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（中央社舊金山25日綜合外電報導）各行各業仍在感受AI帶來革新與衝擊之際，科技業已然進入強制員工使用甚至追蹤使用情況階段，納入考績衡量生產力提升。一些公司在招聘時不錄用無法證明具AI熟練度的應徵者。

華爾街日報指出，從小型新創公司到包括亞馬遜（Amazon）、Google以及Meta Platforms在內的科技巨頭著眼生產力提升，都在評量員工人工智慧（AI）工具使用情況，某些情況下納入考績；一些職位若求職者無法證明具備AI熟練度，會直接被刷掉。

擁有300名員工的數位行銷新創公司Conductor，執行長 伯斯梅尼克（Seth Besmertnik）說：「我們採用胡蘿蔔加棍子策略。一家公司要蓬勃發展，唯一方法就是讓所有員工都具備高水準能力。」

伯斯梅尼克今年初開始在全公司績效評估中納入AI使用情況，員工會獲得1到5分的AI能力評分。例如創造能改善他人工作流程系統者可得5分。他還設立新獎項：誰能設計出最高效的AI流程，就能贏得價值數千美元的度假獎金。

他也不考慮聘用無法熟練使用AI工具的應徵者。赴 Conductor面試的求職者，會接受使用AI解決問題能力的測試。他們必須說明選擇某項工具的理由，以及如時光回到6個月前，會如何用不同方法處理問題。

根據AI顧問公司Section一項調查，截至去年10月，約42%科技業員工稱直屬主管期望他們在日常工作中使用 AI，高於8個月前的32%。

賓州大學華頓商學院（Warton School of the University of Pennsylvania）與市場研究顧問公司 GBK Collective的最新調查則顯示，近半數科技與電信公司稱生成式AI投資帶來正向回報，高於整體產業平均的35%。

亞馬遜集團旗下的雲端運算平台亞馬遜網路服務（Amazon Web Services），軟體開發人員的主管擁有一個數據看板，可查看工程師使用AI工具情況。雖然這未直接納入績效評估，但在升遷時主管會考量誰全力投入AI。

Google今年首度將AI使用情況納入部分軟體工程師的考績，但不是強制性統一規定，據知情人士說法，各團隊與主管有裁量權；Google發言人表示，公司鼓勵所有員工，無論職位或層級，都將AI工具融入日常工作。

Meta的新績效評估制度也會將AI使用納入考量。評估系統可追蹤工程師透過AI撰寫多少程式碼，並含可為個人提供自身影響力分析的AI工具，員工可用於自我評量。

在微軟（Microsoft），主管在績效討論中也加入有關 AI使用的問題，員工應量化說明自己如何在工作流程中使用AI工具。

Salesforce是一家提供個人化客戶關係管理規劃與服務的網際網路企業，目前是全球市佔率最高的雲端客戶關係管理（CRM）平台。他們去年年底在內部數據看板中新增AI熟練度追蹤器。

雖然公司沒有設定必須達成的具體AI指標才能獲得優良考績，但新工具的使用與績效表現密切相關。公司表示如果不使用AI，很可能代表績效不佳。

例如，員工現在只能透過AI填特休假，大多數的自我評估和績效考核，也都是在AI助理的協助下完成。

專門研究未來工作趨勢的顧問艾略特（Brian Elliott）表示，為讓員工廣泛採用AI，大型科技公司面臨的壓力尤鉅。

他說：「像微軟、亞馬遜與Google這些公司，一開始就投入大量資金開發這些工具，如果他們無法在自家內部有效運作，就更難向客戶推銷。必須證明有投資報酬（ROI）。」

但華爾街日報指出，即便引領職場趨勢的科技業，也不易適應大量使用AI。科技業員工對AI的感受與一般大眾相似，包括懷疑它實際上能為自己節省多少時間。此外，他們也有相同焦慮：自家公司大談AI，最終將導致人力縮減。

透過 Google News 追蹤中央社

前述賓州大學華頓商學院與GBK Collective最新調查的共同作者寇斯特（Jeremy Korst）說：「在科技業，這種情況會被放大。若員工相信這最終會導致他們失業，大家真認為他們會廣泛採用這項技術嗎？」

