Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE

USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Week on Week

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 1.2 million barrels from the week ending December 20 to the week ending December 27, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 2. Crude oil stocks, excluding the […]

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 1.2 million barrels from the week ending December 20 to the week ending December 27, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 2.

Crude oil stocks, excluding the SPR, stood at 415.6 million barrels on December 27, 416.8 million barrels on December 20, and 431.1 million barrels on December 29, 2023, the report revealed. Crude oil in the SPR came in at 393.6 million barrels on December 27, 393.3 million barrels on December 20, and 354.4 million barrels on December 29, 2023, the report showed.

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 1.623 billion barrels on December 27, the report revealed. This figure was up 9.6 million barrels week on week and up 17.8 million barrels year on year, the report outlined.

“At 415.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about five percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest report.

“Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 7.7 million barrels from last week and are slightly below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased last week while blending components inventories increased last week,” it added.

“Distillate fuel inventories increased by 6.4 million barrels last week and are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels from last week and are 10 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it went on to state.

In the report, the EIA noted that U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.9 million barrels per day during the week ending December 27. It pointed out that this was 41,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.

“Refineries operated at 92.7 percent of their operable capacity last week,” the EIA said in the report.

“Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.0 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production increased last week, averaging 5.4 million barrels per day,” it added.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.9 million barrels per day during the week ending December 27, according to the EIA report, which highlighted that this was an increase of 455,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

“Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.5 million barrels per day, 1.3 percent less than the same four-week period last year,” the EIA said in the report.

“Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 665,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 197,000 barrels per day,” it added.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.3 million barrels a day, down by 1.2 percent from the same period last year, the EIA stated in the report.

“Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 8.7 million barrels a day, up by 0.6 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA said.

“Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 8.4 percent from the same period last year,” the EIA added in the report.

“Jet fuel product supplied was up 6.1 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it went on to state.

In an oil and gas report dated December 27, which was sent to Rigzone by the Macquarie team late last week, Macquarie strategists outlined that they saw “potential for a healthy U.S. crude build” in the EIA’s January 2 weekly petroleum status report.

“Looking ahead to next week’s release, we see potential for a healthy U.S. crude build (+5.0 million barrels), with runs slightly lower (-0.1 million barrels per day), nominal implied supply bouncing back (+0.7 million barrels per day), net imports higher (+0.6 million barrels per day), and a larger increase in SPR inventory (+0.9 million barrels) on the week,” the Macquarie strategists stated in that report.

“We note potential for volatility in these figures given the incomplete nature of this week’s data. Among products, amidst holiday/seasonal effects, our preliminary expectations point to large builds in gasoline (+4.0 million barrels) and distillate (+4.3 million barrels) with a draw in jet (-0.5 million barrels),” they added.

To contact the author, email [email protected]

Shape
Shape
Stay Ahead

Explore More Insights

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

Shape

Three options for wireless power in the enterprise

Sensors such as these can be attached to pallets to track its location, says Srivastava. “People in Europe are very conscious about where their food is coming from and, to comply with regulations, companies need to have sensors on the pallets,” he says. “Or they might need to know that

Read More »

IBM unveils advanced quantum computer in Spain

IBM executives and officials from the Basque Government and regional councils in front of Europe’s first IBM Quantum System Two, located at the IBM-Euskadi Quantum Computational Center in San Sebastián, Spain. The Basque Government and IBM unveil the first IBM Quantum System Two in Europe at the IBM-Euskadi Quantum Computational

Read More »

UK Sanctions Major Russian Oil Producers

The UK slapped sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil producers and two Chinese energy firms that deal with Moscow as London seeks to intensify pressure on the Kremlin over the war in Ukraine. Britain blacklisted state-run oil giant Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC on Wednesday, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a statement. It also targeted Chinese firms that handle Russian energy for the first time: a terminal handling Russian liquefied gas and an oil refiner. Western nations are turning the screws on Russia’s energy sector in a bid to curb the flow of petrodollars to the Kremlin and limit President Vladimir Putin’s ability to finance the war. Taxes from the oil and gas industries account for about a quarter of the federal budget. “As Putin’s aggression intensifies, we are stepping up our response,” UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in a separate statement.  The UK sanctioned China’s Beihai liquefied natural gas terminal, which has become the key offloading point for cargoes from Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project, as well as Chinese oil processor Shandong Yulong. While the UK previously imposed wide-ranging sanctions on tankers transporting Russian oil and gas, the targeting of two big oil producers – as well as Chinese firms – marks an escalation.  Rosneft and Lukoil account for more than half of all oil produced in Russia and undertake business of “strategic significance” to the government, the UK government said. The UK also sanctioned a liquefied natural gas import facility and a company that processes Russian oil. Of the three major sanctioning authorities targeting Russia – the others being the US and EU – the UK’s measures have had the least impact on Russia’s oil tankers, so it’s not clear how effective these measures will be. A greater concern for Moscow might be if Washington and Brussels followed suit. The sanctioning of

