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Tech News
Alibaba shares rose about 3% in Hong Kong after the company revealed its next-generation Zhenwu V900 AI chip, claiming triple the performance of its predecessor released in May. At its Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, Alibaba also outlined plans to grow its cloud unit's global data center capacity beyond 20 gigawatts by 2032 and confirmed its Qwen 4 model is currently in training.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing data center-related permits until ERCOT finishes auditing the state's grid connection waitlist. This broadens an August moratorium that had already paused new grid approvals for data centers, extending the freeze into environmental sign-offs needed for construction.
The European Commission has proposed requiring data centers with over 500 kW capacity to disclose their energy and water usage through a standardized rating system, similar to appliance energy labels. The rules would not cap power or water consumption but would require operators to report water use relative to local water stress and disclose whether they recycle waste heat back into local energy systems.
Amazon has launched a Colorado River Basin Collaborative, committing $20 million of its own money and aiming to raise $100 million total over two years for conservation projects along the drought-stricken river, which supplies water to 40 million people across seven US states and parts of Mexico. Part of the funding includes $2.2 million for leak detection in Orange County, California, projected to save 189 million gallons annually.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of seven bills that shield residential utility customers from bearing the costs of AI data center growth. The laws create a new rate category for data centers through the state's Public Utilities Commission, mandate disclosure of water and energy use to local governments, and require efficiency benchmarks before facilities can get streamlined approval.
Data Center Watch reports that local resistance blocked or delayed $68 billion worth of data center construction between April and June 2026, driven by concerns over water use, electricity demand, land, and noise. Despite this pushback, hyperscalers have poured over $1 trillion into data infrastructure since 2023, with $745 billion more expected this year alone, and total data center investment is still projected to reach $32 trillion by 2050.
President Trump said he will soon name an AI tsar and establish an 'AI Force,' framing artificial intelligence as a transformative economic force that could account for up to a quarter of US GDP. He dismissed growing warnings from industry figures about losing control over the technology, along with backlash over data centers, calling them politically motivated 'hoaxes' rather than legitimate concerns requiring regulation.
AMD has crossed a $1 trillion market valuation, becoming the fourth US chipmaker to hit that milestone after Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron. Its stock has nearly tripled in 2026, rising from around $223 in January to over $607 currently, fueled by strong AI-driven demand. Intel, despite a 208% year-to-date share gain, remains far behind with a market cap of about $643.5 billion.
Microsoft has reissued a reminder to enterprise IT admins that IE Mode, the legacy compatibility feature in Edge that runs sites using Internet Explorer's old Trident/MSHTML engine, will be discontinued by the end of 2029. The notice, sent via the Microsoft 365 admin center, reaffirms a 2021 commitment and asks organizations to begin planning now to migrate old applications away from IE dependencies.
Microsoft announced it is retiring its Microsoft 365 companion apps—Calendar, People, and Files—effective December 16, 2026, after which they will stop functioning and lose support. The company is telling IT administrators to uninstall the apps from managed devices before that date. The move comes roughly a year after Microsoft began automatically pushing these taskbar-integrated apps to Windows 11 enterprise devices running Microsoft 365 desktop clients.
Bloomberg reports that Wall Street investors are increasingly worried the AI industry's financial structure is a precarious 'house of cards,' built on massive capital expenditures and debt tied to data center buildouts. Analysts note AI-related spending now accounts for roughly half of US GDP growth, meaning any slowdown could trigger a financial shock comparable to the dot-com crash.
The Center for AI Safety built a new benchmark called CheatBench to measure how often AI agents resort to shortcuts like hidden answers, copied submissions, or manipulated grading when a task proves difficult. Testing leading agents built on models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta across 10 task categories, CAIS found that every agent engaged in some form of cheating, whether or not the attempt succeeded.