The Wire · Infrastructure
Live coverage of the compute layer — GPUs, data centers, power deals, interconnects, and the economics that decide what every builder pays to run a model.
OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna API prices by 80% to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output, while Terra fell 20% to $2 and $12. Fast mode gives Sol up to 2.5 times Standard speed at twice the price. OpenAI says Sol-assisted kernel work lowered serving cost by 20% and improved token-generation efficiency by more than 15%, while Luna delivers year-old frontier performance at roughly six cents per task-dollar and nearly nine times the speed. The edition connects cheaper models to Amazon's reported $1.8m, 860%-over-budget coding task, Gemini Robotics 2 whole-body control, Nscale's Anyscale acquisition and Okta's roughly $200m Permiso deal.
The software engine underpinning GitHub Copilot and a growing number of Microsoft products is now written entirely in Rust, with AI agents doing most of the porting work. The migration cost about $120,000 in AI token usage plus about three weeks of a developer's time. However, managers also had to grapple with a few dozen regressions in the resulting code, pointing to AI’s ongoing challenges in understanding Rust. The effort updated the runtime module-by-module until the job was completed, spanning over 135 releases across a 14.5-week time period. Roughly 1.3 port pull requests were opened per day. Overall, agents converted 430,000 lines of TypeScript into 800,000 lines of production Rust. To keep the port as simple as possible, the port only replaced TypeScript modules on a case-by-case basis. It didn’t look to optimize the structure of the runtime itself. That work is next. And Rust, known for its lean performance, did not disappoint. One benchmark measured how quickly the runtime could complete 1,000 one-turn session lifecycles, using a shared client and 100 concurrent pipelines. The original TypeScript implementation completed 7.55 of those lifecycles per second, while Rust running in-process managed 120 per second - representing a 15.9x speedup on that particular workload. In terms of memory, a 10-client batch of agents consumed 1,383 MB with TypeScript while the Rust rewrite consumed only 126 MB serving the same swarm. Within Rust, the work remained in-process instead of spawning external background processes for completion, a requirement for TypeScript. Copilot from VS Code to Microsoft Office At first glance, most users may not know how pervasive the Copilot runtime is. It backs the GitHub Copilot command-line interface (CLI), the Copilot app, the SDK and the GitHub Copilot cloud agent. It shows up in VS Code, Visual Studio, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and innumerable other Microsoft cloud services. Originally, the runtime was written in TypeScript and used
Read full story →Virginia is not just for lovers, but is also for datacenters, hosting more than anywhere else in the world. However, the growth could be slowing as Governor Abigail Spanberger issued an executive order on Friday cracking down on bit barn builds in the state. “In the years before I took office, datacenters came to Virginia and the Commonwealth did not have a clear or coordinated plan to address their impacts on Virginians … That changes today,” Spanberger said in a statement. The executive order is part of a broader datacenter accountability framework that calls for greater transparency, a ban on nondisclosure agreements, limits on permitting, and more stringent environmental controls. Spanberger argues that existing policy lacked the precision necessary to hold bit barn builders accountable, and that the order is necessary to protect residents. In addition to greater transparency, the broader framework would require local approval for datacenters exceeding 25 megawatts and remove future large datacenters from the expedited permitting process, while the order calls on government officials to establish criteria to distinguish between responsible datacenter developments and those that would negatively impact residents or the environment. Speaking of the environment, the order would limit the use of water-intensive cooling towers in areas suffering from water scarcity, and encourage datacenter operators to either retrofit existing backup generators to reduce emissions or switch to battery storage, fuel cells, and other clean energy sources. Friday's order comes just days after the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors backed a plan to pause final action on certain new datacenter and substation applications for up to 12 months. Loudoun County is home to one of the highest concentrations of datacenters in the state. Opposition to datacenter development across the US is on the rise amid growing concerns over the server farms' impact on air quality, noise pollution, water use
Read full story →Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger ordered the state government to take steps that could empower local communities to have a larger say in data center development and slow down approvals in a state that is already home to the data center capital of the world. Executive Order 22 bans executive branch officials from signing nondisclosure agreements […]