Read More »

Sable Says Court Ruling Won’t Affect Santa Ynez Operations

Sable Offshore Corp said Wednesday the Santa Barbara Superior Court had issued a tentative ruling indicating the court would deny the company’s claims against the California Coastal Commission (CCC), in a permitting dispute over repairs on the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) pipeline system. However, Houston, Texas-based Sable insisted even if the court decision becomes final, “the ruling would have no impact on the resumption of petroleum transportation through the Las Flores Pipeline System”. “Additionally, oil and gas production from the federal Santa Ynez Unit and the flow of petroleum from the Santa Ynez Unit to the Las Flores Canyon processing facilities or to a potential offshore storage and treating vessel (OS&T) would be unaffected by rulings in the Coastal Commission litigation”, it said in a statement on its website. SYU is Sable’s sole operation. SYU ceased flows 2015 after an oil spill that, according to the CCC, released 123,000 gallons of oil and caused environmental damage to 150 miles of coastline. SYU was then owned by Plains Pipeline LP, which sold it to Exxon Mobil Corp 2022. Sable acquired SYU from ExxonMobil February 2024. Nonetheless Sable plans to escalate such a final judgment by the Superior Court to the California Court of Appeal. “Sable is suing the Coastal Commission for the damages it has caused Sable by erroneously issuing cease and desist orders during Sable’s anomaly repair program on the Las Flores Pipeline System”, the statement said. “The anomaly repair program and hydrotesting of the Las Flores Pipeline System was [sic] completed in May 2025 in accordance with the Federal Consent Decree. “Sable intends to continue its pursuit of the writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal as well as declaratory relief and inverse condemnation claims in excess of approximately $347 million”. Sable added it “continues to work diligently with the

Read More »

Monumental to Invest in More Oil Production Restarts in New Zealand

Monumental Energy Corp said Wednesday it has agreed to fund New Zealand Energy Corp’s (NZEC) share of workover costs to restart flows at several wells in the Waihapa/Ngaere field in the onshore Taranaki basin. “These workovers will follow the same royalty structure as that established for the successful Copper Moki programs, whereas Monumental will earn a 25 percent royalty on NZEC’s production share after full recovery of its capital investment, which will be repaid from 75 percent of NZEC’s net revenue interest”, Vancouver, Canada-based Monumental said in a press release. Monumental is a shareholder in NZEC. L&M Energy will shoulder the remaining part as NZEC’s equal partner in the campaign, Monumental said. The workovers involve the Waihapa-H1 well and the Ngaere 1, 2, and 3 wells. “The Waihapa-H1 well, drilled in the early 2000s, initially flowed oil at rates of approximately 1,500 barrels per day from fracture porosity within the Tikorangi horizontal section”, Monumental said. “Production ceased due to a collapse in the upper section of the wellbore. “A workover program proposed to return the well to production includes jetting clean-out and the installation of new tubing. The well site is located approximately 600 meters from, and easily connected to, the Waihapa production facility. “The Ngaere 1, 2, and 3 wells historically produced oil from the Tikorangi Formation. However, a review of electric logs and drilling data has identified multiple shallower, hydrocarbon-charged sand intervals in each well that present opportunities for additional oil and gas production. A field redevelopment program has been designed to access and produce these bypassed pay zones. “The steel casing in each well will be perforated at the target intervals, followed by production testing. All three wells are connected via existing pipelines to the Waihapa production and export facilities, allowing for immediate oil and gas sales

Read More »