他表示，企業可以強制並衡量AI使用情況，但在落實時應秉持實驗精神（無論成功或失敗都予鼓勵），「然在大型組織中要做到這一點更難，並非每家公司都能做得好」。（編譯：陳亦偉）1150226

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（中央社記者吳家豪台北24日電）蘋果公司（Apple）今天推出iPhone與iPad專用的Sales Coach（銷售教練）App，取代現有的SEED App，針對Apple Store直營店和蘋果授權服務中心的員工，提供有關銷售蘋果裝置的教育訓練資源及實用資訊，未來將導入全新人工智慧（AI）聊天機器人，可回答產品相關問題。

根據科技網站MacRumors的報導，Sales Coach並非對外開放下載的App，原本使用SEED App的蘋果服務體系員工安裝更新後，會自動升級為Sales Coach。

相較於SEED較偏向資訊陳列，Sales Coach強化了即時查詢能力，採用蘋果新一代液態玻璃介面設計，強調流動感，未來將加入AI聊天機器人，透過Ask分頁就能直接開啟，類似「蘋果支援」App的聊天機器人。員工可以直接取得有關iPhone特定功能說明、軟體運作細節等資訊，涵蓋蘋果所有產品線。

報導指出，目前Sales Coach的AI聊天機器人尚未啟用，具體上線時間未定。Sales Coach也提供網頁版，讓員工更方便在不同裝置上使用。（編輯：張均懋）1150224

Chip giant and world’s most valuable company Nvidia reported record profits in its most recent quarter on Wednesday, as demand for AI compute continues to skyrocket.

“The demand for tokens in the world has gone completely exponential,” CEO Jensen Huang said on a call with analysts following the results. “I think we’re all seeing that, to the point where even our six-year-old GPUs in the cloud are completely consumed and the pricing is going up.”

The company reported $68 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, up 73% from the prior year, with $62 billion of that revenue coming from the company’s data center business.

Notably, Nvidia divided the data center revenue into $51 billion in compute revenue (largely GPUs) and $11 billion in networking products like NVLink. The company reported $215 billion in revenue for the full year.

As in previous quarters, the company did not report any revenue from chip exports to China, despite the recent lifting of export restrictions by the U.S. government. “While small amounts of H200 products for China-based customers were approved by the US government, they have yet to generate any revenue, and we do not know whether any imports will be allowed into China,” Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, said.

“Our competitors in China, bolstered by recent IPOs, are making progress,” she continued, in an apparent reference to Moore Threads’ IPO in December, “and have the potential to disrupt the structure of the global AI industry over the long term.”

During the investor call, Huang also addressed the company’s pending investment in OpenAI, which has been reported at $30 billion.

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“We continue to work with OpenAI toward a partnership agreement. We believe we are close,” Huang said. He also referenced partnerships with Anthropic, Meta, and Elon Musk’s xAI. However, statements Nvidia filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday emphasized that there was “no assurance” an investment would take place.

Huang also addressed concerns about the sustainability of tech companies’ capex commitments, saying he believed the compute investments would soon bring revenue.

“In this new world of AI, compute is revenue. Without compute, there’s no way to generate tokens. Without tokens, there’s no way to grow revenues,” Huang said. “We’ve reached the inflection point and we’re generating profitable tokens that are productive for customers and profitable for the cloud service providers”

Google on Wednesday announced a series of updates to its Gemini AI-powered features on the Android operating system, the most notable being a new way to use the AI to handle multi-step tasks like ordering an Uber or food delivery. These automations join other Gemini improvements shipping today, including an expansion of scam detection for phone calls and Circle to Search updates that now let you identify all the items on your phone’s screen.

The automations, explains Google, allow users to essentially offload their to-do list to Gemini. In practice, however, the types of things that Gemini can manage are still limited.

The company says that the feature, which is in beta, will initially support select apps in the food, grocery, and rideshare categories.

It will also be limited to the Gemini app on certain devices, including the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S26 series. And it will initially be available only in the U.S. and Korea.