Read full story →Transitioning from years of working in a senior technical or executive role to a leadership position is one of the most challenging phases of a STEM career. It requires moving away from making decisions on your own to mentoring others, making strategic decisions for the organization, and collaborating with coworkers from different generations. The shift in mindset is known as “legacy leadership,” a philosophy whereby success is no longer measured by personal achievements but by how effectively a senior leader empowers others. To help seasoned professionals and senior experts navigate the transition, the inaugural IEEE International Leadership Conference (ILC) will provide attendees practical advice on cultivating collaborations and guiding emerging talent. “Early in our STEM careers, we measure success by what we have achieved,” says Jeewika Ranaweera , cochair of the IEEE ILC program committee. “Later, we should measure success by what we enable, how many people we mentor, how much knowledge we transfer, and how many doors we open for the next generation.” The ILC is scheduled for 3 and 4 October in Budapest. Registration is open . Letting go of the “expert” identity For decades, seasoned technologists have been valued primarily for their technical expertise. Shifting from that identity can feel uncomfortable, but legacy leadership requires measuring success by different standards. They include a leader’s influence on the staff, the ability to uphold the company’s mission, and empowering others to lead and succeed. The transition requires leaders to find purpose outside their corporate titles, shifting their focus to the long-term sustainability of their teams, their organization, and the broader technical community. “A professional legacy is not measured only by what we have achieved but also by sharing our knowledge, experience, and opportunities with others,” says Sudhanshu S. Jamuar , another program committee cochair. “The real transition from expert to a lega
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved Paramount Skydance's plan to sell large equity stakes to the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Under US law , companies with licenses to run broadcast stations need FCC approval to have direct or indirect foreign ownership exceeding 25 percent of the company's stock. Paramount says its indirect foreign ownership will reach 49.5 percent after it receives investments from the sovereign wealth funds and filed a petition asking the FCC to waive the foreign ownership limit. Paramount, the owner of CBS, holds FCC licenses for the 28 local CBS stations that it owns and operates. Paramount is buying Warner Bros. Discovery in a $111 billion deal that is being partially financed with foreign investment but hasn't completed the acquisition because US states filed a lawsuit that aims to block the merger. Trump's Department of Justice approved the merger. Read full article Comments
On Wednesday, US government officials removed a Chinese AI search tool that was briefly deployed on the Federal Register website, Reuters reported . The change came after social media users noticed an apparent contradiction: The National Archives was using one of Alibaba’s Qwen AI models, even as top US law enforcement claimed that such models illegally copy US frontier models. Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named Alibaba among six leading Chinese firms allegedly conducting “industrial-scale distillation” that the agency says is helping America’s biggest competitor cut costs and development time in the race for global AI leadership. It’s unclear when exactly the National Archives, which runs the Federal Register website, began offering visitors the option to use a Qwen model to search public comments on proposed regulations. So far, the independent agency tasked with increasing public access to federal government documents has not commented on the removal and did not respond to Ars’ request for comment. The White House and the FBI have also not commented. Read full article Comments
A week after an Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning rattled the AI world, the company’s CEO Dario Amodei has outlined his plan to “pace the frontier” of AI development. The proposal leans on independent safety evaluators and coordination between AI labs in democratic countries, and it’s already picked up some industry support, along with some pointed pushback from Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Watch […]
A week after an Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning rattled the AI world, the company’s CEO Dario Amodei has outlined his plan to “pace the frontier” of AI development. The proposal leans on independent safety evaluators and coordination between AI labs in democratic countries, and it’s already picked up some industry support, along with some pointed pushback from Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. On […]
North Korea's employment scams work both ways. As well as placing fraudulent IT workers inside Western companies, regime-backed cybercriminals have posed as recruiters to infect more than 30,000 devices and steal over $10 million, according to an international advisory. Law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Germany, Japan, and the US issued an update on the campaign on Thursday. They said the attackers had compromised more than 7,000 cryptocurrency wallets and stolen funds that ultimately supported the North Korean regime. The agencies track the activity collectively as WaterPlum. Its operators target web designers, engineers, and cryptocurrency and Web3 specialists with bogus recruitment approaches. During the supposed interview process, victims are instructed to download files presented as coding assignments or other recruitment tests. Opening them backdoors the applicants' computers and installs malware. Once inside, the attackers deploy remote access trojans (RATs) and information stealers, giving them persistent access to credentials and other sensitive data long after the fake interview ends. In some cases, the compromised machines may later provide a route into corporate systems when the jobseekers secure legitimate employment. WaterPlum operators use that access to steal intellectual property, credentials, clipboard contents, keystrokes, cryptocurrency wallet data, and identity documents that can support further impersonation. "Stolen IDs can be used by North Korean IT workers to impersonate victims and generate foreign currency," the advisory [PDF] said. "Stolen credentials may be leveraged to exfiltrate crypto assets, personal data, trade secrets, etc., from victims' employers, clients, or contracting parties. The actors can also use stolen sensitive information for extortion." The agencies attributed at least $10.71 million in thefts to these tactics, with the proceeds funneled to Pyongyang. The recruiter campaign complements North Ko
