USB 3.0's successors were renamed using confusing 'Gen' labels tied to speeds of 5, 10 or 20 Gbps, making printed USB 3.2 labels unreliable indicators of actual performance. USB-C ports add convenience but say nothing about speed, since USB-C devices can still run at USB 2.0 rates. Real-world tests, like Kingston's DataTraveler Max hitting up to 1,000 MB/s versus Samsung's Fit Plus write speeds of just 58.4 MB/s, show huge gaps hidden behind similar branding.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul's administration released a Community Investment Framework advising local governments on negotiating with data center developers. The guide recommends towns demand roughly $1 million per megawatt of power demand in community investment, alongside plans covering long-term maintenance, site abandonment, and phased funding timelines.
A group called stegan0gram removed a Flock roadside camera and dissected its Android storage, finding an encryption key inside the 'media' partition that unlocked another partition holding all recorded files. That data included about 1.6 million images and 27,321 short video clips gathered over 21 days, capturing roughly 50,200 vehicles and 11 people.
NVIDIA, Google, and startup Emerald AI have created the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition aimed at making AI data centers more flexible in their power consumption. The group wants facilities to be able to shift workloads, tap batteries, and cut usage during peak demand, in exchange for utilities granting faster grid connections and potentially sharing infrastructure costs.
Apple is reportedly building custom AI servers around future M8 Ultra chips, planned in two- and four-chip configurations, and is evaluating Nvidia's NVLink Fusion for high-speed interconnects between them. The project, said to have started roughly a year ago under former hardware chief John Ternus, aims to replace Apple's existing in-house connectivity tech, which is reportedly too slow and expensive for large-scale deployment.
Nokia shares jumped 6.3% after the company announced a partnership with Microsoft aimed at expanding its data offering for telecommunications providers. The gain pushes Nokia's stock up nearly 70% for the year so far.
Hackers physically removed a Flock Safety license plate reader from a roadway, extracted an encryption key from its storage, and shared the recovered files with 404 Media and WIRED. The data showed the device's software identifies not just vehicles and plates but also people, bicycles, and even small details like bumper stickers, generating over a million images in just weeks of logs.
Crusoe, the company behind construction of one of OpenAI's largest data center projects, has closed a $3.9 billion funding round valuing it at nearly $31 billion. The company is now expanding into factory-built, smaller-scale data centers alongside its large infrastructure work.
A political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis found that just 13% of Gen Z respondents believe most people can be trusted, while 74% agreed that 'you can't be too careful' when dealing with others. Researchers attribute this low trust to formative experiences shaping the youngest members of today's workforce.
Iceland-based Treble, founded in 2020 by acoustic engineers Finnur Pind and Jesper Pedersen, has closed an $18 million extension to its Series A round led by Paladin Capital Group, with backing from KOMPAS VC, Frumtak Ventures, EIC, and Omega ehf. The funding brings Treble's total raised to over $40 million, following a $12 million round in 2024, and the company already counts Amazon and Logitech among its customers.
Al Gore, speaking with TechCrunch alongside Generation Investment Management's Lila Preston, argued that AI data centers' emissions are far smaller than critics claim, comparing them to landfill emissions and global air conditioning use. He said what worries him more are warnings emerging from within the AI industry itself.
CNBC's Jim Cramer said this week that despite growing safety concerns raised by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, he expects AI investment to keep accelerating because companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are generating too much revenue to slow down. After conversations with executives at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, Cramer said he remains bullish on data center component makers and cybersecurity firms like Palo Alto Networks, Okta and CrowdStrike.
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