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The Download: a new home under the sea, and cloning pets

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. The first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain. But you can’t just fire up Vanguard’s engine and roll off the lot. Once it is sealed and moved to its permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, Vanguard will be the world’s first new subsea habitat in nearly four decades.Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week at a time, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Read our story about some of their potential missions. —Mark Harris Cloning isn’t just for celebrity pets like Tom Brady’s dog This week, we heard that Tom Brady had his dog cloned. The former quarterback revealed that his Junie is actually a clone of Lua, a pit bull mix that died in 2023. Brady’s announcement follows those of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Barbra Streisand, who also famously cloned their pet dogs. But some believe there are better ways to make use of cloning technologies, such as diversifying the genetic pools of inbred species, or potentially bringing other animals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou 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. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 OpenAI is facing a wave of new lawsuits The cases concern wrongful death complaints, and claims ChatGPT caused mental breakdowns. (NYT $)+ One family claims ChatGPT “goaded” their son into taking his own life. (CNN)+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review) 2 Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay packageMore than 75% of voters backed it. (WSJ $)+ Musk had hinted he’d leave Tesla if the deal wasn’t greenlit. (Axios)+ Tesla has to hit its ambitious targets before he can get his hands on the cash. (Wired $)3 The EU is poised to water down the AI actAfter pressure from Big Tech and the US government. (FT $)+ While the legislation was passed last year, many provisions haven’t kicked in yet. (Reuters) 4 Meta is earning a colossal amount of money from scam adsThey accounted for 10% of its revenue last year. (Reuters)+ Meta claims it “aggressively” addresses scam ads on its platform. (CNBC) 5 The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is pivoting to AIIt’s shifting its philanthropic focus from social justice programs to curing disease. (WP $)+ To achieve its goals, the charity will need extra computing power. (NYT $) 6 Unesco has adopted global standards on neurotechnologyExperts were increasingly concerned that a lack of guardrails could give rise to unethical practices. (The Guardian)+ Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces. (MIT Technology Review) 7 Benchmarks hugely oversell AI performanceA new study questions their reliability and the validity of their results. (NBC News)+ How to build a better AI benchmark. (MIT Technology Review) 8 Kim Kardashian blames ChatGPT for failing her law examsIt’s almost like she shouldn’t have been consulting it for legal expertise in the first place. (Hollywood Reporter)+ AI and social media is worsening brain rot. (NYT $)+ How AI is introducing errors into courtrooms. (MIT Technology Review) 9 Hyundai is using robot dogs to inspect its EV production lineAnd they may soon be joined by a bipedal master. (IEEE Spectrum) 10 Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed yet againThe highly anticipated video game has big, big shoes to fill. (Bloomberg $)+ It’ll land a full 13 years after its previous incarnation—or will it? (BBC) Quote of the day “This is what oligarchy looks like.” —Senator Bernie Sanders reacts to Tesla shareholders’ decision to award Elon Musk a $1 trillion pay package in a post on X. One more thing Finding forgotten Indigenous landscapes with electromagnetic technology The fertile river valleys of the American Midwest hide tens of thousands of Indigenous earthworks, according to experts: geometric structures consisting of walls, mounds, ditches, and berms, some dating back nearly 3,000 years.Archaeologists now believe that the earthworks functioned as religious gathering places, tombs for culturally important clans, and annual calendars, perhaps all at the same time. They can take the form of giant circles and squares, cloverleafs and octagons, complex S-curves and simple mounds.Until recently, it seemed as if much of the continent’s pre-European archaeological heritage had been carelessly wiped out, uprooted, and lost for good. But traces remain: electromagnetic remnants in the soil that can be detected using specialty surveying equipment. And archaeologists and tribal historians are working together to uncover them. Read the full story. —Geoff Manaugh 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 or skeet ’em at me.) + If you’re a wildlife fan, take a look at this compilation of the best places to catch a glimpse of unusual animals.+ El Salvador’s annual fireball festival is a completely unhinged celebration of all things volcanic.+ The most influential Bostonians of 2025 have been announced.+ Get me in a potato bed, stat.

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.

The first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch

Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain.

But you can’t just fire up Vanguard’s engine and roll off the lot. Once it is sealed and moved to its permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, Vanguard will be the world’s first new subsea habitat in nearly four decades.

Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week at a time, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Read our story about some of their potential missions.

—Mark Harris

Cloning isn’t just for celebrity pets like Tom Brady’s dog

This week, we heard that Tom Brady had his dog cloned. The former quarterback revealed that his Junie is actually a clone of Lua, a pit bull mix that died in 2023.

Brady’s announcement follows those of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Barbra Streisand, who also famously cloned their pet dogs. But some believe there are better ways to make use of cloning technologies, such as diversifying the genetic pools of inbred species, or potentially bringing other animals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

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.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI is facing a wave of new lawsuits 
The cases concern wrongful death complaints, and claims ChatGPT caused mental breakdowns. (NYT $)
+ One family claims ChatGPT “goaded” their son into taking his own life. (CNN)
+ The looming crackdown on AI companionship. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package
More than 75% of voters backed it. (WSJ $)
+ Musk had hinted he’d leave Tesla if the deal wasn’t greenlit. (Axios)
+ Tesla has to hit its ambitious targets before he can get his hands on the cash. (Wired $)

3 The EU is poised to water down the AI act
After pressure from Big Tech and the US government. (FT $)
+ While the legislation was passed last year, many provisions haven’t kicked in yet. (Reuters)

4 Meta is earning a colossal amount of money from scam ads
They accounted for 10% of its revenue last year. (Reuters)
+ Meta claims it “aggressively” addresses scam ads on its platform. (CNBC)

5 The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is pivoting to AI
It’s shifting its philanthropic focus from social justice programs to curing disease. (WP $)
+ To achieve its goals, the charity will need extra computing power. (NYT $)

6 Unesco has adopted global standards on neurotechnology
Experts were increasingly concerned that a lack of guardrails could give rise to unethical practices. (The Guardian)
+ Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Benchmarks hugely oversell AI performance
A new study questions their reliability and the validity of their results. (NBC News)
+ How to build a better AI benchmark. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Kim Kardashian blames ChatGPT for failing her law exams
It’s almost like she shouldn’t have been consulting it for legal expertise in the first place. (Hollywood Reporter)
+ AI and social media is worsening brain rot. (NYT $)
+ How AI is introducing errors into courtrooms. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Hyundai is using robot dogs to inspect its EV production line
And they may soon be joined by a bipedal master. (IEEE Spectrum)

10 Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed yet again
The highly anticipated video game has big, big shoes to fill. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’ll land a full 13 years after its previous incarnation—or will it? (BBC)

Quote of the day

“This is what oligarchy looks like.”

—Senator Bernie Sanders reacts to Tesla shareholders’ decision to award Elon Musk a $1 trillion pay package in a post on X.

One more thing

Finding forgotten Indigenous landscapes with electromagnetic technology

The fertile river valleys of the American Midwest hide tens of thousands of Indigenous earthworks, according to experts: geometric structures consisting of walls, mounds, ditches, and berms, some dating back nearly 3,000 years.

Archaeologists now believe that the earthworks functioned as religious gathering places, tombs for culturally important clans, and annual calendars, perhaps all at the same time. They can take the form of giant circles and squares, cloverleafs and octagons, complex S-curves and simple mounds.

Until recently, it seemed as if much of the continent’s pre-European archaeological heritage had been carelessly wiped out, uprooted, and lost for good. But traces remain: electromagnetic remnants in the soil that can be detected using specialty surveying equipment. And archaeologists and tribal historians are working together to uncover them. Read the full story.

—Geoff Manaugh

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 or skeet ’em at me.)

+ If you’re a wildlife fan, take a look at this compilation of the best places to catch a glimpse of unusual animals.
+ El Salvador’s annual fireball festival is a completely unhinged celebration of all things volcanic.
+ The most influential Bostonians of 2025 have been announced.
+ Get me in a potato bed, stat.