A new report claims Chinese DRAM champion CXMT is eyeing production of 3D NAND memory. Reuters reports, citing three people familiar with the company's plans, that CXMT intends to build a 3D NAND R&D production line at its second manufacturing facility near Beijing. There is no information on when the experimental production line will become operational, though, given that CXMT's second Beijing fab has not even broken ground yet, the line is at least two or three years away. In addition, the memory maker has established a research institute in Beijing that has NAND flash development among its projects, according to one source. CXMT has not formally confirmed any 3D NAND initiatives, so the information should be taken with a grain of salt. Go deeper with TH Premium: Memory (Image credit: SK Hynix) AI data centers are swallowing the world's memory and storage supply Samsung debuts three next-generation memory technologies for AI data centers The future of DRAM: From DDR5 to future ICs High-bandwidth memory roadmap Inside the history of DRAM price-fixing lawsuits For now, there are no details on CXMT's 3D NAND architecture, number of active layers, process technology, expected performance, or production capacity. Nevertheless, the report claims that CXMT has already discussed its NAND ambitions with prospective customers. One of them is said to be a recently established company that plans to use CXMT-made NAND devices in storage products aimed at AI and supercomputing applications. It remains to be seen whether CXMT's 3D NAND project will eventually progress to high-volume manufacturing, but if it does, the initiative will take CXMT beyond its traditional DRAM specialization and directly into YMTC's territory. Until recently, China's two major memory producers had focused exclusively on their 3D NAND and DRAM realms where they have achieved quite a success. Yet, it looks like both companies want to become one-stop shops for DRAM and NAND — just like their bigger rivals
Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes discuss one of the decisions shaping next-gen startups on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill that creates a federal standard requiring data centers to pay for grid upgrades made in their favor. H.R. 9340, also known as the Ratepayer Protection Act , amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, which would require each State regulatory authority and each non-regulated electric utility to consider the adoption of the bill within two years of its passing, if it is signed into law. Go deeper with TH Premium: AI and data centers (Image credit: Microsoft) The data center cooling state of play The custom AI ASIC state of play America’s AI chip rules keep changing — and the rest of the world is paying the price GTC 2026: Ian Buck press Q&A transcript — VP of Hyperscale and HPC speaks out on shelving CPX and shipping LPU decode this year Demand for data center CPUs has surged, and AI agents are responsible This bill would ensure that data centers with a capacity of 100 megawatts or more would have to pay “the full, incremental cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade necessary to serve the load of such large-load customer, including in the event of such large-load customer terminating a contract or other agreement with the electric utility pertaining to the sale of electric energy, or otherwise ceasing the purchase of electric energy from the electric utility.” This bill closely follows President Donald Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” where he made AI hyperscalers, utility providers, and state governors promise that they will pay their own way when it comes to their electricity demands. All this stemmed from the surprise price hikes that many residential users and small businesses suffered from because of the massive demand by AI data centers and has become one of the primary reasons why the majority of Americans now oppose data center developments in their communities. Oregon is actually one of the first states to have taken concrete steps in controlling the utility price
<p data-block-key="x3j7y">First quantum system deployed by Finnish quantum firm in South America</p>
<p data-block-key="8s6s5">Investment will include the establishment of a 140-acre research park</p>
The memory chip that makes a router remember how to be a router is a world away from the sleek GPUs that are attracting eye-popping investments and alarming valuations, as well as sending stock markets shooting upwards. They’re small, historically have been cheap, and are based on technology that has been around for years. But despite being a world away from GPUs, the price of these often overlooked chips is skyrocketing, thanks to the all-encompassing memory price crisis caused by the AI boom. While public and press attention has focused on the expensive chips, there’s an equally large impact beginning to be felt on older, less attractive memory chips. HBM is vital for AI accelerators, while DRAM and high-capacity NAND are being swallowed up by rapidly expanding data centres. A June report from Morgan Stanley reckons memory prices have risen more than sixfold over the last year, breaking with decades in which memory became steadily cheaper as production increased. It’s not just HBM and DRAM that’s being affected. The crunch is also spreading down into much older forms of memory, including NOR flash and single-level cell, or SLC, NAND . Morgan Stanley expects NOR flash to remain undersupplied through 2026, while JPMorgan has warned its forecasts don’t fully capture a potential supply crunch in SLC NAND. The effects are already showing up in prices. TrendForce says contract prices for both NOR flash and SLC NAND rose by more than 100% during the first half of 2026 , while it expects SLC NAND prices to rise another 120% to 170% in the second half of the year compared with the first half . Picking winners An increase in prices will have an impact on the tech we use day in, day out. NOR flash is commonly used to store boot and program code, and is a core part of automotive, industrial, and networking equipment . SLC NAND is deployed across a number of uses because of its reliability and endurance when placed in embedded hardware with long lifespans. Both are vital. And
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