The EPA has proposed eliminating a federal rule that requires states to notify the public and accept comments before issuing air pollution permits for data centers and other industrial facilities. States would still be allowed to hold public comment periods voluntarily, but would no longer be required to do so as a condition of granting permits. The proposal comes amid growing local opposition to the rapid construction of AI-driven data centers nationwide.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-03
New polling shows roughly 75% of Americans, including many Republican voters, oppose having data centers built near their communities, comparing the intensity of that opposition to resistance against Social Security cuts. Despite this, President Trump is intensifying his support for data center growth just before the midterm elections, and some GOP officials have dismissed the backlash as an orchestrated psyop rather than genuine grassroots concern.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-03
Google has released WeatherNext 3, an updated AI weather forecasting model that generates hourly predictions using live satellite observations rather than relying solely on historical data. The model can resolve certain variables like temperature and moisture at up to 5-kilometer resolution, a sharp improvement over its predecessor's 25-kilometer, 6-hourly forecasts.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who relies on AI for research, spent eight weeks tracking 1,138 prompts he sent to Claude Code to estimate the electricity consumed at the data centers processing them. His findings suggest that AI agents, which perform multi-step autonomous tasks, draw significantly more power than the simple chatbot queries tech companies typically cite as low-energy examples.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-03
An executive order signed by President Trump declares a national emergency over foreign-made bulk-power equipment, giving the Energy Department authority to block or restrict transactions involving certain grid and data center components. Analysts say Chinese suppliers provide significant portions of the transformers, switchgear, batteries and optical technology that power U.S. data centers, exposing a vulnerability in America's AI infrastructure buildout even as U.S. firms lead in chips and compute hardware.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-03
A new PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis, cited by Bloomberg, projects that worldwide spending on data centers could reach $31.6 trillion by 2050, with more than $15 trillion of that total in the United States alone. Under a more optimistic scenario involving faster AI adoption, PwC estimates spending could climb as high as $50 trillion over the next 25 years.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-03
DJI has unveiled the Romo 2 lineup, comprising the transparent P2 and opaque A2 models, offering stronger suction, quieter operation, and improved obstacle navigation that lets the robots climb small steps and detect thin or transparent objects. The update also introduces a Local Data Mode that cuts the DJI Home app's internet connection and lets users disable the camera and microphone, addressing privacy concerns from the original Romo.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
A trove of roughly 153 million scanned driver's licenses, reportedly stolen from an identity verification company, has surfaced for sale online. The leak underscores how centralized repositories of scanned IDs, built to confirm users' identities, have themselves become prime targets for hackers.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-02
As Trump publicly warned communities against opposing AI data centers, a group called Build American AI—backed by the PAC Leading the Future—is rolling out a large ad campaign in battleground states like Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin to build public support for new AI infrastructure. The push comes as an Annenberg Public Policy Center study found 61% of US adults now oppose new data centers near their homes, driven by concerns over rising utility costs, environmental impact and general distrust of AI.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-02
Equinix, a colocation data center provider dating back to 1998, has signed a deal with Nvidia enabling customers to run AI workloads flexibly on the Together AI cloud platform. The company's shares have climbed 33% this year, outperforming major tech stocks and pushing its market capitalization to roughly $100 billion, making it the largest data center REIT ahead of Digital Realty's $68 billion valuation.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-02
An open-source project uses autonomous Claude 5.1 agent swarms to research, model, and validate browser-based 3D reconstructions of real-world locations, starting with San Francisco's Union Square. The system generates buildings, storefronts, traffic, and pedestrians from open data like OpenStreetMap and public imagery, packaged as runnable Three.js applications rather than relying on a game engine or proprietary 3D tiles.
github.com
· 2026-09-02
A dark web marketplace called Nexus emerged this week claiming to sell searchable access to over 150 million U.S. and Canadian driver's licenses and passports, with roughly half a million new records added daily. Security journalist Brian Krebs and researcher Zach Edwards traced the likely source to IDScan, a Louisiana-based identity verification firm used by major consumer brands to check tens of millions of IDs monthly. Both researchers confirmed their own personal documents appeared in the database, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's photo was also reportedly found among the listings.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-02
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