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Aker BP, DNO Swap Norwegian Offshore Assets

DNO ASA and Aker BP ASA have signed agreements to recalibrate their exploration and production ownerships in the Norwegian continental shelf, including the Kjottkake discovery. Aker BP will assume operatorship of Kjottkake until the start of production, after which DNO will resume operatorship, according to online statements by the companies on Thursday. The move allows for faster development, with production now targeted for the first quarter of 2028, the companies said. Fornebu, Norway-based Aker BP “will draw on its alliance with suppliers and its equipment inventory to deliver the project on time”, DNO said. “Three years from discovery to production is a standout on the Norwegian continental shelf, where such tie-backs typically take at least twice as long to complete”, DNO said. DNO discovered Kjottkake earlier this year in the northern North Sea under Production License 1182 S (PL 1182 S). “The discovery was made in Paleocene injectite sandstones of excellent reservoir quality with preliminary estimates of gross recoverable resources in the range of 39 to 75 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe), with a mean of 55 MMboe”, DNO said in a press release March 26. “The Kjottkake exploration well encountered a 41-meter oil column and a nine-meter gas column. A sidetrack drilled horizontally 1,350 meters westwards along the reservoir in the Sotra Formation confirmed the presence of the oil column throughout the discovery”. Kjottkake sits 27 kilometers (16.78 miles) northwest of the Troll C platform and 44 kilometers southwest of the Gjoa platform, according to DNO. Under the swap agreements, DNO and Aker BP retain their Kjottkake stakes of 40 percent and 45 percent respectively. Concedo AS holds 15 percent. Also under the agreements DNO will transfer its 28.9 percent stake in the producing Vilje field to Aker BP, whose interest will increase to 75.76 percent. Aker BP

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Oil Falls as Saudi Price Cuts Signal Market Gloom

Oil extended declines after Saudi Arabia lowered the prices of its crude, signaling uncertainty surrounding the supply outlook, while equities slumped in another pressure on the commodity. West Texas Intermediate settled near $59, sliding around 0.3% on the day after falling in the previous two sessions. Volatility hit Wall Street, also weighing on oil prices. Saudi Arabia lowered the price of its main oil grade to Asia for December to the lowest level in 11 months. Even though the price cut met expectations, traders saw it as a bearish signal about the cartel’s confidence in the market’s ability to absorb new supply, with a glut widely expected to begin next year. Prices have given up ground since the US sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil producers last month over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and abundant supplies have so far managed to cushion the impact of stunted flows from the OPEC+ member to major buyers India and China. Key price gauges indicate that supply perceptions are worsening, with the premium that front-month WTI futures command over the next month’s contract, known as the prompt spread, narrowing in the past few weeks to near February lows. That’s also true for Brent crude. Still, US shale companies are forging ahead with their production plans, with Diamondback Energy Inc., Coterra Energy Inc. and Ovintiv Inc. this week announcing they inend to raise output slightly for this year or 2026 despite oil prices falling close to the threshold needed for many US shale wells to break even. Oversupply gloom hasn’t permeated refined products markets, though. Traders are still assessing how those supplies may be impacted by the US clampdown on purchases of Russian crude and Ukraine’s strikes on its neighbor’s energy assets. Those factors, as well as diminishing global refining capacity, bolstered diesel futures and gasoil

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Clearway projects strong renewables outlook while adding gas assets

300 MW Average size of Clearway’s current projects. Most of the projects slated for 2030 and beyond are 500 MW or more, the company said.  >90% Percentage of projects planned for 2031-2032 that are focused in the Western U.S or the PJM Interconnection, “where renewables are cost competitive and/or valued.” 1.8 GW Capacity of power purchase agreements meant to support data center loads the company has signed so far this year. Meeting digital infrastructure energy needs Independent power producer Clearway Energy announced a U.S. construction pipeline of 27 GW of generation and storage resources following strong third-quarter earnings. The San Francisco-based company is owned by Global Infrastructure Partners and TotalEnergies. According to its earnings presentation, it has an operating portfolio of more than 12 GW of wind, solar, gas and storage.   Clearway President and CEO Craig Cornelius said on an earnings call Tuesday that the company is positioning itself to serve large load data centers.  “Growth in both the medium and long term reflects the strong traction we’ve made in supporting the energy needs of our country’s digital infrastructure build-out and reindustrialization,” Cornelius said during the call. “We expect this to be a core driver of Clearway’s growth outlook well into the 2030s.” Cornelius noted that Clearway executed and awarded 1.8 GW of power purchase agreements meant to support data center loads so far this year, and is currently developing generation aimed at serving “gigawatt class co-located data centers across five states.” Its 27 GW pipeline of projects in development or under construction includes 8.2 GW of solar, 4.6 GW of wind, 1.3 GW of wind repowering, 8 GW of standalone storage, 2.1 GW of paired storage and 2.6 GW of natural gas aimed at serving data centers. Under the OBBBA, wind and solar projects that begin construction by July 4,

