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The Download: our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025

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. Introducing: MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025 Each year, we spend months researching and discussing which technologies will make the cut for our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. We try to highlight a mix of items that reflect innovations happening in various fields. We look at consumer technologies, large industrial­-scale projects, biomedical advances, changes in computing, climate solutions, the latest in AI, and more.We’ve been publishing this list every year since 2001 and, frankly, have a great track record of flagging things that are poised to hit a tipping point. It’s hard to think of another industry that has as much of a hype machine behind it as tech does, so the real secret of the TR10 is really what we choose to leave off the list.Check out the full list of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, which is front and center in our latest print issue. It’s all about the exciting innovations happening in the world right now, and includes some fascinating stories, such as: + How digital twins of human organs are set to transform medical treatment and shake up how we trial new drugs.+ What will it take for us to fully trust robots? The answer is a complicated one.+ Wind is an underutilized resource that has the potential to steer the notoriously dirty shipping industry toward a greener future. Read the full story.+ After decades of frustration, machine-learning tools are helping ecologists to unlock a treasure trove of acoustic bird data—and to shed much-needed light on their migration habits. Read the full story.  + How poop could help feed the planet—yes, really. Read the full story. Roundtables: Unveiling the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 Last week, Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, joined our news editor Charlotte Jee to unveil our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 in an exclusive Roundtable discussion. Subscribers can watch their conversation back here. And, if you’re interested in previous discussions about topics ranging from mixed reality tech to gene editing to AI’s climate impact, check out some of the highlights from the past year’s events. This international surveillance project aims to protect wheat from deadly diseases For as long as there’s been domesticated wheat (about 8,000 years), there has been harvest-devastating rust. Breeding efforts in the mid-20th century led to rust-resistant wheat strains that boosted crop yields, and rust epidemics receded in much of the world.But now, after decades, rusts are considered a reemerging disease in Europe, at least partly due to climate change.  An international initiative hopes to turn the tide by scaling up a system to track wheat diseases and forecast potential outbreaks to governments and farmers in close to real time. And by doing so, they hope to protect a crop that supplies about one-fifth of the world’s calories. Read the full story. —Shaoni Bhattacharya The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Meta has taken down its creepy AI profiles Following a big backlash from unhappy users. (NBC News)+ Many of the profiles were likely to have been live from as far back as 2023. (404 Media)+ It also appears they were never very popular in the first place. (The Verge) 2 Uber and Lyft are racing to catch up with their robotaxi rivalsAfter abandoning their own self-driving projects years ago. (WSJ $)+ China’s Pony.ai is gearing up to expand to Hong Kong.  (Reuters)3 Elon Musk is going after NASA He’s largely veered away from criticising the space agency publicly—until now. (Wired $)+ SpaceX’s Starship rocket has a legion of scientist fans. (The Guardian)+ What’s next for NASA’s giant moon rocket? (MIT Technology Review) 4 How Sam Altman actually runs OpenAIFeaturing three-hour meetings and a whole lot of Slack messages. (Bloomberg $)+ ChatGPT Pro is a pricey loss-maker, apparently. (MIT Technology Review) 5 The dangerous allure of TikTokMigrants’ online portrayal of their experiences in America aren’t always reflective of their realities. (New Yorker $) 6 Demand for electricity is skyrocketingAnd AI is only a part of it. (Economist $)+ AI’s search for more energy is growing more urgent. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The messy ethics of writing religious sermons using AISkeptics aren’t convinced the technology should be used to channel spirituality. (NYT $) 8 How a wildlife app became an invaluable wildfire trackerWatch Duty has become a safeguarding sensation across the US west. (The Guardian)+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review) 9 Computer scientists just love oracles 🔮 Hypothetical devices are a surprisingly important part of computing. (Quanta Magazine) 10 Pet tech is booming 🐾But not all gadgets are made equal. (FT $)+ These scientists are working to extend the lifespan of pet dogs—and their owners. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “The next kind of wave of this is like, well, what is AI doing for me right now other than telling me that I have AI?” —Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, tells Wired a lot of companies’ AI claims are overblown. The big story Broadband funding for Native communities could finally connect some of America’s most isolated places September 2022 Rural and Native communities in the US have long had lower rates of cellular and broadband connectivity than urban areas, where four out of every five Americans live. Outside the cities and suburbs, which occupy barely 3% of US land, reliable internet service can still be hard to come by. The covid-19 pandemic underscored the problem as Native communities locked down and moved school and other essential daily activities online. But it also kicked off an unprecedented surge of relief funding to solve it. Read the full story. —Robert Chaney 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.) + Rollerskating Spice Girls is exactly what your Monday morning needs.+ It’s not just you, some people really do look like their dogs!+ I’m not sure if this is actually the world’s healthiest meal, but it sure looks tasty.+ Ah, the old “bitten by a rabid fox chestnut.”

