Asia In brief China’s agentic AI policy wants to keep humans in the loop PLUS: Robot becomes Buddhist monk in Korea; TikTok spending $25bn in Thailand; Baidu floating chip biz; and more!
Systems Memory godboxes could offer relief from the RAMpocalypse Amid the AI-fueled memory crunch, will Compute Express Link finally have its moment to shine?
CxO Tech is now rolling out the old grievance grift Not just for hated US Presidents, now even tech bros lament their foes
Systems AMD puts out new slottable GPU for AI-curious enterprises MI350P packs 144 GB of HBM3e and up to 4.6 petaFLOPS of FP4 grunt into a dual slot card
Off-Prem Neocloud IREN buys OpenStack champion Mirantis Former bitcoin miner plans to build an easier cloudy AI on ramp while remaining a friend to FOSS
AI + ML OpenAI exec says company hopes to burn $50B of somebody else's money on compute this year If the numbers are large enough, perhaps we won't question the math
AI + ML Inference is giving AI chip startups a second chance to make their mark In a disaggregated AI world, Nvidia can be both a friend and an enemy
Networks Bandwidth hogs rejoice, Celestica's latest switch is bristling with 64 ports of 1.6 Tbps Ethernet Networking kit arrives just in time for Nvidia's 1.6 Tbps ConnectX-9 NICs
Off-Prem Microsoft lifts 2026 AI spend by $25 billion to cover component price rises Will write checks for $190 billion and even those megabucks may not satisfy demand
On-Prem Oracle plans to power its New Mexico mega datacenter with a 2.45GW fuel cell farm No sense in OpenAI stressing over its cloud bills if Oracle can't get the lights on
AI + ML Tenstorrent’s Galaxy Blackhole AI servers escape the event horizon RISC-V-based systems pack 32 Blackhole accelerators in a 6U, $110K chassis
Systems Core Scientific accelerates crypto-to-AI pivot, converts Bitcoin mine to gigawatt-scale token farm They were doing it in Texas...
AI + ML DeepSeek's new models are so efficient they'll run on a toaster ... by which we mean Huawei's NPUs Now available in preview, DeepSeek V4 cuts inference costs to a fraction of R1
AI + ML Forget one chip to rule them all: With TPU 8, Google has an AI arms race to win x86 gets the boot as Google pairs up its TPUs with some Arm-based Axion cores
AI + ML Forget call centers, local energy prices mean Britain's latest offshoring wave is AI projects Brit firms look to run tech overseas as govt tries to support 'sovereign' creators
On-Prem Oil crisis? What oil crisis? IT spending de-coupled from wider war shock Gartner sees accelerating growth in IT spending, powered by cloud and AI infrastructure investment
On-Prem Trump-branded datacenter project fails to make itself great, again The struggles continue for Fermi America's 17 GW bit barn ambitions
Public Sector Chase got a spiff of $77 million to create one job with New York datacenter Official involved in deal tells El Reg number doesn't paint entire picture of datacenter's economic benefit
On-Prem AI is reshaping Britain's datacenter map away from London Bit barns need to worry more about space, access to grid – overstuffed center no longer a must, say experts
On-Prem Growing AI power slurpage prompts MPs to examine low-energy computing Committee launches inquiry into emerging chip designs to curb datacenter energy use
Public Sector Loud, power hungry - opposition grows to datacenters as Maine passes bit barn ban If there's one thing folks want less than Copilot in their taskbar, it's a bit barn in their backyard
On-Prem US states can't account for datacenter tax breaks. Literally Report says authorities are flouting rules by failing to disclose revenue lost to server farm subsidies
Systems Orbital datacenter startup CEO admits launch economics don't fly, presses ahead regardless Needs SpaceX et al to drop prices and give competitors a ride into space to make it work
Systems Oracle taps Bloom for 2.8 GW of fuel cells to keep datacenter binge going With grid hookups slow and turbines scarce, on-site power is starting to look less optional
PaaS + IaaS Amazon would rather shareholders did not look too closely at carbon footprint Investors urged to reject proposal for more disclosure on whether AWS expansion risks climate goals
PaaS + IaaS Google wants more Intel inside ... its datacenters, taps Chipzilla for more SmartNICs Custom ASIC biz now running at a $1B annual pace for Intel
On-Prem Investors are going nuclear to keep UK's AI datacenters fed Market watcher says money is pouring into British atomic and fusion startups amid massive energy demand
On-Prem Microsoft hints at bit bunkers for war zones President Brad Smith tells an interviewer that Microsoft is reconsidering datacenter design in light of Iran war