Image Credits:Google

AI-powered automations could potentially go wrong, of course, so Google has added some protections. For starters, the automations can’t be kicked off without an explicit command from the device’s owner. As they run, you can watch their progress in real time and stop the task if it’s making a mistake or getting stuck. Google notes also that the automations take place in a secure, virtual window on your phone where they can only access limited apps, not the rest of the data on your device.

The feature ties into the growing trend of using AI to automate more tasks in users’ personal lives. ChatGPT, for instance, lets users create tasks that can be run on schedules or at specific times, as well as offering an agent that can complete a variety of computer-based tasks like navigating a calendar, generating a slideshow, or running code. Anthropic’s Cowork, meanwhile, brings the capabilities of its Claude AI to non-coding tasks, letting non-developers automate everyday file and task management. And, of course, an AI tool called OpenClaw recently went viral for its ability to manage everyday tasks like sending emails, managing calendars, checking into flights, and more.

Image Credits:Google

Another Gemini update arriving now is the expansion of a Scam Detection feature for phone calls, which is becoming available on Samsung Galaxy S26 series devices in the U.S. (The feature is already offered on Pixel phones in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the U.K.) Google is also using its Gemini on-device model to detect scam texts in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. on Pixel 10 series devices, and soon on the Galaxy S26 series phones, as well.

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Finally, Google says its Circle to Search feature, which lets you use gestures like scribbles and circling to initiate searches, can now search for everything you’re seeing on the phone screen, not just a single object. That means you can search every item of clothing and every accessory in an outfit you like, or learn more about a group of things and the related topic on the screen.

Image Credits:Google

Google has been steadily releasing Gemini updates to its Android ecosystem at regular intervals through new operating system updates and updates targeted toward its flagship phone, the Google Pixel, via its frequent updates known as Pixel Drops. Meanwhile, Apple has been struggling to release a more comprehensive AI feature set, which is set to include an AI-powered Siri — a launch that was recently pushed back again to later in the year.

Last month, OpenAI said that it is going to introduce ads to users of the free and Go tiers in ChatGPT. The company rolled out ads to U.S.-based users earlier this month amid criticism from rivals like Anthropic, which published a string of Super Bowl ads.

On the sidelines of the India AI summit, TechCrunch asked OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap about how the company is approaching ads. Lightcap said that the process is iterative and the company has to get user privacy and trust right.

“Well, this is going to be an iterative process for sure. This is something we are committed to getting right. What does that look like? It means obviously maintaining user trust at a very high level. It means getting privacy right,” Lightcap said.

He also noted that ads can add to the product experience of users if they are done right. He urged to give OpenAI a few months to see how the company fares in rolling out the product.

“It means really creating a delightful product experience. We think ads done right can be additive to a product experience. And so it’ll take iteration, it’ll take time, but we’re just starting out. So maybe give us a few months and see how it goes,” he said.

Lightcap didn’t specify if the company is thinking about rolling out ads beyond the U.S. market at the moment.

Earlier this month, Sam Altman hit back at Anthropic with a long post on X about the Super Bowl ads, calling the OpenAI rival “dishonest” and accusing them of making an expensive product that serves “rich people.”

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“More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than the total number of people who use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do,” Altman wrote.

Various outlets have reported that OpenAI is charging $60 for 1,000 impressions, an unusually high rate. Last month, Adweek noted that OpenAI is asking for $200,000 of minimum commitment from advertisers. Earlier this week, The Information reported that Shopify is allowing its merchants to advertise on ChatGPT through its Shop Campaigns ad network, joining early testers like Target, Williams Sonoma, and Adobe.

Peter Steinberger, the creator of the viral AI agent OpenClaw who has since been hired by OpenAI, has some advice for those experimenting with AI technology, including AI agents. From his own experience, the best way to build today is to explore, be playful, and not expect to be an expert at what you do right away.

“I wish I could say that I had the unified plan in the beginning, but a lot of it was just exploration,” Steinberger said. “I wanted things, and those things didn’t exist, and … let’s say I prompted them into existence.”

The developer was chatting with OpenAI’s Head of Developer Experience, Romain Huet, on the first episode of the company’s new Builders Unscripted podcast. Here, he spoke about what OpenClaw was like in its early days and how he didn’t have a plan when he got started.

