved built-in quantum-safe cryptography designed to help protect systems from harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks

Read More »

Trump seeks tighter restrictions on wind and solar with executive order

Dive Brief: President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to publish guidance within 45 days “to ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented” by wind and solar projects that saw their eligibility for the 45Y and 48E clean energy tax credits slashed by budget legislation signed into law on July 4. “It is unclear how the Treasury will amend the ‘beginning of construction’ language while also keeping in mind that a ‘substantial portion of the subject facility has been built,’” Jefferies analysts said in a Tuesday note. This “could be an attempt to pivot back to the House version of the OBBB which had narrowed credit eligibility with ‘begin construction’ AND ‘placed in service’ language.” Prior to the EO, clean energy advocates were already grappling with the anticipated impacts of the legislation, which is expected to slash capital investment in U.S. electricity and clean fuels production by around $500 billion over the next ten years, according to a report from the REPEAT Project. Dive Insight: The executive order appears to make good on a deal Trump reportedly struck with the Freedom Caucus, in which he promised to use his executive powers to further curtail federal subsidies on wind, solar and EVs in exchange for their support, which was necessary to secure the bill’s passage in the House. The order also instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to “implement the enhanced Foreign Entity of Concern restrictions in the law” and “revise any identified regulations, guidance, policies, and practices […] to eliminate any such preferences for wind and solar facilities.” Even before the executive order, the bill’s introduction of tight eligibility standards for projects in development was expected to lead to uncertainty around capital investment. Wind and solar projects must start construction within

Read More »

PHMSA grants work for America. Let’s keep them funded.

Dave Schryver is president and CEO of the American Public Gas Association. Turning on the stove to cook dinner is often second nature — less often do we think about the natural gas system that keeps our homes and businesses running. Yet, every day, public gas utilities across the country are investing in modern energy infrastructure to enhance safety, improve efficiency and keep energy costs low for consumers. A federal grant program that has recently helped accelerate these upgrades is in jeopardy of not being renewed. Created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization (NGDISM) grant program invests $200 million annually, totaling $1 billion over five years in funding for municipal and community-owned utilities seeking to repair or replace natural gas pipeline systems. These grants are at risk of losing funding beyond 2026, despite their instrumental role in strengthening communities, creating well-paying jobs, lowering energy costs and reducing emissions. Hundreds of communities across 29 states have already seen firsthand the value of PHMSA grants. Consider rural Montgomery, Louisiana, where a $1 million grant funding the replacement of five regulator stations created many local jobs. Likewise, in urban Knoxville, Tennessee, a $5 million investment to upgrade 16 miles of aging steel main added 106 jobs. From small towns to major cities, these projects are putting people to work, modernizing infrastructure and delivering long-term value — with nearly 2,900 jobs supported by projects initiated in 2024 alone. The program has also earned the support of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, which recognizes PHMSA grants as a vital source of stable job opportunities for its members. With more than 7 million Americans currently unemployed, we can’t afford to lose these opportunities. But this is just

Read More »

Who Is The Biggest Renewable Energy Generator?

The country that generated the most renewable energy in 2024 was China, according to the Energy Institute’s (EI) 2025 statistical review of world energy, which was released recently. China’s renewable energy generation last year came in at 3,398.8 terawatt hours (TH), the review showed. This comprised 997.0 TH from wind energy, 839.0 TH from solar energy, 1,354.3 TH from hydro energy, and 208.5 TH from “other renewables” the review outlined. The country’s renewable energy generation grew by 17.1 percent year on year, the review pointed out. China’s wind energy generation rose 12.2 percent, its solar energy generation grew 43.2 percent, its hydro energy generation grew 10.2 percent, and its “other renewables” energy generation grew 4.9 percent, year on year, the review showed. The country that generated the second most renewable energy last year was the U.S., with 1,068.7 TH, according to the EI’s review. This generation comprised 458.0 TH from wind energy, 306.2 TH from solar energy, 238.7 TH from hydro energy, and 65.7 TH from “other renewables”, the review showed. U.S. renewable energy generation grew 9.3 percent from 2023 to 2024, the review highlighted. The country’s wind energy generation rose by 7.4 percent, its solar energy generation grew 26.5 percent, its hydro energy generation decreased by 1.4 percent, and its “other renewables” energy generation dropped by 2.1 percent, year on year, the review outlined. Brazil ranked third in terms of renewable energy generation in 2024, with 651.3 TH, according to the review, which showed that this this total comprised 108.5 TH from wind energy, 71.3 TH from solar energy, 413.2 TH from hydro energy, and 58.2 TH from “other renewables”. Brazil’s renewable energy generation has grown 3.1 percent year on year, the review showed. The country’s wind energy generation increased by 12.9 percent, its solar energy generation grew 40.5