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.

Introducing: MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025

Each year, we spend months researching and discussing which technologies will make the cut for our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. We try to highlight a mix of items that reflect innovations happening in various fields. We look at consumer technologies, large industrial­-scale projects, biomedical advances, changes in computing, climate solutions, the latest in AI, and more.

We’ve been publishing this list every year since 2001 and, frankly, have a great track record of flagging things that are poised to hit a tipping point. It’s hard to think of another industry that has as much of a hype machine behind it as tech does, so the real secret of the TR10 is really what we choose to leave off the list.

Check out the full list of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, which is front and center in our latest print issue. It’s all about the exciting innovations happening in the world right now, and includes some fascinating stories, such as:

+ How digital twins of human organs are set to transform medical treatment and shake up how we trial new drugs.

+ What will it take for us to fully trust robots? The answer is a complicated one.

+ Wind is an underutilized resource that has the potential to steer the notoriously dirty shipping industry toward a greener future. Read the full story.

+ After decades of frustration, machine-learning tools are helping ecologists to unlock a treasure trove of acoustic bird data—and to shed much-needed light on their migration habits. Read the full story

+ How poop could help feed the planet—yes, really. Read the full story.

Roundtables: Unveiling the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025

Last week, Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, joined our news editor Charlotte Jee to unveil our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 in an exclusive Roundtable discussion. Subscribers can watch their conversation back here. And, if you’re interested in previous discussions about topics ranging from mixed reality tech to gene editing to AI’s climate impact, check out some of the highlights from the past year’s events.

This international surveillance project aims to protect wheat from deadly diseases

For as long as there’s been domesticated wheat (about 8,000 years), there has been harvest-devastating rust. Breeding efforts in the mid-20th century led to rust-resistant wheat strains that boosted crop yields, and rust epidemics receded in much of the world.

But now, after decades, rusts are considered a reemerging disease in Europe, at least partly due to climate change. 

An international initiative hopes to turn the tide by scaling up a system to track wheat diseases and forecast potential outbreaks to governments and farmers in close to real time. And by doing so, they hope to protect a crop that supplies about one-fifth of the world’s calories. Read the full story.

—Shaoni Bhattacharya

The must-reads

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

1 Meta has taken down its creepy AI profiles 
Following a big backlash from unhappy users. (NBC News)
+ Many of the profiles were likely to have been live from as far back as 2023. (404 Media)
+ It also appears they were never very popular in the first place. (The Verge)

2 Uber and Lyft are racing to catch up with their robotaxi rivals
After abandoning their own self-driving projects years ago. (WSJ $)
+ China’s Pony.ai is gearing up to expand to Hong Kong.  (Reuters)