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USA Crude Oil Stocks Rise More Than 5MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) increased by 5.2 million barrels from the week ending October 24 to the week ending October 31. That’s what the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on November 5 and included data for the week ending October 31. The EIA report showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 421.2 million barrels on October 31, 416.0 million barrels on October 24, and 427.7 million barrels on November 1, 2024. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 409.6 million barrels on October 31, 409.1 million barrels on October 24, and 387.2 million barrels on November 1, 2024, the report highlighted. Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.679 billion barrels on October 31, the report revealed. Total petroleum stocks were up 1.1 million barrels week on week and up 44.5 million barrels year on year, the report showed. “At 421.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about four percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report. “Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 4.7 million barrels from last week and are about five percent below the five year average for this time of year. Both finished gasoline and blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels last week and are about nine percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels from last week and are 15 percent above the five year average

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Energy Transfer Bags 20-Year Deal to Deliver Gas for Entergy Louisiana

Energy Transfer LP has signed a 20-year transport agreement to deliver natural gas to Entergy Corp to support the power utility’s operations in Louisiana. “Under the agreement, Energy Transfer would initially provide 250,000 MMBtu per day of firm transportation service beginning in February 2028 and continuing through January 2048”, a joint statement said. “The deal structure also provides an option to Entergy to expand delivery capacity in the region to meet future energy demand and demonstrates both companies’ long-term commitment to meeting the region’s growing energy needs. “The natural gas supplied through this agreement, already in Entergy’s financial plan, will help fuel Entergy Louisiana’s combined-cycle combustion turbine facilities, which are being developed to provide efficient, cleaner energy for the company’s customers and to support projects like Meta’s new hyperscale data center in Richland Parish. “The project includes expanding Energy Transfer’s Tiger Pipeline with the construction of a 12-mile lateral with a capacity of up to one Bcfd. Natural gas supply for this project will be sourced from Energy Transfer’s extensive pipeline network which is connected to all the major producing basins in the U.S.” Entergy Louisiana had 1.1 million electric customers in 58 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes as of December 2024, Entergy Louisiana says on its website. Earlier Energy Transfer secured an agreement to deliver gas for a power-data center partnership between VoltaGrid LLC and Oracle Corp. VoltaGrid will deploy 2.3 gigawatts of “cutting-edge, ultra-low-emissions infrastructure, supplied by Energy Transfer’s pipeline network, to support the energy demands of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI) next-generation artificial intelligence data centers”, VoltaGrid said in a press release October 15. “The VoltaGrid power infrastructure will be delivered through the proprietary VoltaGrid platform – a modular, high-transient-response system developed by VoltaGrid with key suppliers, including INNIO Jenbacher and ABB”. “This power plant deployment is being supplied with firm natural gas from Energy Transfer’s expansive pipeline

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SRP to Convert Unit 4 of SGS Station in Arizona to Use Gas

Three of the four units at the coal-fired Springerville Generation Station (SGS) in Arizona will shift to natural gas in the early 2030s. This week Salt River Project’s (SRP) board approved the conversion of Unit 4. Earlier this year Tucson Electric Power (TEP), which operates all four units, said it will convert Units 1 and 2. Unit 3, owned by the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, is set to be retired. “Today’s decision is the lowest-cost option to preserve the plant’s 400-megawatt (MW) generating capacity, enough to serve 90,000 homes, which is important to meeting the Valley’s growing power need in the early 2030s”, SRP said in a statement on its website. “Converting SGS Unit 4 to run on natural gas is expected to save SRP customers about $45 million compared to building a new natural gas facility and about $826 million relative to adding new long-duration lithium-ion batteries over the same period”, the public power utility added. “The decision also provides a bridge to the mid-2040s, when other generating technology options, including advanced nuclear, are mature”. Gas for the converted Unit 4 will come from a new pipeline that SRP will build. The pipeline will also supply gas to the Coronado Generating Station (CGS). On June 24 SRP announced board approval for the conversion of CGS from coal to gas. “SRP is working to more than double the capacity of its power system in the next 10 years while maintaining reliability and affordability and making continued progress toward our sustainability goals”, SRP said. “SRP will accomplish this through an all-of-the-above approach that plans to add renewables in addition to natural gas and storage resources”.  SRP currently supplies 3,000 MW of “carbon-free energy” including over 1,500 MW of solar, with nearly 1,300 MW of battery and pumped hydro storage supporting its