Read More »

US DOE Expands Hydropower Partnership with Norway

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has extended its collaboration with Norway’s Royal Ministry of Energy on water power research and development. The extension builds on the previously signed memorandum of understanding under which the two countries planned and coordinated activities. The DOE said in a media release the cooperation aims to reduce energy costs and strengthen grid reliability and security.   “Strong partnerships drive innovation, and innovation strengthens America’s energy future”, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said. “Hydropower is a tremendous resource – one that supports reliable, affordable power across the country and holds vast potential to bolster America’s grid. “By signing this Memorandum of Understanding with Norway, we are building upon our two nations’ shared expertise and advanced marine energy technologies to support President Trump’s pro-growth energy agenda for the American people”. “Hydropower and marine energy have the potential to reduce energy costs and improve the resilience of our electric grid”, Lou Hrkman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, added. “Our collaboration with Norway – another country that is rich in water power resources – will help us expand our generation capacity, upgrade existing facilities, and cultivate the technical expertise we need to make the most of these opportunities”. In 2020, the DOE and Norway’s Royal Ministry of Energy signed a five-year MOU Annex, under which the DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office would conduct hydropower research and development with the Norwegian Research Centre for Hydropower Technology, the DOE said. The current MOU Annex broadens this collaboration to include marine energy, which could supply locally sourced power to millions of Americans in densely populated areas, the DOE said. Through the extended MOU, both parties will share key information, tools, and technologies aimed at lowering barriers to developing, testing, and advancing marine energy and new hydropower solutions. To contact

Read More »

US DOI Proposes Easing Regulations on Onshore Commingled Production

The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is proposing updates to land regulations to promote combined production from multiple leases, saying the practice “reduces environmental impacts, lowers operating costs and increases overall efficiency”. The proposed changes to the Bureau of Land Management oil and gas regulations “will implement the One Big Beautiful Bill’s directive to the Secretary of the Interior to approve onshore commingling applications”, the DOI said in an online statement. Commingling is currently restricted to license areas that have “identical mineral ownership, royalty rates and revenue distribution”, the DOI said. “These requirements create unnecessary barriers in many areas of the West where mineral ownership is complex and varied. “The proposed changes would allow commingling even when these conditions differ, unlocking energy potential that is currently tied up in regulatory red tape”. “Thanks to major advancements in metering and measurement technologies, operators can now accurately track production and allocate royalties even at the individual wellhead”, the DOI added. “These technologies meet the precision standards required by the Bureau of Land Management and ensure that all mineral owners receive their fair share”. It estimates up to $1.8 billion in industry savings annually under the updated regulations. “Those savings would give operators the ability to reinvest in new energy production, helping drive domestic energy development while reducing the need for duplicative infrastructure”, the DOI said. “This rule would also allow for greater flexibility in how production is combined and measured, which will not only increase efficiency but also reduce surface disturbance, benefiting both industry and the environment”. “The Bureau of Land Management intends to move quickly to update the relevant regulations under 43 CFR Subpart 3173, with a formal rulemaking process to follow, including opportunities for public comment”, the DOI said. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum commented, “This is about common

Read More »

Strathcona Closes Montney Assets Sale, Becomes Pure-Play Heavy Oil Firm

Strathcona Resources Ltd. has closed its Montney asset sale in Western Canada, consisting of Groundbirch, Kakwa, and Grande Prairie assets, for a total value of approximately $2.09 billion (CAD 2.86 billion), including closing adjustments. Strathcona said it is now a pure-play heavy oil company producing approximately 120 million barrels per day (MMbpd) with a 50-year 2P reserve life index. The company has plans to grow to 195 MMbpd by 2031, according to a news release. After deducting all debt, Strathcona said it currently has approximately CAD 200 million in positive net cash and marketable securities, inclusive of approximately 4.6 million shares in Tourmaline Oil Corp. and 23.4 million shares in MEG Energy Corp. ARC Resources Ltd. acquired the condensate-rich Montney assets in Alberta’s Kakwa in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately CAD 1.6 billion. The assets are “underpinned by a substantial drilling inventory and include owned and operated infrastructure, reinforcing ARC’s position as Canada’s largest Montney and condensate producer,” the company said in a separate statement. For the remainder of 2025, the assets are expected to deliver average production between 35,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), consisting of approximately 50 percent crude oil and liquids and 50 percent natural gas, ARC said. The acquisition increases ARC’s Kakwa production 24 percent to over 210,000 boepd and increases the Montney inventory duration at Kakwa from 12 years to over 15 years, according to the statement. The transaction includes 100 percent ownership of two natural gas processing facilities and condensate handling infrastructure. In addition, the assets include a 19 percent interest in a third-party natural gas processing facility with deep-cut natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery, ARC said. ARC said its development plans for the assets will target the Montney, which is approximately 100 percent working interest land. ARC will