3 Elon Musk is going after NASA 
He’s largely veered away from criticising the space agency publicly—until now. (Wired $)
+ SpaceX’s Starship rocket has a legion of scientist fans. (The Guardian)
+ What’s next for NASA’s giant moon rocket? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How Sam Altman actually runs OpenAI
Featuring three-hour meetings and a whole lot of Slack messages. (Bloomberg $)
+ ChatGPT Pro is a pricey loss-maker, apparently. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The dangerous allure of TikTok
Migrants’ online portrayal of their experiences in America aren’t always reflective of their realities. (New Yorker $)

6 Demand for electricity is skyrocketing
And AI is only a part of it. (Economist $)
+ AI’s search for more energy is growing more urgent. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The messy ethics of writing religious sermons using AI
Skeptics aren’t convinced the technology should be used to channel spirituality. (NYT $)

8 How a wildlife app became an invaluable wildfire tracker
Watch Duty has become a safeguarding sensation across the US west. (The Guardian)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Computer scientists just love oracles 🔮 
Hypothetical devices are a surprisingly important part of computing. (Quanta Magazine)

10 Pet tech is booming 🐾
But not all gadgets are made equal. (FT $)
+ These scientists are working to extend the lifespan of pet dogs—and their owners. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“The next kind of wave of this is like, well, what is AI doing for me right now other than telling me that I have AI?”

—Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, tells Wired a lot of companies’ AI claims are overblown.

The big story

Broadband funding for Native communities could finally connect some of America’s most isolated places

September 2022

Rural and Native communities in the US have long had lower rates of cellular and broadband connectivity than urban areas, where four out of every five Americans live. Outside the cities and suburbs, which occupy barely 3% of US land, reliable internet service can still be hard to come by.

The covid-19 pandemic underscored the problem as Native communities locked down and moved school and other essential daily activities online. But it also kicked off an unprecedented surge of relief funding to solve it. Read the full story.

—Robert Chaney

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.)

+ Rollerskating Spice Girls is exactly what your Monday morning needs.
+ It’s not just you, some people really do look like their dogs!
+ I’m not sure if this is actually the world’s healthiest meal, but it sure looks tasty.
+ Ah, the old “bitten by a rabid fox chestnut.”

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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.

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StorONE launches turnkey enterprise AI storage package

Thanks to the GPU integration, ONEai eliminates the need for a separate AI stack or external orchestration and cloud-based workflows. It offers full on-premises processing for complete data sovereignty and control over sensitive data. ONEai automatically recognizes and responds to file creation, modification and deletion, offering real-time insights into data

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CPU interconnect technology CXL gains acceptance

The $3.4 billion may not seem like an impressive figure in this industry, but CXL chips average around $100. As CXL controllers find their way into one server vendor after another, the technology becomes widely available through increasing ubiquity. The four major server CPU vendors – Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and

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Essential commands for Linux server management

Any Linux systems administrator needs to be proficient with a wide range of commands for user management, file handling, system monitoring, networking, security and more. This article covers a range of commands that are essential for managing a Linux server. Keep in mind that some commands will depend on the

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Maersk Training Opens New Facility in Louisiana

In a release sent to Rigzone recently, Maersk Training announced the opening of a new maritime and safety training facility at Fletcher Technical Community College in Houma, Louisiana. The company stated in the release that this expansion marks a significant milestone in Maersk Training’s commitment to enhancing workforce development, safety, and operational performance in key industries across the Gulf Coast. “By combining world-class training expertise with Fletcher’s strong educational foundation, the facility will equip workers with essential skills and certifications to enhance safety and performance in real-world job settings,” Maersk Training said in the release. “Louisiana serves as an energy hub, playing a critical role in the nation’s oil, gas, and maritime industries,” the company added. “As one of the top oil and gas production areas in the world, the region is home to a substantial workforce dedicated to the energy sector. This makes Houma an ideal location for Maersk Training’s expansion, ensuring workers have access to high-quality, industry-specific training,” it continued. In its release, Maersk Training noted that the new maritime and safety training facility at Fletcher Technical Community College will primarily serve the offshore oil and gas industry and the maritime sector. The center will offer a wide range of industry-accredited training courses focused on offshore safety and survival, as well as industrial safety, according to Maersk Training, which said course certifications will be approved by industry bodies such as OPITO, OSHA, STCW, IADC, and API. “One of the most exciting aspects of the facility is its OPITO and STCW-certified courses, including Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training (BOSIET) and Tropical Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (T-HUET),” Maersk Training said in the release. “Unique to this location, the training will utilize a twin-fall davit launched from a working barge into the intracoastal waterway, providing the most realistic OPITO-certified

