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The Download: a conversation with Karen Hao, and how did life begin?

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. Inside OpenAI’s empire: A conversation with Karen Hao In a wide-ranging Roundtables conversation for MIT Technology Review subscribers, journalist and author Karen Hao recently spoke about her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.She talked with executive editor Niall Firth about how she first covered the company in 2020 while on staff at MIT Technology Review. They discussed how the AI industry now functions like an empire and went on to examine what ethically-made AI looks like.Read the transcript of the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed. And, if you’re already a subscriber, you can watch the on-demand recording of the event here.  MIT Technology Review Narrated: How did life begin? How life begins is one of the biggest and hardest questions in science. All we know is that something happened on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, and it may well have occurred on many other worlds in the universe as well. Could AI help us to unpick the mysteries around the origins of life and detect signs of it on other worlds?This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing 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 xAI’s Grok went on an anti-Semitic rant Days after Elon Musk said new updates would lessen its reliance on mainstream media. (WP $)+ The chatbot started to call itself ‘MechaHitler.’ (WSJ $)+ What Grok’s neo-Nazi turn tells us about xAI. (The Atlantic $) 2 Musk loyalists are fighting to keep DOGE runningAs officials seek to diminish the department’s role. (WSJ $)+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review) 3 An imposter used AI to successfully impersonate Marco RubioThey were able to send voice and text messages to fellow politicians. (WP $)+ It’s not the first time Rubio has been targeted like this. (FT $) 4 Terrorist groups are using AI to recruit and planCounter-terror agencies are struggling to keep up. (The Guardian) 5 How the crypto faithful won over the PresidentThe industry’s successful Trump courtship sparked a lobbying bonanza. (NYT $) 6 Wanted: 115,000 Nvidia chips for China’s data centersBut the US doesn’t seem to know how many restricted chips are already in the country. (Bloomberg $) 7 For startups, protecting companies from AI threats isn’t big businessSmaller firms are only making modest gains—for now. (The Information $)+ Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming. (MIT Technology Review) 8 Inside Zimbabwe’s dangerous EV lithium minesMany residents worry that China is exploiting them. (Rest of World)+ How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies. (MIT Technology Review) 9 ‘The Milk Guy’ is delivering raw dairy around NYCMmm, delicious listeria, salmonella, and E. coli. (NY Mag $)+ RFK Jr barred Democrats from being vaccine advisors. (Ars Technica)+ The Department of Health and Human Services is searching for two new vaccines against deadly viruses. (Undark) 10 Take a look at these beautiful star clustersCourtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. (Ars Technica)+ See the stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “People are going to die.” —Clement Nkubizi, the country director for the nonprofit Action Against Hunger in South Sudan, tells Wired that their food stock is running critically low in the wake of USAID cuts. One more thing The world is moving closer to a new cold war fought with authoritarian techDespite President Biden’s assurances that the US is not seeking a new cold war, one is brewing between the world’s autocracies and democracies—and technology is fueling it.Authoritarian states are following China’s lead and are trending toward more digital rights abuses by increasing the mass digital surveillance of citizens, censorship, and controls on individual expression.And while democracies also use massive amounts of surveillance technology, it’s the tech trade relationships between authoritarian countries that’s enabling the rise of digitally enabled social control. Read the full story.

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.

Inside OpenAI’s empire: A conversation with Karen Hao

In a wide-ranging Roundtables conversation for MIT Technology Review subscribers, journalist and author Karen Hao recently spoke about her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.

She talked with executive editor Niall Firth about how she first covered the company in 2020 while on staff at MIT Technology Review. They discussed how the AI industry now functions like an empire and went on to examine what ethically-made AI looks like.

Read the transcript of the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed. And, if you’re already a subscriber, you can watch the on-demand recording of the event here

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How did life begin?

How life begins is one of the biggest and hardest questions in science. All we know is that something happened on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, and it may well have occurred on many other worlds in the universe as well. Could AI help us to unpick the mysteries around the origins of life and detect signs of it on other worlds?

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which 
we’re publishing 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 xAI’s Grok went on an anti-Semitic rant 
Days after Elon Musk said new updates would lessen its reliance on mainstream media. (WP $)
+ The chatbot started to call itself ‘MechaHitler.’ (WSJ $)
+ What Grok’s neo-Nazi turn tells us about xAI. (The Atlantic $)

2 Musk loyalists are fighting to keep DOGE running
As officials seek to diminish the department’s role. (WSJ $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)

3 An imposter used AI to successfully impersonate Marco Rubio
They were able to send voice and text messages to fellow politicians. (WP $)
+ It’s not the first time Rubio has been targeted like this. (FT $)

4 Terrorist groups are using AI to recruit and plan
Counter-terror agencies are struggling to keep up. (The Guardian)

5 How the crypto faithful won over the President
The industry’s successful Trump courtship sparked a lobbying bonanza. (NYT $)

6 Wanted: 115,000 Nvidia chips for China’s data centers
But the US doesn’t seem to know how many restricted chips are already in the country. (Bloomberg $)

7 For startups, protecting companies from AI threats isn’t big business
Smaller firms are only making modest gains—for now. (The Information $)
+ Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Inside Zimbabwe’s dangerous EV lithium mines
Many residents worry that China is exploiting them. (Rest of World)
+ How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies. (MIT Technology Review)

9 ‘The Milk Guy’ is delivering raw dairy around NYC
Mmm, delicious listeria, salmonella, and E. coli. (NY Mag $)
+ RFK Jr barred Democrats from being vaccine advisors. (Ars Technica)
+ The Department of Health and Human Services is searching for two new vaccines against deadly viruses. (Undark)

10 Take a look at these beautiful star clusters
Courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. (Ars Technica)
+ See the stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“People are going to die.”