Read More »

CoreWeave acquires Core Scientific for $9B to power AI infrastructure push

Such a shift, analysts say, could offer short-term benefits for enterprises, particularly in cost and access, but also introduces new operational risks. “This acquisition may potentially lower enterprise pricing through lease cost elimination and annual savings, while improving GPU access via expanded power capacity, enabling faster deployment of Nvidia chipsets and systems,” said Charlie Dai, VP and principal analyst at Forrester. “However, service reliability risks persist during this crypto-to-AI retrofitting.” This also indicates that struggling vendors such as Core Scientific and similar have a way to cash out, according to Yugal Joshi, partner at Everest Group. “However, it does not materially impact the availability of Nvidia GPUs and similar for enterprises,” Joshi added. “Consolidation does impact the pricing power of vendors.” Concerns for enterprises Rising demand for AI-ready infrastructure can raise concerns among enterprises, particularly over access to power-rich data centers and future capacity constraints. “The biggest concern that CIOs should have with this acquisition is that mature data center infrastructure with dedicated power is an acquisition target,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. “This may turn out to create challenges for CIOs currently collocating data workloads or seeking to keep more of their data loads on private data centers rather than in the cloud.”

Read More »

CoreWeave achieves a first with Nvidia GB300 NVL72 deployment

The deployment, Kimball said, “brings Dell quality to the commodity space. Wins like this really validate what Dell has been doing in reshaping its portfolio to accommodate the needs of the market — both in the cloud and the enterprise.” Although concerns were voiced last year that Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell data center processors had significant overheating problems when they were installed in high-capacity server racks, he said that a repeat performance is unlikely. Nvidia, said Kimball “has been very disciplined in its approach with its GPUs and not shipping silicon until it is ready. And Dell almost doubles down on this maniacal quality focus. I don’t mean to sound like I have blind faith, but I’ve watched both companies over the last several years be intentional in delivering product in volume. Especially as the competitive market starts to shape up more strongly, I expect there is an extremely high degree of confidence in quality.” CoreWeave ‘has one purpose’ He said, “like Lambda Labs, Crusoe and others, [CoreWeave] seemingly has one purpose (for now): deliver GPU capacity to the market. While I expect these cloud providers will expand in services, I think for now the type of customer employing services is on the early adopter side of AI. From an enterprise perspective, I have to think that organizations well into their AI journey are the consumers of CoreWeave.”  “CoreWeave is also being utilized by a lot of the model providers and tech vendors playing in the AI space,” Kimball pointed out. “For instance, it’s public knowledge that Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, IBM and others use CoreWeave GPUs for model training and more. It makes sense. These are the customers that truly benefit from the performance lift that we see from generation to generation.”

Read More »

Oracle to power OpenAI’s AGI ambitions with 4.5GW expansion

“For CIOs, this shift means more competition for AI infrastructure. Over the next 12–24 months, securing capacity for AI workloads will likely get harder, not easier. Though cost is coming down but demand is increasing as well, due to which CIOs must plan earlier and build stronger partnerships to ensure availability,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO at EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting. He added that CIOs should expect longer wait times for AI infrastructure. To mitigate this, they should lock in capacity through reserved instances, diversify across regions and cloud providers, and work with vendors to align on long-term demand forecasts.  “Enterprises stand to benefit from more efficient and cost-effective AI infrastructure tailored to specialized AI workloads, significantly lower their overall future AI-related investments and expenses. Consequently, CIOs face a critical task: to analyze and predict the diverse AI workloads that will prevail across their organizations, business units, functions, and employee personas in the future. This foresight will be crucial in prioritizing and optimizing AI workloads for either in-house deployment or outsourced infrastructure, ensuring strategic and efficient resource allocation,” said Neil Shah, vice president at Counterpoint Research. Strategic pivot toward AI data centers The OpenAI-Oracle deal comes in stark contrast to developments earlier this year. In April, AWS was reported to be scaling back its plans for leasing new colocation capacity — a move that AWS Vice President for global data centers Kevin Miller described as routine capacity management, not a shift in long-term expansion plans. Still, these announcements raised questions around whether the hyperscale data center boom was beginning to plateau. “This isn’t a slowdown, it’s a strategic pivot. The era of building generic data center capacity is over. The new global imperative is a race for specialized, high-density, AI-ready compute. Hyperscalers are not slowing down; they are reallocating their capital to