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Cheniere Approves Two More Trains for Corpus Christi LNG Expansion

Cheniere Energy Inc. said Tuesday it had made a positive FID (final investment decision) to add two “midscale” trains to the Corpus Christi LNG facility in South Texas. The Houston, Texas-based LNG producer “issued full notice to proceed to Bechtel Energy, Inc. for construction of CCL Midscale Trains 8 & 9”, a company statement said. The two trains will raise the terminal’s capacity by over 3 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa). In July 2023 the United States Department of Energy (DOE) granted CCL Midscale Trains 8 & 9 authorization to export to countries with a free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S. The DOE has yet to grant the project a non-FTA permit. However, the agency has resumed issuing final orders on pending decisions paused by the previous administration last year, in support of President Donald Trump’s “unleashing American energy” agenda. Trains 8 and 9 will rise next to CCL Stage 3, which is also under construction. Stage 3 will have seven midscale trains with a total capacity of more than 10 MMtpa, raising the terminal’s capacity to over 25 MMtpa. Midscale trains 1-7 are permitted to export the equivalent of 582.14 billion cubic feet a year of natural gas to both FTA and non-FTA countries on a non-additive basis. In March Cheniere said train 1 of Stage 3 had been commissioned. Train 1 had already started production December 2024 and dispatched its first cargo February 2025, the company said earlier in a quarterly report. Cheniere said Tuesday Stage 3’s train 2 had begun production earlier this month. Currently Corpus Christi LNG has a production capacity of around 16.5 MMtpa from four trains. It has dispatched about 1,140 cargoes since 2018, Cheniere says on its website. In Tuesday’s statement the company said, “In addition, Cheniere is developing further brownfield liquefaction capacity

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Prevalon brings 80-MW battery storage online for Idaho Power

Dive Brief: Prevalon Energy has brought online a four-hour, 80-MW battery storage project that will be owned by Idaho Power, the companies said Tuesday. Prevelon, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas and EES, in January said it signed a contract to build Idaho Power an additional 200-MW/800-MWh battery storage project. The project at the Happy Valley substation in Nampa, Idaho, started operating as Idaho Power has been lining up battery storage projects to help meet potential near-term capacity shortfalls and to prepare for a planned shift to 100% clean power by 2045. Dive Insight: Idaho Power has contracts to buy battery storage projects totaling 330 MW and it has entered into power purchase agreements to buy the output from storage facilities totaling 250 MW over 20 years, Idacorp, the utility’s parent company, said in a May 30 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report. The Boise, Idaho-based utility owns about 230 MW of energy storage and has about 5,100 MW of generation on its system, including non-utility resources, according to a June investor presentation. Idaho Power could add 705 MW of 4-hour storage between 2026 and 2030, according to a summary of its draft integrated resource plan that was presented to a stakeholder group last month. The draft IRP also calls for adding 745 MW of solar and 700 MW of wind by the end of this decade as the utility converts its remaining 480 MW of coal-fired generation to gas. Idaho Power expects to file the IRP with utility regulators in Idaho and Oregon by the end of this month. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission in November approved a 150-MW, 20-year energy storage agreement under which Idaho Power will buy the output from the roughly $323 million Kuna project, which is owned by Aypa Power. Meanwhile, Idaho PUC staff is

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As the GHG Protocol eyes the homestretch in its Scope 2 revisions, are the right voices being heard?

