After the midterms, things are looking rocky for Elon Musk and data centers

Democrats’ historic victory in this week’s midterm elections could also have a dramatic effect on the tech industry. In dozens of local ballot measures, voters rejected data centers. And even when they weren’t voting on the issue directly, they were electing politicians — like Texas’ new governor-elect Gina Hinojosa — who campaigned on the promise … Read more

Crusoe sells troubled Wyoming data center project to Google

Crusoe, an eight-year-old, Denver-based data center developer recently valued at $30.9 billion, confirmed Friday it has sold an unfinished data center project in southeastern Wyoming to Google. Google, which Crusoe had tried and failed to land as a customer for the project, is taking over the development after reportedly raising concerns about its cost and … Read more

The New York Times reportedly in talks to buy Letterboxd for $330 million

The New York Times Company has reportedly “entered exclusive negotiations” to acquire Letterboxd for $330 million, according to a report from The New York Times itself. Letterboxd, an online platform for movie lovers that could be compared to Goodreads for movies, has grown dramatically in recent years. Letterboxd reported 3 million users in January 2021, … Read more

Anthropic is working on a system to prove AI models’ identity

Anthropic is working on an open source system to verify which AI model produced a given output, according to a blog post published Tuesday. The system, called FlashProve, is built to provide what researchers call “provable inference” — a cryptographic proof, essentially a mathematical guarantee, that a given output came from a specific model. It’s … Read more

Apple may try to increase revenue by doing…something with third-party AI apps

Apple’s services business remains at record levels, but it’s facing growing pressure. The central part of that business, Apple’s App Store, has faced regulatory pressure and a slump in mobile gaming, which have hurt services growth. However, on Monday’s earnings call, Apple signaled that it may look to boost services revenue through third-party apps. What … Read more

OpenAI might rebrand its data centers as ‘AI compute campuses’

Data centers are deeply unpopular. But what if we called them something else? Axios reports that OpenAI is preparing a “PR blitz” for after the midterm elections on Tuesday, as Democrats seem likely to win back the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, too. The company’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told Axios … Read more

Nvidia weighs playing the cosigner for Nscale’s AI data center in West Virginia

Nvidia is in talks to guarantee billions in debt financing for AI cloud provider Nscale’s planned Anthropic data center in West Virginia, The Information reported Thursday. Bloomberg later corroborated the report. Anthropic has signed a $44.6 billion contract for the project’s first building alone, according to Nscale’s IPO filing. In essence, the chipmaker would be … Read more