Systems Intel gets trapped in Elon’s reality distortion field as it joins in megafab delusions Space is just the next stop on the AI hype train, right after AGI
On-Prem Shots fired – literally – over proposal to build datacenter in Indianapolis From a gun into the front door of a councilor who supports plan
Systems How Nvidia learned to embrace the light in its quest for scale The GPU king's move to optical scale-up was inevitable
AI + ML Google battles Chinese open-weights models with Gemma 4 Now with a more permissive license, multi-modality, and support for more than 140 languages
AI + ML Google's TurboQuant saves memory, but won't save us from DRAM-pricing hell Chocolate Factory’s compression tech clears the way to cheaper AI inference, not more affordable memory
On-Prem Japanese shipper MOL wants a floating datacenter, and Hitachi just climbed aboard Second-hand ship, seawater cooling, with operations eyed for 2027
Science Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year Cool, but fossil-fuel additions and AI-era power demand still muddy the climate math
Systems AI server farms heat up the neighborhood for miles around, paper finds Researchers say localized warming can extend well past site edges, raising concerns about community impact
Systems Arm says agentic AI needs a new kind of CPU. Intel's DC chief isn't buying it Cores it's got what agents crave
Systems South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions eyes new shores for rack-scale invasion Funding round comes ahead of planned IPO
On-Prem Microsoft takes up residence next to OpenAI, Oracle at Crusoe's 900 MW Texas datacenter expansion New campus to include on-site power generation
On-Prem Senators want datacenters to come clean on power consumption Ratepayer Protection Pledge is unenforceable without hard numbers, Warren and Hawley argue
On-Prem Datacenter batteries are selling years in advance, because AI, says Panasonic Shifting production from automotive to compute and working on supercapacitors as another way to protect workloads
Public Sector HMRC hands £473M Fujitsu migration deal to AWS after competition melts away Insiders say single-bidder process left little room for negotiation
Systems AI-pilled Arm CEO teases mystery products that will turn it into a money machine Breaking free of its IP licensing shackles
Systems Arm rolls its own 136-core AGI CPU to chase AI hype train Turns out artificial general intelligence was a CPU this whole time
Systems SoftBank to build massive AI datacenter on former US nuclear weapons site 10GW server farm, 10GW of new generation, and $4.2bn grid upgrade. And someone else is paying for the uranium cleanup
Networks SpaceX hits back at Amazon in orbital datacenter dispute In space, no one can hear you being petty
Systems Australia to datacenter operators: BYO energy, pay your way, build green, or stay home PLUS: Singtel’s triple outage; 17,000 counterfeit hard drives seized; Tech wages shift across Asia; And more!
Systems Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin applies to launch 51,000 datacenter satellites ‘Project Sunrise’ needs a network that doesn’t exist, a rocket that’s hardly flown, and FCC approval
Nvidia GTC Decoding Nvidia's Groq-powered LPX and the rest of its new rack systems From LPUs and GPUs to CPUs and switches, everything you need to know about Nvidia's latest kit
On-Prem Ohio citizens tell hyperscalers to take their supersized datacenters elsewhere Residents looking to ban server farms with capacity over 25 MW
Systems Nvidia's on-again off-again H200 sales in China are now on again Beijing appears to have eased its policy of pushing local GPUs
Nvidia GTC Chips... in spaaaace – courtesy of Nvidia The Space-1 Vera Rubin Module will solve all your in-space computing needs
Nvidia GTC Nvidia powers further into the CPU market with new rack systems packing 256 Vera processors The cubicals of the agentic AI age are cores
Nvidia GTC Nvidia slaps $20B Groq tech into massive new LPX racks to speed AI response time GPUzilla's $20B acquihire paves to way to AI agents that halucinate faster than ever
On-Prem Jury out on whether Americans love or hate datacenters Most don't think they are good for the environment
Nvidia GTC AI Burning Man happens next week – what to expect at Nvidia GTC 2026 From Groq-ing about tokenomics to OpenClaw and the silicon that powers it, our predictions for the hottest ticket in town
On-Prem So much for power to the people – AI datacenters could jump UK grid queue Plan to fast-track bit barn connections leaves housing developers fuming and billpayers on the hook
Systems Ayar Labs taps Wiwynn to cram 1,024 GPUs into a photonic rack system Reference design to stitch more than a thousand accelerators into a single enormous server.