Roger Ballentine is president of Green Strategies. June and July are critical months for the once-in-a-decade update to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 2 rules — the rules that guide voluntary corporate investment in clean energy. Since the Protocol first issued its Scope 2 Guidance in 2015, the private sector has responded resoundingly — corporate investment has since enabled the deployment of 100 GW of new renewable energy.  At a time when federal support for clean energy is receding and unprecedented increases in electricity demand are leading to new fossil generation development, ensuring the continued growth and impact of the voluntary market is a climate imperative. As the Protocol update process moves into its decision-making phase, that climate imperative would lead one to assume that the voices of those that make the decisions and approve the investments that drive the voluntary market would be front and center in the update process. That, however, is not at all clear. Evidence that the voices of the broad buyer community are not being adequately heard is reflected in some of the current front-running proposals of the Protocol’s Technical Working Group — the body developing the new Scope 2 Guidance. Under current Scope 2 rules, companies reduce Scope 2 inventories by matching their consumption on an annual basis with clean electricity purchased within broad market boundaries. The Technical Working Group, however, is evaluating proposals to scrap the current framework and replace it with requirements for companies to match their electricity consumption with clean electricity purchases on a granular hourly basis and only with procurements made within narrow geographic boundaries (sometimes called “24/7” accounting). Many companies, thought leaders and stakeholders (including this author) recognize that the decade-old Scope 2 guidance needs modernization. Consistent with the over-riding imperative that updates to the Scope 2 Guidance should be

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Vallourec Signs Contract to Supply OCTG for Qatar Drilling

Vallourec said it has secured a large contract to supply oil country tubular goods (OCTG) for drilling operations in Qatar, representing over $50 million in potential revenue. The contract includes the supply of carbon steel OCTG products with premium connections, to be delivered in 2026 to support Qatar’s increasing onshore and offshore drilling activity, the company said in a news release. Vallourec said that the contract aligns with the goals of the Qatari government to increase the country’s oil production by 19 percent and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by 85 percent by 2030. Vallourec Group Chairman and CEO Philippe Guillemot said, “Vallourec has been a reliable supplier to operators in Qatar for decades. This new order demonstrates our competitiveness in supplying significant quantities of premium tubes and connections. Vallourec will remain a key strategic partner in oil, gas or carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects in Qatar for the coming years”. Hydrogen Storage Solution Qualified by DNV Earlier in the month, Vallourec, said its vertical gaseous hydrogen storage solution Delphy was granted official qualification by global assurance and risk management firm DNV. Delphy enables the storage of up to 100 tons of hydrogen under maximum safety conditions, extending up to 100 meters underground and meeting “the challenge of complex and demanding industrial environments,” the company said in an earlier statement. The solution targets both green hydrogen producers and industrial players such as synthetic fuel producers, green ammonia producers, steelmakers, and refineries, Vallourec said. Vallourec said it has signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for Delphy: one with H2V for green hydrogen production and utilization projects, and one with NextChem Tech for green hydrogen and green ammonia projects. Around 50 projects in France and globally are currently under discussion, representing potential revenue of approximately $2.3 billion (EUR 2 billion),

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Macquarie Strategists Forecast WoW USA Crude Inventory Drop