—Clement Nkubizi, the country director for the nonprofit Action Against Hunger in South Sudan, tells Wired that their food stock is running critically low in the wake of USAID cuts.

One more thing

The world is moving closer to a new cold war fought with authoritarian tech

Despite President Biden’s assurances that the US is not seeking a new cold war, one is brewing between the world’s autocracies and democracies—and technology is fueling it.

Authoritarian states are following China’s lead and are trending toward more digital rights abuses by increasing the mass digital surveillance of citizens, censorship, and controls on individual expression.

And while democracies also use massive amounts of surveillance technology, it’s the tech trade relationships between authoritarian countries that’s enabling the rise of digitally enabled social control. Read the full story.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Delfin Midstream Moves Closer to FID for LNG Export Project in Louisiana

Delfin Midstream Inc. is moving closer to a positive final investment decision (FID) for its deepwater port project in Louisiana with the signing of two agreements. Delfin entered into an agreement with Siemens Energy Inc. to reserve manufacturing capacity for four SGT-750 gas turbine mechanical drive packages, the company said in a news release. The equipment will be used to drive the mixed-refrigerant compressors for Delfin’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction system. Delfin said it also agreed to an Early Works program with Samsung Heavy Industries and Black & Veatch Inc. to further detail floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) vessel design specifications as the basis for the lump-sum, turn-key engineering, procurement, construction, and integration (EPCI) contract and to prepare both contractors for the execution of the project. Financial terms of the contracts were not disclosed. The work will de-risk project execution and ensure both contractors are prepared for immediate project execution following a positive FID, expected in the fall of 2025, Delfin said. Delfin CEO Dudley Poston said, “This is an incredibly exciting time for the development of Delfin’s critical energy infrastructure project. Following the successful issuance of the deepwater port license by MARAD, all workstreams are on schedule and the project is currently on track for FID in the fall of 2025. By making this large investment to lock-in critical manufacturing capacity, we have secured our execution schedule with the anticipated delivery of our first FLNG vessel from Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in 2029”. Siemens Energy executive board member Karim Amin said, “Siemens Energy is excited to support Delfin’s energy infrastructure project by providing the critical Gas Turbine Mechanical Drive packages the Company needs as it moves towards delivering the first offshore LNG project in the United States. The modular design, high power-to-weight ratio and ability to operate under

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Executives Reveal Where They See Henry Hub Price Landing in Future

Executives from oil and gas firms have revealed where they expect the Henry Hub natural gas price to be at various points in the future in the second quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which was released recently. The survey asked participants what they expect Henry Hub natural gas prices to be in six months, one year, two years, and five years. Executives from 116 oil and gas firms answered this question and gave a mean response of $3.66 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) for the six month mark, $3.81 per MMBtu for the one year mark, $4.12 per MMBtu for the two year mark, and $4.50 per MMBtu for the five year mark, the survey showed. Executives from 117 oil and gas firms answered this question in the first quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey and gave a mean response of $3.71 per MMBtu for the six month mark, $3.98 per MMBtu for the year mark, $4.30 per MMBtu for the two year mark, and $4.83 per MMBtu for the five year mark, that survey showed. The second quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey also asked participants what they expect the Henry Hub price to be at the end of this year. Executives from 133 oil and gas firms answered this question and gave an average response of $3.66 per MMBtu, the survey highlighted. The low forecast was $1.75 per MMBtu, the high forecast was $5 per MMBtu, and the average Henry Hub natural gas daily spot price during the survey was $3.30 per MMBtu, the survey pointed out. Executives from 127 oil and gas firms answered this question in the first quarter Dallas Fed Energy Survey and gave an average response of $3.78 per MMBtu, that survey showed. The low forecast came in at $2 per MMBtu, the high forecast

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Trican to Acquire Tubing Services Firm Iron Horse

Calgary, Alberta-based Trican Well Service Ltd. said it has entered into an agreement to acquire privately owned fracturing and coiled tubing services provider Iron Horse Energy Services, which operates primarily in the Cardium, Charlie Lake, Mannville Stack, Viking, Montney and Shaunavon plays in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB). Trican aims to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Iron Horse for approximately $56.6 million (CAD 77.35 million) in cash and approximately 33.76 million common shares of Trican, the company said in a news release. Iron Horse “extends Trican’s fracturing footprint and adds industry-leading coiled tubing integrated fracturing expertise,” according to the release. The acquisition will add over four fracturing spreads and 10 coiled tubing units, which will augment Trican’s services offering throughout the WCSB across the drilling, completion, and production lifecycles, the company said. Following the acquisition, Iron Horse will operate as a wholly owned division of Trican, continuing to serve its existing customers while increasing its footprint with the support of Trican’s resources. Trican said it expects to retain all of the existing management and employees of Iron Horse. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half. Iron Horse Chairman and CEO Tom Coolen will be appointed to the board of directors of Trican after closing, according to the release. Other than Competition Act Approval, and TSX listing approval of the common shares of Trican to be issued pursuant to the Acquisition, no approval, order, consent of or filing with any government agency is required on the part of Iron Horse or Trican, in connection with the completion of the acquisition, Trican said. “Iron Horse is one of [the] few North American fracturing companies that has consistently demonstrated operational and financial performance that aligns with Trican. The acquisition will provide significant EBITDA, free cash

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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.”

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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.”

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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

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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.”

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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.

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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

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Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs).  In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

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John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

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2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

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OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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