Steinberger explained he began by building a tool that would integrate with WhatsApp, but then set it aside for a bit and focused on other things, as he assumed the AI labs would build something like what he was working on in the near future.

“I just experimented a lot. My mission was, kind of like, to have fun and inspire people,” Steinberger noted. By last November, however, the developer was surprised that no AI labs had started to build what he wanted to use. That led him to create the initial prototype of what’s now OpenClaw.

“Where it really clicked was where I was at this weekend trip in Marrakesh, and I found myself using it way more because it was so convenient … There was no really good internet. [But] WhatsApp just works everywhere,” he said. The tool made it easy for him to find restaurants, look up things on his computer, send texts to friends, and more.

The more he played with the technology, Steinberger realized how good modern AI models have become at problem-solving, much like coders are.

“Now they can just, like, actually come up with the solutions themselves, even though you never programmed them at all,” he noted.

Throughout the process of building, Steinberger said that his workflow improved — and he stresses to other developers that’s something that can take time, so don’t give up.

“There’s these people that … write software in the old way, and the old way is going to go away,” he pointed out. They then decide to try vibe coding but are disappointed with the results.

“I think vibe coding is a slur,” said Steinberger, basically suggesting that it’s not as simple a process at first as the term makes it sound. “They try AI, but they don’t understand that it’s a skill,” he said, then compared the process of coding with AI to learning guitar.

“You’re not going to be good at guitar on the first day,” he said. Instead, he recommends that people approach learning with a more playful attitude. If he writes a prompt now, he has a gut feeling as to how long it will take, and if it takes longer, he reflects on what may have gone wrong and adapts.

“My … advice always is, approach it in a playful way. Build something that you always wanted to build. If you’re at least a little bit of a builder, there has to be something on the back of your mind that you want to build. Like, just play.”

This ability to experiment and have fun is what’s most important, especially at a time when people are worried their jobs will be overtaken by AI.

“If your identity is: I want to create things. I want to solve problems. If you’re high agency, if you’re smart, you will be in more demand than ever,” Steinberger said.

In Brief

Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to Chicago and Charlotte as part of its push to continue scaling autonomous vehicles, the company said Wednesday.

Starting today, Waymo will begin manual mapping and early data collection to lay the groundwork for operations in those cities. Waymo usually enters a new city by first conducting months of manual driving and mapping to understand local road conditions, traffic patterns, and edge cases before gradually introducing autonomous testing and eventually fully driverless operations.

While Charlotte — with its suburban-style layout and mild weather — may be an easier use case, Chicago’s harsh winters, heavy traffic, and dense urban complexity would be more of a challenge for Waymo. Operating there successfully would strengthen Waymo’s case that its system is nationally scalable. It also gives Waymo another shot at a northern city after New York dropped a proposal that would have allowed commercial robotaxi pilots in parts of the state.

The news comes the same week Waymo began offering commercial driverless operations in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, bringing its total city count to 10.

Aside from Chicago and Charlotte, Waymo is also testing and planning to launch in Denver, London, and Washington, D.C., among other cities. The Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company earlier this month clinched $16 billion in funding to expand internationally.

AI chatbots have become embedded in the lives of American teenagers, according to a report published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

While the most common uses of AI among this demographic include searching for information (57%) and getting help with schoolwork (54%), teens are also using AI to fill roles that would typically be occupied by friends or family. Sixteen percent of U.S. teens say they use AI for casual conversation, while 12% use AI chatbots for emotional support or advice.

Some teens may find solace in talking to chatbots, but mental health professionals are wary. General-purpose tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok are not designed for such uses, and in the most extreme cases, these chatbots can have life-threatening psychological effects.

“We are social creatures, and there’s certainly a challenge that these systems can be isolating,” Dr. Nick Haber, a Stanford professor researching the therapeutic potential of LLMs, told TechCrunch recently. “There are a lot of instances where people can engage with these tools and then can become not grounded to the outside world of facts, and not grounded in connection to the interpersonal, which can lead to pretty isolating — if not worse — effects.”

Image Credits:Pew Research Center

Pew’s survey also shows a discrepancy between teenagers’ self-reported AI usage and the extent to which their parents think they engage with this technology. About 51% of parents said that their teen uses chatbots, while 64% of teens reported using them.