Macquarie strategists, including Walt Chancellor and Vikas Dwivedi, are forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be down by 0.9 million barrels for the week ending June 20, an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team late Monday revealed. “This follows an 11.5 million barrel draw in the prior week, with the crude balance realizing significantly tighter than our expectations,” the strategists said in the report. “For this week’s crude balance, from refineries, we model a small reduction in crude runs (-0.1 million barrels per day). Among net imports, we model a sharp increase, with exports significantly lower (-0.6 million barrels per day) and imports significantly higher (+0.7 million barrels per day) on a nominal basis,” they added. Timing of cargoes remains a source of potential volatility in this week’s crude balance, the strategists noted in the report. “From implied domestic supply (prod. +adj.+transfers), we look for a small nominal increase (+0.1 million barrels per day) this week. Rounding out the picture, we anticipate another small increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] stocks (+0.2 million barrels) this week,” they added. “Among products, we look for yet another week of builds led by gasoline (+1.5 million barrels) and distillate (+1.1 million barrels), with jet stocks modestly higher (+0.3 million barrels),” they continued. “We model implied demand for these three products at ~14.2 million barrels per day for the week ending June 20,” the Macquarie strategists went on to state in the report. In its latest weekly petroleum status report at the time of writing, which was released on June 18 and included data for the week ending June 13, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the SPR, decreased by 11.5 million barrels from the week ending June 6

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Cisco backs quantum networking startup Qunnect

In partnership with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs, Qunnect has set up quantum networking testbeds in New York City and Berlin. “Qunnect understands that quantum networking has to work in the real world, not just in pristine lab conditions,” Vijoy Pandey, general manager and senior vice president of Outshift by Cisco, stated in a blog about the investment. “Their room-temperature approach aligns with our quantum data center vision.” Cisco recently announced it is developing a quantum entanglement chip that could ultimately become part of the gear that will populate future quantum data centers. The chip operates at room temperature, uses minimal power, and functions using existing telecom frequencies, according to Pandey.

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HPE announces GreenLake Intelligence, goes all-in with agentic AI

Like a teammate who never sleeps Agentic AI is coming to Aruba Central as well, with an autonomous supervisory module talking to multiple specialized models to, for example, determine the root cause of an issue and provide recommendations. David Hughes, SVP and chief product officer, HPE Aruba Networking, said, “It’s like having a teammate who can work while you’re asleep, work on problems, and when you arrive in the morning, have those proposed answers there, complete with chain of thought logic explaining how they got to their conclusions.” Several new services for FinOps and sustainability in GreenLake Cloud are also being integrated into GreenLake Intelligence, including a new workload and capacity optimizer, extended consumption analytics to help organizations control costs, and predictive sustainability forecasting and a managed service mode in the HPE Sustainability Insight Center. In addition, updates to the OpsRamp operations copilot, launched in 2024, will enable agentic automation including conversational product help, an agentic command center that enables AI/ML-based alerts, incident management, and root cause analysis across the infrastructure when it is released in the fourth quarter of 2025. It is now a validated observability solution for the Nvidia Enterprise AI Factory. OpsRamp will also be part of the new HPE CloudOps software suite, available in the fourth quarter, which will include HPE Morpheus Enterprise and HPE Zerto. HPE said the new suite will provide automation, orchestration, governance, data mobility, data protection, and cyber resilience for multivendor, multi cloud, multi-workload infrastructures. Matt Kimball, principal analyst for datacenter, compute, and storage at Moor Insights & strategy, sees HPE’s latest announcements aligning nicely with enterprise IT modernization efforts, using AI to optimize performance. “GreenLake Intelligence is really where all of this comes together. I am a huge fan of Morpheus in delivering an agnostic orchestration plane, regardless of operating stack

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MEF goes beyond metro Ethernet, rebrands as Mplify with expanded scope on NaaS and AI

While MEF is only now rebranding, Vachon said that the scope of the organization had already changed by 2005. Instead of just looking at metro Ethernet, the organization at the time had expanded into carrier Ethernet requirements.  The organization has also had a growing focus on solving the challenge of cross-provider automation, which is where the LSO framework fits in. LSO provides the foundation for an automation framework that allows providers to more efficiently deliver complex services across partner networks, essentially creating a standardized language for service integration.  NaaS leadership and industry blueprint Building on the LSO automation framework, the organization has been working on efforts to help providers with network-as-a-service (NaaS) related guidance and specifications. The organization’s evolution toward NaaS reflects member-driven demands for modern service delivery models. Vachon noted that MEF member organizations were asking for help with NaaS, looking for direction on establishing common definitions and some standard work. The organization responded by developing comprehensive industry guidance. “In 2023 we launched the first blueprint, which is like an industry North Star document. It includes what we think about NaaS and the work we’re doing around it,” Vachon said. The NaaS blueprint encompasses the complete service delivery ecosystem, with APIs including last mile, cloud, data center and security services. (Read more about its vision for NaaS, including easy provisioning and integrated security across a federated network of providers)

