Author: GT

A power substation near the LC1 CloudHQ data center in Ashburn, Virginia, on March 27, 2024.Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesVoter anger at surging electricity prices is fueling political backlash against the artificial intelligence industry’s data centers, with Democrats accusing the Trump administration of failing to address the issue as they zero in on affordability ahead of next year’s mid-term elections.Abigail Spanberger won last week’s governor’s race in Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, after promising to make the industry “pay their own way and their fair share” of rising electricity costs.New Jersey…

Australia’s intelligence head Mike Burgess has warned that China-backed hackers are “probing” the country’s critical infrastructure, and in some cases have gained access.  Burgess, who heads the country’s main intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said that at least two China government-backed hacking groups are pre-positioning for sabotage and espionage. The comments, made during a conference speech in Melbourne on Wednesday, echo similar remarks by the U.S. government, which has warned that the ongoing hacking campaigns may pose risks of economic and societal disruption. According to Burgess, a hacker group known as Volt Typhoon is trying to break into…

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s the most wonderful time of the year, unless you want to find the perfect gifts for tech lovers. There’s a lot of slop to sift through as we get closer to the holidays, many interests to appeal to and a whole bunch of deals-that-aren’t-deals flashing before our screens. So here’s a guide — and some sales — to help you get started on your gift shopping journey. For your gamers The Nintendo Switch 2 was the biggest and most anticipated console launch of 2025, and if history is any indication, it will be increasingly harder…

Power demands of data centers have grown from tens to 200 kilowatts in just a few years, a pace that has data center developers scrambling to design future facilities that can handle the load. “In the next couple of years, it’s going to be 600 kilowatts, and then we’re going to a megawatt,” Tim Heidel, CEO of Veir, told TechCrunch. “We’re speaking to folks that are now trying to wrap their heads around the architecture for how you design data centers that have multi-megawatt racks.” At those scales, even the low-voltage cables that bring power to the racks start to…

World Labs, the startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, is launching its first commercial world model product. Marble is now available via freemium and paid tiers that let users turn text prompts, photos, videos, 3D layouts or panoramas into editable, downloadable 3D environments. The launch of the generative world model, first released in limited beta preview two months ago, comes a little over a year after World Labs came out of stealth with $230 million in funding, and puts the startup ahead of competitors building world models. World models are AI systems that generate an internal representation of an…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, said it is working with London-based Fluidstack to build the new computing facilities to power its AI systems. It didn’t disclose their exact locations or what source of electricity they will need.A report last month from TD Cowen said that the leading cloud computing providers leased a “staggering” amount of U.S. data center capacity in the third fiscal quarter of this year, amounting to more than…

Google has rolled out Private AI Compute, a new cloud-based processing system designed to bring the privacy of on-device AI to the cloud. The platform aims to give users faster, more capable AI experiences without compromising data security. It combines Google’s most advanced Gemini models with strict privacy safeguards, reflecting the company’s ongoing effort to make AI both powerful and responsible.The feature closely resembles Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, signalling how major tech firms are rethinking privacy in the age of large-scale AI. Both companies are trying to balance two competing needs — the huge computing power required to run advanced…

Anthropic announced plans Wednesday to spend $50 billion on U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York.The facilities, which will be designed to support the company’s rapid enterprise growth and its long-term research agenda, will be developed in partnership with Fluidstack.Fluidstack is an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney, and Mistral.Additional sites are expected to follow, with the first locations going live in 2026. The project is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction roles.The investment positions Anthropic as…

Waymo robotaxis will now take passengers on freeways in three major U.S. cities, marking a major milestone for the driverless, ride-hailing company.Alphabet-owned Waymo on Wednesday said it will begin offering those types of trips in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles markets “when a freeway route is meaningfully faster.” The Google sister company will gradually extend freeway trips to more riders and locations over time.Although Waymo’s driverless cars have previously taken passengers on smaller highways and side streets, Wednesday’s expansion marks the first time the company will take payment from public riders to go on freeways with higher speed…

The U.S. is far ahead of Europe in the race for large AI models — but the picture is different for the application layer, with emerging category leaders such as Lovable, the vibe-coding startup, and Synthesia, which makes AI-generated video for the enterprise. That’s the conclusion made by global VC firm Accel in its 2025 Globalscape report, which focuses on the AI and cloud market. Worth noting: Accel is an investor in both Lovable and Synthesia. According to Accel, European and Israeli cloud and AI applications have raised 66 cents for every dollar raised by their American counterparts in 2025…