GoKawiil
Tech News
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The $4.3 billion observatory began as a surveillance satellite platform built by the National Reconnaissance Office for post-9/11 intelligence gathering, which was donated to NASA after the spy program was scrapped before launch.
Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) has proposed a major residential rate reduction plan expected to save Hoosier customers roughly $59 million in electric bills through 2027, or about $100 annually for a typical household. The utility also intends to freeze rates for three years, crediting rising demand from data centers and other large customers for boosting revenue enough to offset costs. The proposal now awaits approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, with a decision anticipated by June 2027.
X's Global Government Affairs team says it identified roughly 200,000 accounts tied to a Chinese bot network, with about 200 of them dedicated to spreading posts critical of AI data centers. The posts claimed the facilities were raising household electricity bills and straining power grids, echoing similar findings OpenAI reported in June about ChatGPT users seeking ways to sway American opinion on data centers.
Politico sources report the Trump administration is drafting another round of tariffs on semiconductors, aiming to push chipmakers toward US-based production. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly favors letting companies import chips duty-free up to a threshold linked to their domestic investment, though the exact terms remain unsettled. The move would layer new costs onto PCs, consoles and data centers already strained by memory shortages.
US electricity demand climbed about 1.7% annually from 2020 to 2025, more than ten times the growth rate utilities saw in the prior fifteen years, driven by data centers, EV charging stations and reshored manufacturing. Much of the transmission network carrying that load dates to the 1950s-1980s, causing sagging lines, overheating transformers and voltage drops as usage climbs.
X's Safety team identified a 200,000-account network of suspected inauthentic Chinese accounts, 200 of which spread AI-generated comics and posts criticizing AI data centers' impact on electricity prices and local power grids. The company said these posts used OpenAI-generated imagery and talking points that echoed illustrations from a June OpenAI report on similar China-linked influence efforts. X has suspended violating accounts but has not disclosed the identities of those involved or detailed the remaining 199,800 accounts' activity.
A wave of polls and news reports indicates widespread American opposition to data centers, Flock surveillance cameras, and Meta's AI-equipped Ray-Ban glasses, which critics have nicknamed 'pervert glasses.' Recent events, including a grand jury declining to indict a man filmed damaging Flock equipment and protestors against data centers gaining online praise, underscore how deep and public this hostility has become.
Politico reports the Trump administration is considering wide-ranging tariffs that could extend beyond raw semiconductors to products built with them, such as gaming consoles, servers and data-center equipment, with an announcement possible within weeks or months. Sources familiar with internal discussions say the exact scope remains unsettled, but one option under review would sharply broaden the list of taxed tech goods.
NASA has repainted one of its T-38 supersonic training jets with a new black-and-white design featuring blue and red stripes, the Artemis program logo, and Moon graphics on the rear fuselage. The design, proposed by pilot Sean Brady of the Aircraft Operations Division at Johnson Space Center, was applied during the jet's scheduled repainting rather than for any special ceremony. The aircraft, tail number N924NA, is now the only one of NASA's 14 active T-38s that doesn't wear the agency's traditional blue-stripe livery.
Citing eight unnamed sources, POLITICO reports the Trump administration is considering a second wave of semiconductor tariffs that would hit finished products like laptops, gaming consoles, and data center servers, not just chips themselves. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly favors tying duty-free chip import limits to each company's committed U.S. manufacturing output, and officials have signaled that exemptions granted under January's Proclamation 11002 for data centers, startups, and consumer devices might not survive into this next phase.
Chris Malone, OpenAI's head of data centers, has reportedly left the company, becoming the 13th senior executive to depart this year. His exit follows a string of high-level resignations amid the company's rapid infrastructure expansion.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said on August 26, 2026 that the company expects 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028, which would translate to roughly $673 billion in annual sales based on current fiscal 2027 consensus estimates. That figure would put Nvidia ahead of Apple and Alphabet, trailing only Amazon among major US tech firms. The outlook follows a fiscal 2027 second-quarter report showing $96.2 billion in revenue and 117% growth in data-center sales to $89 billion.