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AMD rolls out first Ultra Ethernet-compliant NIC

The UEC was launched in 2023 under the Linux Foundation. Members include major tech-industry players such as AMD, Intel, Broadcom, Arista, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and HPE. The specification includes GPU and accelerator interconnects as well as support for data center fabrics and scalable AI clusters. AMD’s Pensando Pollara 400GbE NICs are designed for massive scale-out environments containing thousands of AI processors. Pollara is based on customizable hardware that supports using a fully programmable Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) transport and hardware-based congestion control. Pollara supports GPU-to-GPU communication with intelligent routing technologies to reduce latency, making it very similar to Nvidia’s NVLink c2c. In addition to being UEC-ready, Pollara 400 offers RoCEv2 compatibility and interoperability with other NICs.

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Can Intel cut its way to profit with factory layoffs?

Matt Kimball, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said, “While I’m sure tariffs have some impact on Intel’s layoffs, this is actually pretty simple — these layoffs are largely due to the financial challenges Intel is facing in terms of declining revenues.” The move, he said, “aligns with what the company had announced some time back, to bring expenses in line with revenues. While it is painful, I am confident that Intel will be able to meet these demands, as being able to produce quality chips in a timely fashion is critical to their comeback in the market.”  Intel, said Kimball, “started its turnaround a few years back when ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger announced its five nodes in four years plan. While this was an impressive vision to articulate, its purpose was to rebuild trust with customers, and to rebuild an execution discipline. I think the company has largely succeeded, but of course the results trail a bit.” Asked if a combination of layoffs and the moving around of jobs will affect the cost of importing chips, Kimball predicted it will likely not have an impact: “Intel (like any responsible company) is extremely focused on cost and supply chain management. They have this down to a science and it is so critical to margins. Also, while I don’t have insights, I would expect Intel is employing AI and/or analytics to help drive supply chain and manufacturing optimization.” The company’s number one job, he said, “is to deliver the highest quality chips to its customers — from the client to the data center. I have every confidence it will not put this mandate at risk as it considers where/how to make the appropriate resourcing decisions. I think everybody who has been through corporate restructuring (I’ve been through too many to count)

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Intel appears stuck between ‘a rock and a hard place’

Intel, said Kimball, “started its turnaround a few years back when ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger announced its five nodes in four years plan. While this was an impressive vision to articulate, its purpose was to rebuild trust with customers, and to rebuild an execution discipline. I think the company has largely succeeded, but of course the results trail a bit.” Asked if a combination of layoffs and the moving around of jobs will affect the cost of importing chips, Kimball predicted it will likely not have an impact: “Intel (like any responsible company) is extremely focused on cost and supply chain management. They have this down to a science and it is so critical to margins. Also, while I don’t have insights, I would expect Intel is employing AI and/or analytics to help drive supply chain and manufacturing optimization.” The company’s number one job, he said, “is to deliver the highest quality chips to its customers — from the client to the data center. I have every confidence it will not put this mandate at risk as it considers where/how to make the appropriate resourcing decisions. I think everybody who has been through corporate restructuring (I’ve been through too many to count) realizes that, when planning for these, ensuring the resilience of these mission critical functions is priority one.”  Added Bickley, “trimming the workforce, delaying construction of the US fab plants, and flattening the decision structure of the organization are prudent moves meant to buy time in the hopes that their new chip designs and foundry processes attract new business.”

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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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