Tech News Roundup for the week ending Sept. 27, 2024

Power Hungry Data Centers Making a Comeback

Our rampant use of AI has pulled data centers back into the spotlight. The tech industry is seeking better ways to power the servers for ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini, and other AI tools. A few companies attempted to address it this week:

• Microsoft signed a deal to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plantOpens a new window by 2028 to power data centers along the East Coast. Most Gen Xers are too young to remember when the plant had a nuclear meltdown in 1979. That may explain why Microsoft isn’t the only one suggesting a switch to nuclear energy.
• Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, told Bloomberg Television that “nuclear is a wonderful way forward as one of the sources of energy,Opens a new window one of the sources of sustainable energy” for data centers.
• Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sam Altman participated in a White House RoundtableOpens a new window to discuss how the country might develop “large-scale AI data centers and power infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations. The OpenAI plan suggests building 5 gigawatt data centers across the country. For context, Three Mile Island generates a little over 800 megawatts.
• Alphabet is also beefing up its data center presence in South CarolinaOpens a new window by building two new ones in Dorchester County and expanding another already in the state. 

Why it matters: As FortuneOpens a new window points out, 5 gigawatts is a lot of power—roughly equivalent to the amount needed to power Miami. If companies are to fulfill their carbon-neutral pledges, we may need to move faster on cold fusion. This also begs the question: Should we be using all of this power just to fabricate case lawOpens a new window or to generate ridiculous images of historical figuresOpens a new window ?

Cyberattacks and Data Breaches Just Won’t Stop

We can’t go a week—sometimes even a day—without hearing about another cyberattack. This week, there were some big ones: A hacker going by “grep” claims to have targeted Dell three timesOpens a new window this month, first releasing data on employees and then two separate releases of internal documents. MoneyGram confirmed an incident on MondayOpens a new window after a multiple-day outage but has not released any details other than a post on XOpens a new window Thursday that it was back online. In addition, data broker MC2 Data, a provider of background checks, left a database containing more than 2.2 TB of data exposed to the internetOpens a new window , as it was not password protected. 

Why it matters: Individual have hardly any control over what happens to their data once they entrust it to a company. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is supposed to be handled with the utmost care. Yet, companies we don’t know have access to it and make careless mistakes that put everyone at risk. The Dell incident shows that data leaks can affect non-customers too, as employee information was exposed. The EU’s GDPR has become the de facto standard for corporate data protection. Still, the legal implications only come into play when EU citizens are involved. Companies do not have sufficient controls in place, and consumers are paying the price.

What Is Going on at OpenAI?

OpenAI is suffering from growing pains as it transitions from a non-profit organization into a Tech Giant. Three more executives left the company this weekOpens a new window , including the chief technology officer Mira Murati. Two high-level research team members are also leaving: Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and Vice President of Research Barret Zoph. These departures come on the heels of the August announcement that two co-founder were leaving. Greg Brockman announced an extended leave of absence while co-founder John Schulman left for a position at competitor Anthropic. 

Why it matters: OpenAI hopes to close a $6.5 billion funding roundOpens a new window soon, which could see the company’s valuation jump to $150 billion. Investors may be skeptical that the company can continue its current trajectory, given that so many original employees are leaving. The company was founded in December 2015 but didn’t fall into the public eye until the release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022. Since then, the company has struggled to maintain its non-profit roots, and on Thursday, Reuters reported that the company may restructure as a for-profit organizationOpens a new window .

Other things to be aware of:

• Starlink reached 4 million subscribersOpens a new window
• WordPress and WPEngine don’t like each other very much anymoreOpens a new window
• CrowdStrike apologized to Congress for the global outageOpens a new window
• Google is adding Gemini to WorkspaceOpens a new window

And, in case you missed it, the September 25 Google Doodle, “Celebrating Popcorn,Opens a new window ” was a weird multiplayer game in which you played as a popcorn kernel, and the goal was not to pop.