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Top network and data center events 2025 & 2026

Denise Dubie is a senior editor at Network World with nearly 30 years of experience writing about the tech industry. Her coverage areas include AIOps, cybersecurity, networking careers, network management, observability, SASE, SD-WAN, and how AI transforms enterprise IT. A seasoned journalist and content creator, Denise writes breaking news and in-depth features, and she delivers practical advice for IT professionals while making complex technology accessible to all. Before returning to journalism, she held senior content marketing roles at CA Technologies, Berkshire Grey, and Cisco. Denise is a trusted voice in the world of enterprise IT and networking.

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Google’s cheaper, faster TPUs are here, while users of other AI processors face a supply crunch

Opportunities for the AI industry LLM vendors such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which still have relatively young code bases and are continuously evolving them, also have much to gain from the arrival of Ironwood for training their models, said Forrester vice president and principal analyst Charlie Dai. In fact, Anthropic has already agreed to procure 1 million TPUs for training and its models and using them for inferencing. Other, smaller vendors using Google’s TPUs for training models include Lightricks and Essential AI. Google has seen a steady increase in demand for its TPUs (which it also uses to run interna services), and is expected to buy $9.8 billion worth of TPUs from Broadcom this year, compared to $6.2 billion and $2.04 billion in 2024 and 2023 respectively, according to Harrowell. “This makes them the second-biggest AI chip program for cloud and enterprise data centers, just tailing Nvidia, with approximately 5% of the market. Nvidia owns about 78% of the market,” Harrowell said. The legacy problem While some analysts were optimistic about the prospects for TPUs in the enterprise, IDC research director Brandon Hoff said enterprises will most likely to stay away from Ironwood or TPUs in general because of their existing code base written for other platforms. “For enterprise customers who are writing their own inferencing, they will be tied into Nvidia’s software platform,” Hoff said, referring to CUDA, the software platform that runs on Nvidia GPUs. CUDA was released to the public in 2007, while the first version of TensorFlow has only been around since 2015.

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Cisco launches AI infrastructure, AI practitioner certifications

“This new certification focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads, helping technical professionals become AI-ready and successfully embed AI into their workflows,” said Pat Merat, vice president at Learn with Cisco, in a blog detailing the new AI Infrastructure Specialist certification. “The certification validates a candidate’s comprehensive knowledge in designing, implementing, operating, and troubleshooting AI solutions across Cisco infrastructure.” Separately, the AITECH certification is part of the Cisco AI Infrastructure track, which complements its existing networking, data center, and security certifications. Cisco says the AITECH cert training is intended for network engineers, system administrators, solution architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn how AI impacts enterprise infrastructure. The training curriculum covers topics such as: Utilizing AI for code generation, refactoring, and using modern AI-assisted coding workflows. Using generative AI for exploratory data analysis, data cleaning, transformation, and generating actionable insights. Designing and implementing multi-step AI-assisted workflows and understanding complex agentic systems for automation. Learning AI-powered requirements, evaluating customization approaches, considering deployment strategies, and designing robust AI workflows. Evaluating, fine-tuning, and deploying pre-trained AI models, and implementing Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. Monitoring, maintaining, and optimizing AI-powered workflows, ensuring data integrity and security. AITECH certification candidates will learn how to use AI to enhance productivity, automate routine tasks, and support the development of new applications. The training program includes hands-on labs and simulations to demonstrate practical use cases for AI within Cisco and multi-vendor environments.