On-Prem Lightmatter says latest photonics will slash datacenter fiber bills in half Latest optical engine may not be CPO, but it's still better than pluggables
On-Prem Your datacenter's power architecture called. It's not happy AI factories demand 800 volts because physics doesn't care about your upgrade budget
SaaS Oracle says AI coding tools are helping it dodge the SaaSpocalypse Big Red reckons paying for datacenters is easy when you have half a trillion dollars of cloud orders on the books
Systems AI datacenters may gulp a New York City's worth of water on hot days Study warns peak cooling demand could strain US water systems by 2030
Science Amazon tells FCC to bin SpaceX's million-satellite datacenter dream Calls Musk’s orbital plans “speculative” despite Bezos touting orbiting compute
Systems Unpacking the deceptively simple science of tokenomics Inference at scale is much more complex than more GPUs, more tokens, more profits
On-Prem Flex appeal: UK datacenter cuts AI power draw 40% on command London GPU farm dances to National Grid's tune in five-day trial, critical workloads not disrupted
On-Prem NIMBY pushback begins to bite US datacenter buildout New capacity under construction falls for first time since 2020 as permitting, zoning, and power hurdles mount
Systems Nvidia-backed photonics startup Ayar Labs fills its wallet to mass-produce CPO chiplets Company aims to stitch tens of thousands of GPUs together for more efficient training and inference
On-Prem Huawei brings its flatpack AI datacenters, packed full of Chinese chips, to the world Claims it can build and deploy them fast, whether they run at speed is another matter
Networks Nvidia burns $4B to light up American photonics manufacturing Coherent, Lumentum each walk away with $2B in cash and a multi-billion purchase commitment
PaaS + IaaS AWS says drones hit two of its datacenters in UAE, urges users to move resources to different regions Multiple zones Middle East in UAE disrupted, with water damage complicating recovery
Systems Singapore eyes barge-based hydrogen power for datacenters Saves real estate by putting the power on the water
AI + ML Amazon and Nvidia open their wallets to lock in OpenAI's business while SoftBank keeps the lights on ChatGPT maker announces $110B in new investment amid flurry of self-serving deals
Systems Oak Ridge spawns institute to curb AI datacenter power surge Lab aims to link power, cooling, and workload management to ease strain on the US grid
Systems 50 GW of datacenter demand queues up for UK grid access To put that into perspective, 45 GW was peak electricity use for Britain so far this year
Systems Nvidia hasn't made a cent in China lately – and might not need to given $120B profit GPU giant sees yet more growth coming soon, most of it in the datacenter
Off-Prem Orbital datacenters are a pie-in-the-sky idea: Gartner Analyst firm bemoans ‘peak insanity’ among those who think circling servers can replace down-to-earth clouds
Systems It's only Tuesday and AI chip startups have already soaked up $1.1B in funding Fears of an AI bubble haven't tempered vulture capitalists' enthusiasm for silicon
On-Prem Euro hosting giant hiking prices by up to 50% from April Fool's Day No, customers aren't laughing either as pressure from memory shortages bites
Systems Intel backs SambaNova's $350M bid to challenge GPUs in AI inference Upstart's 5th-gen RDU aims to undercut Nvidia's B200 on speed and cost
AI + ML Altman: You think AI is wasted energy? Try raising 100 billion humans OpenAI CEO takes really, really long view on energy efficiency
AI + ML Cerebras plans humongous AI supercomputer in India backed by UAE Up to 8 exaFLOPS of super sparse AI compute
AI + ML India’s top telco tackles AI with $110 billion build plan and proven fast market dominance playbook Reliance Jio used super-cheap plans and own-brand phones to conquer
AI + ML Don't believe the hyperscalers! AI can't cure the climate crisis From AI conflation to thin evidence, a new report calls many climate claims greenwashing
Storage Microsoft boffins cook up archival storage using Pyrex glass they say can last over 10,000 years It may have half the capacity of fused silica glass, but is faster and much cheaper
Systems Google digs deep to power AI expansion with 150 MW geothermal deal Plants expected to begin operations as early as 2028 pending approval by state government
Systems GPU who? Meta to deploy Nvidia CPUs at large scale CPU adoption is part of deeper partnership between the Social Network and Nvidia which will see millions of GPUs deployed over next few years
Systems AI bit barns grow climate emergency by turning up the gas Companies talk renewables while firing up gas turbines as fast as they can
Systems Amazon-backed X-Energy gets green light for mini reactor fuel production Startup expects to complete construction of its first fuel plant later this year
Systems Oxide plans new rack attack, packing in Zen 5 CPUs and DDR5 RAM Oxide says AMD’s Turin EPYCs are coming, switch revamp under review, more open hardware in the works
Systems US is moving ahead with colocated nukes and datacenters Bitbarn nuke campus to be sited at Idaho National Laboratory
Off-Prem It's bubble or nothing for Google as search giant looks to plow ~$180B into datacenters this year
PaaS + IaaS Amazon's European datacenter buildout blows a breaker as grid connection wait list hits 7 years
Public Sector Next-gen nuclear reactors safe enough to skip full environmental reviews, says Trump admin
Public Sector House GOP wants final say on AI chip exports after Trump gives Nvidia a China hall pass
AI + ML Hyperscalers, vendors funding trillion dollar AI spree, but users will have to pay up long term
The Future of the Datacenter Delays? What delays? Oracle insists its $300B cloud contract with OpenAI is on track
The Future of the Datacenter Galactic Brain space datacenter coming in 2027, pledges startup Aetherflux
The Future of the Datacenter AI mania to swell datacenter capex to $1.6T by 2030 – if the bubble doesn't pop first
The Future of the Datacenter Bezos-backed Unconventional AI aims to make datacenter power problems go away
The Future of the Datacenter Meta and Google turn to NextEra to feed insatiable datacenter power hunger
Systems Tenstorrent QuietBox tested: A high-performance RISC-V AI workstation trapped in a software blackhole
Science Amazon-backed X-energy sweet talks investors into another $700M for small modular reactor dream
The Future of the Datacenter Open Compute Project figuring out how to get quantum computers into classical datacenters
Public Sector UK agri dept spent hundreds of millions upgrading to Windows 10 – just in time for end of support
