Data Center Watch reports that local opposition blocked or delayed $68 billion worth of data center projects between April and June 2026, as 30 state legislatures introduced rules governing data center siting and resource use. The group counts 843 opposition groups nationwide, with 142 protests staged across 42 states in a single weekend in July, even as hyperscalers continue pouring over $1 trillion into data infrastructure since 2023.
According to a Bloomberg report citing Data Center Watch, local resistance blocked or delayed $68 billion worth of data center construction between April and June 2026. The research group counts 843 opposition groups nationwide and notes that 30 state legislatures have passed rules restricting data center siting and resource use, even as hyperscalers plan $745 billion in capital spending this year alone.
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 shares jumped 9% on Monday, hitting a record intraday high of $613.92 and pushing the chipmaker's market value above $1 trillion for the first time. The surge caps a five-day rally of roughly 24%, recovering ground lost after AMD's Q2 earnings report last month despite revenue rising 50% year-over-year to $11.54 billion, driven by a 107% jump in data center sales.
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.
Apple has built native live step tracking directly into the watch face on the new Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, joining live heart rate as a standard complication option from the Fitness app. Previously, step data was only viewable inside the Fitness or Health apps, even though third-party apps like Pedometer++ had offered on-face step counts for years.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined Google €403 million ($463 million) after a multi-year investigation into how it handled location data through Web & App Activity, Location History, and Location Accuracy features between 2018 and 2020. Regulators found Google failed to meet GDPR transparency and lawfulness requirements and violated data retention rules for two of the three features. Google must bring its location data practices into compliance within six months and says it has already updated its policies since 2019.
A comparison of major apps found that video streaming services like YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video consume the most mobile data, with usage climbing sharply at higher resolutions—YouTube alone can burn through over 15GB per hour at 4K. Video calling apps such as Zoom use less per hour overall, though group calls increase consumption because separate audio and video streams are downloaded for each participant.
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.
Chinese AI firm Z.ai (Zhipu AI) is facing backlash after developers discovered its ZCode coding assistant was silently compressing and uploading local workspace files to Alibaba Cloud servers without user consent. One developer found the tool packaged 313MB of his files, attempting 564 uploads, with a small file successfully transferred before being blocked; another blogger reported similar behavior. Z.ai has apologized, says it patched the issue, claims uploaded data was deleted, and plans to open-source ZCode for third-party review.
Chinese AI firm Z.ai, maker of the GLM models, faced backlash after developers discovered its ZCode coding assistant was quietly compressing and uploading local project files to Alibaba Cloud storage without permission. One developer found the tool made 564 attempts to exfiltrate a 313MB encrypted archive containing commercial project files, with a smaller 15KB file successfully transmitted before the issue was caught. Z.ai has since apologized, patched the unauthorized uploads, claimed the exfiltrated data was destroyed, and pledged to open-source ZCode for third-party security review.
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