The majority of parents are okay with their teens using AI to search for information (79%) or get help with schoolwork (58%), but far fewer parents approve of their teens using AI chatbots for casual conversation (28%) or to get emotional support or advice (18%). In fact, 58% of parents are not okay with their child using AI for such purposes.

AI safety is a contentious topic among leading tech companies, to say the least. But one popular chatbot maker, Character.AI, made the choice to disable the chatbot experience for users under the age of 18. This decision followed public outcry and lawsuits filed over two teenagers’ suicides, which took place after prolonged conversations with the company’s chatbots. OpenAI, meanwhile, made the decision to sunset its particularly sycophantic GPT-4o model, which sparked backlash from people who had come to rely on the model for emotional support.

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Though a majority of teens use AI chatbots in some way, they have mixed feelings about the impact of this kind of technology on society. When asked how they think AI will impact society over the next 20 years, 31% of teens said the impact would be positive, while 26% said it would be negative.

Podcasts have officially overtaken AM/FM talk radio as the more popular medium for spoken-word audio in the United States, according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear survey.

The researchers have tracked these statistics over the last decade, and almost always, the percentage of time people spent listening to podcasts increased, while their time with spoken radio broadcasts decreased. For the first time this year, podcasts eclipsed spoken-word radio with 40% of listening time, as opposed to 39% for radio.

If anything, it’s surprising that it has taken this long for podcasts to overtake radio shows. (Remember, this doesn’t include listening to music on the radio.) But perhaps that speaks more to the durability of good, old-fashioned radio than the merits of podcasting.

Image Credits:Edison Research

We checked with Edison to see if these statistics include video podcasts, and they do. But the need to clarify that question points to the undeniable growing prevalence of video podcasts, hosted on platforms like Spotify and YouTube, which marks another key trend in podcasting.

Perhaps an industry bellwether, Netflix is inking deals with iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports to bring podcasts to the streaming service as a more trendy version of the daytime talk show. It’s not a bad investment — according to YouTube, people watch them on TV. YouTube said that viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts each month in 2025 on living room devices, like TVs, up from 400 million the previous year.

But the popularity of video podcasts doesn’t seem to be detracting from audio-first podcast listening.

Triton Digital’s U.S. Podcast Report for 2025 showed that 80% of consumers over 18 years of age tune into both audio and video podcasts; 13% only listen to audio, while 7% only watch video. Listener preferences also appear to vary greatly depending on a podcast’s genre, with podcasts about topics like music, sports, comedy, and news skewing more popular on video. Genres like science, history, art, fiction, and true crime are more often consumed via audio.

Edison’s findings show a similar trend in the role of video in podcasting. Eighty-five percent of weekly U.S. podcast listeners above the age of 13 consume podcasts with any sort of video component, up 7% from 2023. The research also showed that there are an estimated 115 million weekly podcast listeners in the U.S., with only 5% of listeners reporting that they watch podcasts, but don’t listen to them.

Time is running out! Just 3 days left before Super Early Bird pricing ends on February 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT. This is your last chance to secure the lowest ticket rates for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. If 2026 is your year to fundraise, hire, scale, or launch, you cannot afford to miss it.

Lock in your pass now before prices jump. This is the moment to act.

What to expect at Disrupt 2026

From October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, 10,000+ founders, operators, and investors gather for three days of high-signal conversations, deal-making, and actionable insights. Disrupt is not just content — it’s access to accelerated growth.

You don’t attend Disrupt to sit in the audience. You go to gain leverage. Every session, every conversation, and every connection is designed to accelerate your growth and compound your momentum. You’ll get:

Tactical insights from operators actively building in today’s market.

Direct conversations with investors writing checks.

Exposure to emerging startups before the rest of the market catches up.

Curated networking designed to produce real outcomes.

Image Credits:Eric Slomonson, The Photo Group

Unparalleled, improved networking opportunities

Last year, more than 20,000 curated meetings took place on-site. In 2026, upgraded tools will make those connections even more targeted and efficient. One conversation can change your trajectory — and at Disrupt, that is the point.