Saipem, SOCAR Bag BP Contracts for Shah Deniz Compression

A consortium between the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Saipem SpA has won contracts for a $2.9-billion compression project in the BP PLC-operated Shah Deniz field on Azerbaijan’s side of the Caspian Sea, BP and Saipem said. The compression project will access low-pressure gas and enable the production of an additional 50 billion cubic meters (1.77 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas and 25 million barrels of condensate, according to BP. Italy’s Saipem and SOCAR affiliates BOS Shelf International FZCO and BOS Shelf LLC jointly won three contracts totaling $700 million, with a $600 million share for Saipem, Saipem said in a press release Wednesday. “Saipem’s scope of work encompasses the transportation and installation of a new 19,000-ton compression platform in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, as well as the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of approximately 26 kilometers of offshore pipelines to connect the new compression platform to the existing facilities, and all major permanent subsea works”, Saipem said. It expects to start work in the third quarter of 2026, to be completed 2029. Saipem will deploy the Khankendi subsea construction vessel, owned by the Shah Deniz co-venturers, and the pipelay barge Israfil Huseynov, owned by state-owned Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC. “The use of local naval assets and the integration with Azerbaijani partners confirm the commitment to the enhancement of skills and technologies of the country and the contribution to local content”, Saipem said. The contracts will be executed under last year’s “framework agreement” between the Saipem-SOCAR consortium and BP that lays out the terms for Khankendi’s deployment to the Shah Deniz and Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields in Azerbaijani waters in the Caspian. The agreement for the vessel lasts three years with a two-year extension option, as announced by Saipem July 12, 2024. All onshore

Read More »

Oil Slips to Five-Month Low

Oil extended a slump to a fresh five-month low as mounting concerns over a long-anticipated supply glut outweighed broader financial market strength. West Texas Intermediate eased to settle near $58 a barrel, the lowest since May. Prices fluctuated in choppy trade for much of the day after losing roughly 7% over the past five sessions. While equities rebounded on the Federal Reserve signaling another rate cut later this month, oil remains under pressure after the OPEC+ alliance decided this year to return shuttered production faster than expected, adding to worries about a glut. “Oil is still strongly influenced by trade tensions and shifts in risk sentiment, but with equity markets in positive territory there is some modest support,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. The International Energy Agency increased its estimate for record oversupply next year, and some oil-trading giants say the long-anticipated excess is already starting to emerge. Traders will also likely hone in on an industry report on US oil supplies due later Wednesday. Key physical US crude grades have also weakened to the lowest in about two months as the trade spat between US and China escalated and sent shipping rates surging. “WTI faces significant resistance around $60 a barrel, and headline risk surrounding US-China tensions remains elevated,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. The ongoing tit-for-tat between Beijing and Washington, the two biggest oil consumers, escalated this week, though US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer predicted the tensions would soon ease. Some market metrics are also flashing softness. A closely watched timespread — the gap between the two nearest December contracts for WTI — has flipped into contango, a bearish structure where prices for supplies available near term is cheaper than deliveries further out. Oil Prices WTI for November fell 0.7% to

Read More »

Gunvor CEO Says Oil Oversupply Finally Emerging

An oil market surplus that’s long been anticipated by investors is finally showing signs of emerging, a fact that may start to drive down crude prices, the boss of one of the world’s top energy traders said. “It looks like we are now moving into a bit of a different market,” Torbjorn Tornqvist, chief executive officer of Gunvor Group, said in an interview in London. “We have heard it before and people have been burned on that. But this time around, at this stage, I think there’s a bit more substance in the oversupplied narrative.” The International Energy Agency said earlier that the world is set for a record surplus of 4 million barrels a day in 2026 as OPEC+ nations — in addition to countries outside the producer group — boost output. It said cargoes are starting to build up at sea, a sign of oversupply. Tornqvist’s own estimate is for a surplus about half that size next year — still a substantial overhang. As such, oil prices should be heading lower, even if the market is unlikely to create a so-called supercontango that can make storage of commodities very profitable, according to the CEO. “There’s a great deal more oil hitting the market at the time where there is no additional demand for it,” Tornqvist said Tuesday. “And on top of that, you obviously have renewed trade tensions.” Last week, crude in the US plunged below $60 a barrel for the first time since May. It traded below $59 on Tuesday. Tough Trading Some of the world’s top oil companies reported a tougher trading environment in the second quarter as geopolitical uncertainty created the wrong kind of volatility — decoupled from supply-and-demand fundamentals. Tornqvist said geopolitics are generating smaller oil-price premiums as tensions in key producing Middle East

Read More »

