GoKawiil
Tech News
Amazon announced it will stop requiring non-disclosure agreements when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following Microsoft's similar policy change earlier this year. The move comes amid growing community opposition to AI infrastructure projects, which has produced hundreds of proposed or enacted moratoriums in places ranging from New York to San Francisco.
Russian state media TASS reported on October 9 that a drone attack hit Yandex's data center in Kaluga's Grabtsevo industrial park, completely disabling several of its modules. The facility, Yandex's largest in Russia, spans about 130,000 square meters with a planned 63-megawatt capacity and over 3,800 server racks. This comes just two days after satellite imagery showed damage from a separate drone strike on another Yandex data center in Sasovo, Ryazan region.
Wall Street firms, led by Blackstone, are marketing AI data centers as a real estate investment category, including a new publicly traded REIT called Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust launched this year. Blackstone CEO Nick Pell said the fund focuses on 'stabilized' data centers in established markets like Northern Virginia and Dallas, aiming to tap what the company estimates is a $300 billion market, even as community opposition and state-level moratoriums on new data center projects grow.
Kioxia has introduced its LD4-series SSDs in the E1.L form factor, built on BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and targeted at read-heavy hyperscale workloads such as AI storage and object storage. The drives currently ship at up to 30.72TB, but Kioxia says the underlying architecture has been validated to support capacities as high as 122.88TB, without giving a launch timeline for those larger models.
President Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to avoid the term 'artificial intelligence' in favor of 'super intelligence,' following remarks at the UN claiming the word 'artificial' makes intelligence sound fake. The US Center for AI Standards and Innovation has already been renamed the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, and Justice Department press releases have started using the new phrasing.
Firmus, the Nvidia-backed Australian AI data center operator, has withdrawn its planned initial public offering, which would have raised about $5 billion and ranked as Australia's second-largest share sale ever. The company said market volatility and unfavorable offer terms led its board to scrap the listing, and it will instead seek funding through private markets while weighing other public or private options.
IDC Frontier, a SoftBank Group subsidiary, reported that its IDCF Cloud service suffered a ransomware attack beginning October 7 at 3:40 AM local time, disrupting its East Japan Region 1 data center cluster. The company said 495 businesses and local government bodies using the cloud platform were affected, and it has disabled management console access across all regions while checking security.
Finland's Licensing and Supervision Agency ordered Google subsidiary Tuike Finland Oy to stop building two data centers in Muhos and Kajaani pending completion of environmental impact assessments. The agency is investigating claims that more than 740 acres of forest were cleared for the project without proper authorization. Google acknowledged falling short of its own standards and said it is pursuing biodiversity measures including planting trees across 130 hectares at Muhos.
Ukrainian drones targeted a Yandex data center in Sasovo, Russia, igniting a large fire and leading to the shutdown of the facility. The site housed two of Yandex's three supercomputers used for AI development, including the high-performance Chervonenkis system, which may have been compromised. The attack disrupted Yandex Cloud services, prompting customers to switch to alternative zones.
A recent survey shows that 64% of Americans believe AI is advancing too quickly, with broad bipartisan concern about its pace. Most respondents support government efforts to keep AI under human control and safeguard jobs, while also emphasizing environmental and economic priorities. President Trump’s resistance to slowing AI progress has drawn criticism from the public, reflecting widespread apprehension about the technology’s trajectory.
Chris Gober, a Republican candidate with connections to Musk’s PAC and AI lobbying, is contesting Texas’ newly redrawn 10th district against Democrat Caitlin Rourk. Gober’s background includes legal work related to redistricting, data centers, and defense tech, with the district hosting plans for a major semiconductor manufacturing facility by SpaceX and Tesla. The race highlights the influence of Silicon Valley interests and AI regulation debates in upcoming elections.
Yandex suspended services at its Sasovo data center in Ryazan following a drone attack that caused a fire, leading to partial service disruptions. The company confirmed no casualties and noted emergency responders are managing the situation. The attack is part of broader Ukrainian efforts targeting Russian infrastructure amid ongoing tensions.