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Google has agreed to purchase nearly 400 megawatts of electricity from Fervo Energy's Cape Station geothermal plant in Utah, set to come online in 2028, with an option to buy 600 megawatts more through 2030. The power will support a new Google data center as the company seeks additional electricity sources to meet rising AI computing demands.
GoPro announced a definitive merger with private photonics firm Starman Optical, aiming to expand beyond action cameras into AI data center infrastructure and defense-related optics. Shareholders will receive $285 million in cash, or $1.14 per share, while the stock stays on the Nasdaq and existing consumer products continue. Shares jumped 40% on the news, with major stakeholders including Markiplier and BlackRock standing to benefit.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNBC that many AI data center developers disregard the concerns of communities where they build, contrasting them with companies like Chobani that engage locally. His remarks followed an August executive order imposing strict new requirements on data center projects and removing them from a fast-track approval process.
NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reported that after reviewing data from the Artemis II mission, the Orion capsule's heat shield showed only about nine sites of char loss, a dramatic improvement from the more than 100 sites, some over an inch deep, seen after Artemis I. NASA had altered Orion's reentry trajectory rather than redesign the heat shield following the 2022 issues, and the approach appears to have worked as the crew safely splashed down in the Pacific.
MediaTek stock jumped 10% on Tuesday following news that Nvidia will invest $3.5 billion in convertible bonds issued by the Taiwanese chipmaker. The deal deepens a partnership aimed at expanding MediaTek's presence in data center chips, extending a rally that has seen its shares nearly triple this year.
Ross Cohen, who runs SBA lender B:Side Capital and AI firm Main & Machine, describes how his staff's first reaction to an AI adoption announcement was fear of layoffs. His fix was to define upfront which tasks—like credit decisions, hardship conversations, and commitments to borrowers—AI would never handle, before choosing any software.
Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba built a solid-state cooling prototype that uses a shape-memory titanium-nickel film to convert heat directly into the mechanical motion needed to drive elastocaloric cooling, replacing the usual electric actuator. In tests, heating the actuator film to 86°C produced a 4.0 K temperature difference across the cooling device, and swapping in an external 130°C heat source still yielded a 2.2 K span, showing waste heat alone can power the cycle.
NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, bound for a location four times farther than the Moon. The observatory carries a 300-megapixel camera built with a repurposed spy satellite mirror and offers a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's. It is only the second NASA-led astrophysics flagship mission launched this century, after Webb in 2021, and notably arrived at the pad ahead of its own deadline.
SB Energy, a SoftBank-owned data-center developer, offered OpenAI a discount valued at $5.5 billion as part of an agreement to build data-center capacity together. The concession strengthens the financial relationship between SB Energy and OpenAI as they work to develop new infrastructure projects.
During NASA's post-launch news conference for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Administrator Jared Isaacman stepped away mid-briefing to take a call, then returned to let President Trump address reporters and officials over speakerphone. Trump praised the launch's television coverage, complimented Isaacman's leadership, and noted his administration's funding for the agency.
A CDT-commissioned poll of 2,000 British adults, conducted by Public First, found 93% believe they have a right to private online conversations and 89% think no one should read their messages without a court order. Two-thirds said they wouldn't trust the current or any future UK government with the power to access encrypted chats, a view shared across supporters of all major parties.
A report examines whether components and equipment sourced from Chinese manufacturers are quietly underpinning the rapid expansion of American data centers driving the AI buildout. The claim centers on supply chain dependencies that persist even as US-China tech tensions escalate publicly.