Read More »

Arista Buys VeloCloud to reboot SD-WANs amid AI infrastructure shift

What this doesn’t answer is how Arista Networks plans to add newer, security-oriented Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) capabilities to VeloCloud’s older SD-WAN technology. Post-acquisition, it still has only some of the building blocks necessary to achieve this. Mapping AI However, in 2025 there is always more going on with networking acquisitions than simply adding another brick to the wall, and in this case it’s the way AI is changing data flows across networks. “In the new AI era, the concepts of what comprises a user and a site in a WAN have changed fundamentally. The introduction of agentic AI even changes what might be considered a user,” wrote Arista Networks CEO, Jayshree Ullal, in a blog highlighting AI’s effect on WAN architectures. “In addition to people accessing data on demand, new AI agents will be deployed to access data independently, adapting over time to solve problems and enhance user productivity,” she said. Specifically, WANs needed modernization to cope with the effect AI traffic flows are having on data center traffic. Sanjay Uppal, now VP and general manager of the new VeloCloud Division at Arista Networks, elaborated. “The next step in SD-WAN is to identify, secure and optimize agentic AI traffic across that distributed enterprise, this time from all end points across to branches, campus sites, and the different data center locations, both public and private,” he wrote. “The best way to grab this opportunity was in partnership with a networking systems leader, as customers were increasingly looking for a comprehensive solution from LAN/Campus across the WAN to the data center.”

Read More »

Data center capacity continues to shift to hyperscalers

However, even though colocation and on-premises data centers will continue to lose share, they will still continue to grow. They just won’t be growing as fast as hyperscalers. So, it creates the illusion of shrinkage when it’s actually just slower growth. In fact, after a sustained period of essentially no growth, on-premises data center capacity is receiving a boost thanks to genAI applications and GPU infrastructure. “While most enterprise workloads are gravitating towards cloud providers or to off-premise colo facilities, a substantial subset are staying on-premise, driving a substantial increase in enterprise GPU servers,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.

Read More »

Oracle inks $30 billion cloud deal, continuing its strong push into AI infrastructure.

He pointed out that, in addition to its continued growth, OCI has a remaining performance obligation (RPO) — total future revenue expected from contracts not yet reported as revenue — of $138 billion, a 41% increase, year over year. The company is benefiting from the immense demand for cloud computing largely driven by AI models. While traditionally an enterprise resource planning (ERP) company, Oracle launched OCI in 2016 and has been strategically investing in AI and data center infrastructure that can support gigawatts of capacity. Notably, it is a partner in the $500 billion SoftBank-backed Stargate project, along with OpenAI, Arm, Microsoft, and Nvidia, that will build out data center infrastructure in the US. Along with that, the company is reportedly spending about $40 billion on Nvidia chips for a massive new data center in Abilene, Texas, that will serve as Stargate’s first location in the country. Further, the company has signaled its plans to significantly increase its investment in Abu Dhabi to grow out its cloud and AI offerings in the UAE; has partnered with IBM to advance agentic AI; has launched more than 50 genAI use cases with Cohere; and is a key provider for ByteDance, which has said it plans to invest $20 billion in global cloud infrastructure this year, notably in Johor, Malaysia. Ellison’s plan: dominate the cloud world CTO and co-founder Larry Ellison announced in a recent earnings call Oracle’s intent to become No. 1 in cloud databases, cloud applications, and the construction and operation of cloud data centers. He said Oracle is uniquely positioned because it has so much enterprise data stored in its databases. He also highlighted the company’s flexible multi-cloud strategy and said that the latest version of its database, Oracle 23ai, is specifically tailored to the needs of AI workloads. Oracle

Read More »

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.

Read More »

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

Read More »

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

Read More »

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

Read More »