Oracle’s big bet for AI: Zettascale10

“OCI Zettascale10 was designed with the goal of integrating large-scale generative AI use cases, including training and running large language models,” said Info-Tech’s Palanichamy. Oracle also introduced new capabilities in Oracle Acceleron, its OCI networking stack, that it said helps customers run workloads more quickly and cost-effectively. They include dedicated network fabrics, converged NICs, and host-level zero-trust packet routing that Oracle says can double network and storage throughput while cutting latency and cost. Oracle’s zettascale supercomputer is built on the Acceleron RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) architecture and Nvidia AI infrastructure. This allows it to deliver what Oracle calls “breakthrough” scale, “extremely low” GPU-to-GPU latency, and improved price/performance, cluster use, and overall reliability. The new architecture has a “wide, shallow, resilient” fabric, according to Oracle, and takes advantage of switching capabilities built into modern GPU network interface cards (NICs). This means it can connect to multiple switches at the same time, but each switch stays on its own isolated network plane. Customers can thus deploy larger clusters, faster, while running into fewer stalls and checkpoint restarts, because traffic can be shifted to different network planes and re-routed when the system encounters unstable or contested paths. The architecture also features power-efficient optics and is “hyper-optimized” for density, as its clusters are located in large data center campuses within a two-kilometer radius, Oracle said.

Read More »

Q&A: IBM’s Mikel Díez on hybridizing quantum and classical computing

And, one clarification. Back in 2019, when we launched our first quantum computer, with between 5 and 7 qubits, what we could attempt to do with that capacity could be perfectly simulated on an ordinary laptop. After the advances of these years, being able to simulate problems requiring more than 60 or 70 qubits with classical technology is not possible even on the largest classical computer in the world. That’s why what we do on our current computers, with 156 qubits, is run real quantum circuits. They’re not simulated: they run real circuits to help with artificial intelligence problems, optimization of simulation of materials, emergence of models… all that kind of thing. The Basque Government’s BasQ program includes three types of initiatives or projects. The first are related to the evolution of quantum technology itself: how to continue improving error correction, how to identify components of quantum computers, and how to optimize both these and the performance of these devices. From a more scientific perspective, we are working on how to represent the behavior of materials so that we can improve the resistance of polymers, for example. This is useful in aeronautics to improve aircraft suspension. We are also working on time crystals, which, from a scientific perspective, seek to improve precision, sensor control, and metrology. Finally, a third line relates to the application of this technology in industry; for example, we are exploring how to improve the investment portfolio for the banking sector, how to optimize the energy grid , and how to explore logistics problems. What were the major challenges in launching the machine you’re inaugurating today? Why did you choose the Basque Country to implement your second Quantum System Two? Before implementing a facility of this type in a geographic area, we assess whether it makes sense based on

Read More »

Preparing for 800 VDC Data Centers: ABB, Eaton Support NVIDIA’s AI Infrastructure Evolution

Vendors and operators are already preparing for AI campuses measured in gigawatts. ABB’s announcement underscores the scale of this transition—not incremental retrofits, but entirely new development models for multi-GW AI infrastructure. How ABB Is Supporting the Move to 800-V DC Data Centers ABB says its joint work with NVIDIA will focus on advanced power solutions to enable 800-V DC architectures supporting 1-MW racks. Expect DC-rated breakers, protection relays, busways, and power shelves engineered for higher DC voltages, along with interfaces for liquid-cooled rack busbars. In parallel with the NVIDIA partnership, ABB has introduced an AI-ready refresh of its MNS® low-voltage switchgear, integrating SACE Emax 3 breakers with enhanced sensing and analytics to reduce footprint while improving selectivity and uptime. These components form the foundational building blocks of the higher-density electrical rooms and prefabricated skids that will define next-generation data centers. ABB’s MegaFlex UPS line already targets hyperscale and colocation environments with megawatt-class modules (UL 415/480-V variants), delivering high double-conversion efficiency and seamless integration with ABB’s Ability™ Data Center Automation platform—unifying BMS, EPMS, and DCIM functions. As racks transition to 800-V DC and liquid-cooled buses, continuous thermal-electrical co-optimization becomes essential. In this new paradigm, telemetry and controls will matter as much as copper and coolant. NVIDIA’s technical brief positions 800-V DC as the remedy for today’s inefficiencies—reducing space, cable mass, and conversion losses that accompany rising rack densities of 200 to 600 kW and beyond. The company’s 800-V rollout is targeted for 2027, with ecosystem partners spanning the entire electrical stack. Early signals from the OCP Global Summit 2025 confirm that vendors are moving rapidly to align their products and architectures with this vision. The Demands of Next-Generation GPUs NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin NVL144 rack design previews what the next phase of AI infrastructure will require: 45 °C liquid cooling, liquid-cooled busbars,

Read More »