Valuable takeaways straight from the tech and VC leaders who’ve shaped the ecosystem

Disrupt has long been the stage for founders and investors who define eras. Past speakers have included category-defining leaders and top-tier VCs, such as:

Image Credits:Steve Jennings / Getty Images

In 2025, Disrupt featured 200+ onstage conversations with 250+ tech and VC leaders across AI, hardware, space, startup growth, and venture. Expect the same high-caliber content this year and check the event page as the 2026 agenda rolls out.

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Startup Battlefield 200: Pitch to win

Startup Battlefield returns with 200 pre-Series A companies competing for $100,000 in equity-free funding, global visibility, and direct investor access. Alumni include Discord, Cloudflare, and Trello.

If you want to see what’s next and hear directly from top VCs on scaling a viable startup, the Disrupt Stage is where it happens first.

Discover the next breakout innovation

With 300+ startup exhibitors, the venue, especially the Expo Hall, is where deal flow and discovery collide. You won’t just observe trends; you’ll see them before they scale. You’ll be able to:

Explore new tech stacks and tools for your startup.

Identify your next career move, operator, or investor.

Network in a sea of founders, investors, and innovators.

Image Credits:Slava Blazer Photograpy

Extend your connections with “Disrupt Week”

From October 11 to 17, Disrupt Side Events take place across the Bay Area, including breakfasts, cocktail hours, panels, and founder meetups that extend the connections beyond the main stage. The main event is powerful. The surrounding ecosystem makes it even stronger.

Only 3 days left — lock in massive ticket savings now

Super Early Bird pricing ends this Friday, February 27, at 11:59 p.m. PT. If you want to be in the room where capital moves, companies scale, and ideas turn into breakthroughs, now is the time to lock in your discounted ticket.

Register now before it’s too late. Save up to $680 on your individual pass, or up to 30% on group passes.

If you’ve built, backed, or operated inside high-growth startups, your experience could shape how the next wave of founders scales.

On June 9 in Boston, TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 will bring together 1,000+ founders and investors for a focused day on the realities of growth. We’re inviting seasoned founders, VCs, and startup operators to lead interactive roundtable discussions rooted in real-world execution — the wins, the missteps, and the lessons that only come from doing the work.

Submit your topic by April 17 to be considered. Learn more and apply today.

Image Credits:Halo Creative

Spark real conversation by leading a roundtable or breakout

Whether you lead an interactive roundtable or a Q&A-style breakout, every session at Founder Summit is built for depth. Each is a 30-minute, discussion-driven conversation led by two to four speakers, depending on format. No slides. No polished decks. Just candid insight and practical takeaways founders can apply immediately.

If you’ve scaled revenue from zero to $50 million, navigated a difficult fundraise, rebuilt a team after hypergrowth, expanded internationally, or redefined your go-to-market strategy, this is the room to share what actually works.

Image Credits:Halo Creative

Strengthen your authority in the ecosystem

Speaking at TC Founder Summit gives you:

Direct access to 1,000+ ambitious founders and active investors.

Premium entry to the full event experience.

Meaningful brand and authority positioning within the startup ecosystem.

TechCrunch will also amplify your participation through agenda placement, editorial inclusion on TechCrunch.com, and social promotion across its channels.

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Applications close April 17

TC Founder Summit takes place on June 9, and speaker selections are made well ahead of the event. If you have scaling insight founders need to hear, now is the time to submit your topic. Have more than one strong idea? Submit them all.

Lead the conversation. Share what you’ve learned. Help founders build smarter. Submit to speak before the April 17 deadline.

The proliferation of AI data centers plugging into the national electrical grid has helped increase consumer electricity prices, driving up the average national electricity price by more than 6% in the last year.

That’s not a good look for the incumbents ahead of this fall’s elections, and President Donald Trump addressed the challenge in his State of the Union speech last night.

“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up.”

The hyperscalers in question don’t need to be told. They have already made public commitments in recent weeks to cover electricity costs by building their own power sources, paying higher rates, or both, part of a broader effort to solve PR problems around data center expansion and win over skeptical communities.

