GoKawiil
Tech News
A former Luminar CTO and co-founder, who worked on lidar technology for self-driving cars, writes that AI companies are evolving from infrastructure customers into infrastructure builders themselves. He draws on his 2022 experience speaking at an automotive conference about the autonomous vehicle transformation to frame today's AI buildout.
Barclays has become the latest major company to reduce its workforce, citing efficiency gains tied to artificial intelligence investment. The move follows a pattern across industries this year where firms are cutting jobs or slowing hiring while redirecting spending toward AI infrastructure and capabilities.
A Consumer Reports survey found that most Americans who have lived in their homes for over three years are paying more for electricity than they did three years ago, with three-quarters saying the increases have strained their household finances. Respondents most often blamed utility company profits and AI data center growth for the hikes, and over 75% said they don't trust state lawmakers to protect them from further rate increases.
President Trump posted on Truth Social that data center operators should strike financial deals with communities, including paying residents a 'dividend,' to boost public support for the facilities. He said this approach has turned previously unpopular projects into popular ones in areas he has observed.
Amazon announced plans to invest more than $17 billion in Germany, covering AI infrastructure, high-speed satellite internet, logistics projects, and new Prime Video content. The investment marks one of the company's largest commitments to a single European market.
Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that Anthropic and AI infrastructure provider Nscale are close to announcing another $45 billion compute agreement, just over a month after their first deal of the same size. Sources caution that talks remain ongoing and terms could still change. TechCrunch says it has contacted both companies for comment.
Reuters reports that credit strategists and investment firms are charging higher premiums to finance AI infrastructure projects that are further from completion, citing increased risk. Carlyle estimates private credit could fund around $1 trillion of AI infrastructure buildout, but warned that aggressive lending practices could create concentration risks similar to those previously seen in software lending.
Dell Technologies stock fell 11% on Wednesday, pulling down Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Oracle, Super Micro and NetApp amid worries that enterprise AI spending won't match the scale of the ongoing data center buildout. Barclays analysts cut ratings on Dell, HPE and NetApp from buy to hold, saying they see no 'meaningful AI inflection' in enterprise demand and attributing recent revenue gains largely to a global memory shortage rather than AI adoption.
Ukrainian drones struck three data centers operated by Russian tech giant Yandex over four days, knocking facilities offline and disrupting services relied on by banks, retailers and consumers. One targeted site, in Sasovo, held tens of thousands of servers along with two supercomputers used to train Yandex's AI models.
Jim Cramer told CNBC's 'Mad Money' viewers to avoid newly public data-center infrastructure firm Accelevation Holdings, which priced its IPO on Sept. 29 at $18 per share, below its proposed range, and has since fallen to about $15. He suggested putting the stock on a watch list rather than buying, citing his own preference for established AI infrastructure names like GE Vernova and Eaton.
At the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said access to capital could become a bigger constraint on AI growth than shortages of chips, memory or electricity. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan agreed, citing rising capital costs and unresolved questions about whether heavy AI investments will generate adequate returns. Hock Tan added that prior supply bottlenecks, such as memory shortages, have historically eased over time, with wafer shortages potentially easing by 2028-2029.
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.