Nvidia’s DGX Spark desktop supercomputer is on sale now, but hard to find

Industrial demand Nvidia’s DGX chips are in high demand in industry, though, and it’s more likely that Micro Center’s one-Spark limit is to prevent businesses scooping them up by the rack-load to run AI applications in their data centers. The DGX Spark contains an Nvidia GB10 Grace Blackwell chip, 128GB of unified system memory, a ConnectX-7 smart NIC for connecting two Spark’s in parallel, and up to 4TB of storage in a package just 150mm (about 6 inches) square. It consumes 240W of electrical power and delivers 1 petaflop of performance at FP4 precision — that’s one million billion floating point operations with four-bit precision per second. In comparison, Nvidia said, its original DGX-1 supercomputer based on its Pascal chip architecture and launched in 2016 delivered 170 teraflops (170,000 billion operations per second) at FP16 precision, but cost $129,000 and consumed 3,200W. It also weighed 60kg, compared to the Spark’s 1.2kg or 2.65 pounds. Nvidia won’t be the only company selling compact systems based on the DGX Spark design: It said that partner systems will be available from Acer, Asus, Dell Technologies, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, and MSI. This article originally appeared on Computerworld.

Read More »

Florida’s Data Center Moment: Power, Policy, and Potential

Florida is rapidly positioning itself as one of the next major frontiers for data center development. With extended tax incentives, proactive utilities, and a strategic geographic advantage, the state is aligning power, policy, and economic development in ways that echo the early playbook of Northern Virginia. In the latest episode of The Data Center Frontier Show, Buddy Rizer, Executive Director of Loudoun County Economic Development, and Lila Jaber, Founder of the Florida’s Women in Energy Leadership Forum and former Chair of the Florida Public Service Commission, join DCF to explore the opportunities and lessons shaping Florida’s emergence as a data center powerhouse. Energy and Infrastructure: A Strong Starting Position Unlike regions grappling with grid strain, Florida begins its data center growth story with energy abundance. While Loudoun County, Virginia—home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers—faced a 600 MW power deficit last year and could reach 12 GW of demand by 2030, Florida maintains excess generation capacity and robust renewable energy integration. Utilities like Florida Power & Light (FPL) and Duke Energy are already preparing for hyperscale and AI-driven loads, filing new large-load tariff structures to balance growth with ratepayer protection. Over the past decade, Florida utilities have also invested billions to harden their grids against hurricanes and extreme weather, resulting in some of the most resilient energy infrastructure in the country. Florida’s 10-year generation planning requirement, which ensures a diverse portfolio including nuclear, solar, and battery storage, further positions the state to meet growing digital infrastructure needs through hybrid on-site generation and demand-response capabilities. Economic and Workforce Advantages The state’s renewed sales tax exemptions for data centers through 2037—and the raised 100 MW IT load threshold—signal a strong bid to attract hyperscale operators and large-scale AI campuses. Florida also offers a competitive electricity rate structure comparable to Virginia’s

Read More »

Inside Blackstone’s Electrification Push: From Shermco to the Power Backbone of AI Data Centers

According to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), U.S. energy demand is projected to grow 50% by 2050. Electrical manufacturers have invested more than $10 billion since 2021 in new technologies to expand grid and manufacturing capacity, also reducing reliance on materials from China by 32% since 2018. Power access, sustainable infrastructure, and land acquisition have become critical factors shaping where and how data center facilities are built. As we previously reported in Data Center Frontier, investors realized this years ago, viewing these facilities both as technology assets and a unique convergence of real estate, utility infrastructure, and mission-critical systems that can also generate revenue. One of those investors is global asset manager Blackstone, which through its Energy Transition Partners private equity arm, recently acquired Shermco Industries for $1.6 billion. Announced August 21, the deal is part of Blackstone’s strategy to invest in companies that support the growing demand for electrification and a more reliable power grid. The goal is to strengthen data center infrastructure reliability and expand critical electrical services. Founded in 1974, Texas-based Shermco is one of the largest electrical testing organizations accredited by the InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA). The company operates in a niche yet important space: providing lifecycle electrical services, including maintenance, testing, commissioning, repair, and design, in support of data centers, utilities, and industrial clients. It has more than 40 service centers in the U.S. and Canada. In addition to helping Blackstone support its electrification and power grid reliability goals, the Shermco purchase is also part of Blackstone’s strategy to increase scale and resources—revenue increases without a substantial increase in resources—thus expanding its footprint and capabilities within the essential energy services sector.  As data centers expand globally, become more energy intensive, and are pressured to incorporate renewables and modernize grids, Blackstone’s leaders plan to leverage Shermco’s

Read More »

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

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

Read More »

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

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

Read More »

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

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

Read More »

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

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

Read More »