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Chip-to-Grid Gets Bought: Eaton, Vertiv, and Daikin Deals Imply a New Thermal Capital Cycle

This week delivered three telling acquisitions that mark a turning point for the global data center supply chain; and more specifically, for the high-density liquid cooling mega-play now unfolding across the power-thermal continuum. Eaton is acquiring Boyd Thermal for $9.5 billion from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Vertiv is buying PurgeRite for about $1 billion from Milton Street Capital. And Daikin Applied has moved to acquire Chilldyne, one of the most proven negative-pressure direct-to-chip pioneers. On paper, they’re three distinct transactions. In reality, they’re chapters in the same story: the acceleration of strategic vertical integration around thermal infrastructure for AI-class compute. The Equity Layer: Private Capital Builds, Strategics Buy From an equity standpoint, these are classic handoff moments between private-equity construction and corporate consolidation. Goldman Sachs built Boyd Thermal into a global platform spanning cold plates, CDUs, and high-density liquid loop design, now sold to Eaton at an enterprise multiple north of 5× 2026E revenue. Milton Street Capital took PurgeRite from a specialist contractor in fluid flushing and commissioning into a nationwide services platform. And Daikin, long synonymous with chillers and air-side thermal, is crossing the liquid Rubicon by buying its way into the D2C ecosystem. Each deal crystallizes a simple fact: liquid cooling is no longer an adjunct; it’s core infrastructure. Private equity did its job scaling the parts. Strategic players are now paying up for the system. Eaton’s Bid: The Chip-to-Grid Thesis For Eaton, Boyd Thermal is the final missing piece in its “chip-to-grid” thesis. The company already owns the electrical side of the data center: UPS, busway, switchgear, and monitoring. Boyd plugs the thermal gap, allowing Eaton to market full rack-to-substation solutions for AI loads in the 50–100 kW+ range. It’s a statement acquisition that places Eaton squarely against Schneider Electric, Vertiv and ABB in the race to

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Space: The final frontier for data processing

There are, however, a couple of reasons why data centers in space are being considered. There are plenty of reports about how the increased amount of AI processing is affecting power consumption within data centers; the World Economic Forum has estimated that the power required to handle AI is increasing at a rate of between 26% and 36% annually. Therefore, it is not surprising that organizations are looking at other options. But an even more pressing reason for orbiting data centers is to handle the amount of data that is being produced by existing satellites, Judge said. “Essentially, satellites are gathering a lot more data than can be sent to earth, because downlinks are a bottleneck,” he noted. “With AI capacity in orbit, they could potentially analyze more of this data, extract more useful information, and send insights back to earth. My overall feeling is that any more data processing in space is going to be driven by space processing needs.” And China may already be ahead of the game. Last year, Guoxing Aerospace  launched 12 satellites, forming a space-based computing network dubbed the Three-Body Computing Constellation. When completed, it will contain 2,800 satellites, all handling the orchestration and processing of data, taking edge computing to a new dimension.

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Meta’s $27B Hyperion Campus: A New Blueprint for AI Infrastructure Finance

At the end of October, Meta announced a joint venture with funds managed by Blue Owl Capital to finance, develop, and operate the previously announced “Hyperion” project, a multi-building AI megacampus in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Under the new JV structure, Blue Owl will own 80 percent and Meta 20 percent, though Meta had announced the project long before Blue Owl’s involvement was confirmed. The venture anticipates roughly $27 billion in total development costs for the buildings and the long-lived power, cooling, and connectivity infrastructure. Blue Owl contributed about $7 billion in cash at formation; Meta received a $3 billion one-time distribution and contributed land and construction-in-progress to the vehicle. Rachel Peterson, VP of Data Centers at Meta, noted that construction on the project is already well underway, with thousands of workers on-site. Structuring Capital and Control Media coverage from Reuters and others characterizes the financing package as one of the largest private-capital deals ever for a single industrial campus, with debt placements led by PIMCO and additional institutional investors. Meta keeps the project largely off its balance sheet through the joint venture while retaining the development and property-management role and serving as the anchor tenant for the campus. The JV allows Meta to smooth its capital expenditures and manage risk while maintaining execution control over its most ambitious AI site to date. The structure incorporates lease agreements and a residual-value guarantee, according to Kirkland & Ellis (Blue Owl’s counsel), enabling lenders and equity holders to underwrite a very large, long-duration asset with multiple exit paths. For Blue Owl, Hyperion represents a utility-like digital-infrastructure platform with contracted cash flows to a single A-tier counterparty: a hyperscaler running mission-critical AI workloads for training and inference. As Barron’s and MarketWatch have noted, the deal underscores Wall Street’s ongoing appetite for AI-infrastructure investments at

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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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