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Tech News
A nationwide ground stop issued by the FAA last Friday disrupted weekend air travel and airline schedules across the US. The agency attributed the failure to aging technology infrastructure rather than any artificial intelligence system, pointing to decades of stalled modernization efforts.
A contributor essay for Entrepreneur argues that companies facing a capability gap should avoid treating the choice between building, buying or partnering as a simple financial comparison. The piece, drawing on experience in banking, fintech, construction and financial services, frames the decision as strategic rather than purely procurement-based, tied to a company's broader competitive vision.
At TechCrunch Disrupt, executives from Weavegrid, Veir, and Rewiring America argued that surging electricity demand from AI data centers, EVs, and heat pumps is pushing utilities to adopt new technologies rather than simply straining an aging grid. Weavegrid's software helps utilities manage and orchestrate load across these new connections, while Veir builds superconductive power lines that it says carry power five times farther using 20 times less space than conventional cables.
A U.S. Army field exercise in the desert tested new AI-enabled equipment and found significant shortcomings, including technical malfunctions and organizational obstacles to adoption. The trial was part of a broader Army effort to modernize its forces and integrate artificial intelligence into combat operations.
A Kyndryl survey of 2,000 senior IT decision-makers found that just 10% are applying agentic AI to modernization efforts, even as decades-long attempts to update legacy systems continue to fall short. The survey found only about half of companies modernizing report improved IT operations, less than half see innovation gains, and nearly one in five say the benefits were limited or unclear, with many projects running late and over budget.
Industry leaders discussing AI-driven legacy system modernization outlined a two-sided return-on-investment framework: technical gains like faster releases, platform stability, lower operating costs and improved security, alongside business-side gains measured through customer satisfaction metrics such as net promoter scores and app store ratings. They stressed that modernization efforts should be evaluated on both fronts rather than treated purely as IT projects.
Star Elevator earned Elevator World's Project of the Year award for modernizing the century-old vertical transportation system at San Francisco's Metropolis Trust Building, a Category 1 Historic Landmark at 625 Market Street. The project involved upgrading rail systems to meet modern seismic codes, replacing pushbutton and signal fixtures, and renovating cab interiors, all while addressing unreliable machinery including a car that had been taken out of service due to safety concerns.