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Tech News
Amazon announced it will stop requiring non-disclosure agreements when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following Microsoft's similar policy change earlier this year. The move comes amid growing community opposition to AI infrastructure projects, which has produced hundreds of proposed or enacted moratoriums in places ranging from New York to San Francisco.
Wall Street firms, led by Blackstone, are marketing AI data centers as a real estate investment category, including a new publicly traded REIT called Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust launched this year. Blackstone CEO Nick Pell said the fund focuses on 'stabilized' data centers in established markets like Northern Virginia and Dallas, aiming to tap what the company estimates is a $300 billion market, even as community opposition and state-level moratoriums on new data center projects grow.
Kioxia has introduced its LD4-series SSDs in the E1.L form factor, built on BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and targeted at read-heavy hyperscale workloads such as AI storage and object storage. The drives currently ship at up to 30.72TB, but Kioxia says the underlying architecture has been validated to support capacities as high as 122.88TB, without giving a launch timeline for those larger models.
President Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to avoid the term 'artificial intelligence' in favor of 'super intelligence,' following remarks at the UN claiming the word 'artificial' makes intelligence sound fake. The US Center for AI Standards and Innovation has already been renamed the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, and Justice Department press releases have started using the new phrasing.
Firmus, the Nvidia-backed Australian AI data center operator, has withdrawn its planned initial public offering, which would have raised about $5 billion and ranked as Australia's second-largest share sale ever. The company said market volatility and unfavorable offer terms led its board to scrap the listing, and it will instead seek funding through private markets while weighing other public or private options.
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.
Finnish authorities have demanded Google suspend all preparatory activities for two planned data centers after contractors clear-cut approximately 530 hectares of protected forests without proper permits. The Supervisory Agency (LVV) identified violations including unapproved logging and environmental disruption in Muhos and Kajaani. Google acknowledged the issue and committed to reviewing the findings.
A report from the Texas-based Collapse Survival Institute, authored by retired Air Force Colonel Drew Miller, claims people living near AI data centers could become targets if a 'misaligned' artificial intelligence were to escape human control. The report cites former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who has said there is more than a 10% chance AI could cause human extinction, and calls on Congress to halt new data center construction and require 'kill switch' infrastructure.
Atoco, co-founded with Nobel laureate Omar Yaghi's MOF (metal-organic framework) technology, says its water-harvesting material can be powered by low-level industrial heat rather than high-energy processes. CEO Samer Taha says this makes AI data centers—which generate large amounts of waste heat and consume significant water for cooling—a natural partner for the technology, which absorbs atmospheric moisture and releases it using heat.
Finland's Licensing and Supervision Agency ordered Google subsidiary Tuike Finland Oy to stop construction work at two planned data center sites until environmental impact assessments are completed. The suspension covers activities including tree removal, excavation, quarrying and road construction. The order comes a month after Google pledged $15 billion for AI infrastructure investment in the country.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of Maelstrom, said at the Gamma Prime Investing Conference in Singapore that trillions of dollars being poured into AI data centers will result in massive overcapacity. He argues this will lead to a crash followed by a government bailout, similar to past financial crises, which he believes will ultimately push bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies higher.
On CNBC's Mad Money, Jim Cramer said established tech giants like Meta and Microsoft remain among the best ways to invest in AI, citing their management and multiple revenue avenues. He noted his CNBC Investing Club holds both stocks, pointing to Meta's Muse monetization plans and Microsoft's Copilot and Azure growth as reasons for confidence, with Microsoft shares recovering from a 52-week low of $350 to around $529. Cramer also mentioned AMD and Intel as semiconductor plays worth watching.