On January 11, Microsoft announced its policy “to ensure that the electricity cost of serving our datacenters is not passed on to residential customers.” January 26, OpenAI committed to “paying its own way on energy, so that our operations don’t increase your energy prices.” On February 11, Anthropic made the same pledge to “cover electricity price increases that consumers face from our data centers.” Yesterday, Google announced the largest battery project in the world yesterday to support a data center in Minnesota.

What these commitments means in practice, and who will determine which data centers are responsible for which price increases, remains unknown. The White House has not released the text of the proposed pledge.

“A handshake agreement with Big Tech over data center costs isn’t good enough,” Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly said on social media. “Americans need a guarantee that energy prices won’t soar and communities have a say.”

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White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers said that next week, companies will send representatives to formally sign the pledge at the White House. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI are reportedly among those set to attend. However none of the companies have confirmed their attendance.

Even if tech companies commit to taking on electricity costs, on-site power plants may not be a panacea—they can still have adverse impacts on the surrounding environment, and will stress supply chains for natural gas, turbines, photovoltaics and batteries, depending on how companies aim to power their compute.

U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA is reportedly in dire shape, according to bipartisan lawmakers and industry leaders who fear that the agency’s ability to perform its core mission has been diminished and left it unprepared for a cybersecurity crisis.

News site Cyberscoop’s Tim Starks spoke with sources across Congress, the private cyber industry, and beyond, and what came back reflected a general consensus that CISA has suffered under cuts and layoffs during the Trump administration’s first year.

Over that time, CISA has lost around one-third of its staff, which cost it programs, personnel, and expertise, including the agency’s counter-ransomware initiative and efforts to promote secure software development. Some of these have included several members of its election security team, TechCrunch reported last year. CISA is the federal agency responsible for election security. Some warned that Trump’s ongoing obsession with promoting false claims about the 2020 election has led to the administration deprioritizing CISA.

CISA also reassigned hundreds of other staffers to aid other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security as part of the Trump administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Many of Cyberscoop’s sources blame the Trump administration, Congress, or both. Others singled out CISA’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, as having struggled to lead the agency and reportedly caused security headaches as a result.

CISA has been without a permanent director since Trump entered office in 2025.

The cybersecurity agency is said to be currently operating at around 38% staff levels as the partial U.S. federal government shutdown, which began on February 14, drags on. Lawmakers have declined to continue funding federal immigration authorities amid widespread criticism following the killing of two U.S. citizens by federal agents.

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When reached for comment, CISA’s Gottumukkala told TechCrunch that the agency “remains unwavering in its commitment to protect our federal networks from malicious cyber threat actors despite the multi-week government shutdown” of Homeland Security.

Google is moving further into physical AI by bringing a familiar robotics software platform under its wing.

Alphabet-owned Intrinsic, which builds AI models and software designed to make industrial robots more accessible, is joining Google, the companies announced on Wednesday. Intrinsic will remain a distinct entity within Google but will work closely with Google DeepMind and will tap into Google’s Gemini AI models and cloud services.

Alphabet declined to share information regarding funding or purchase price.

Intrinsic “graduated” into an independent Alphabet-owned company in 2021 after five years of development within Alphabet’s X, the company’s moonshot research division. Other companies that have graduated from X include robotaxi company Waymo and drone delivery company Wing.

Wendy Tan White has served as Intrinsic’s CEO since its spinout in 2021.

The company hit the ground running. A few months after announcing its independence, Intrinsic acquired Vicarious, a fellow robotics software company, in April 2022. While the purchase price wasn’t disclosed, Vicarious had raised about $250 million from VCs and tech bigwigs like Jeff Bezos.

A few months later, Intrinsic acquired several for-profit divisions of Open Robotics, a nonprofit organization that builds hardware and software platforms for the robotics industry.

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Despite this rapid expansion, Intrinsic laid off 20% of its workforce in January 2023.

The company announced its first product, Flowstate, just a few months later. Flowstate is a software platform for developing robotics workflows aimed at developers that don’t have deep robotics experience — aligning with the company’s mission to make robotics more accessible.

Since then, the company has fine-tuned the technology, improved its simulation capabilities, and released its Intrinsic Vision AI model in late 2025.

Intrinsic announced a joint venture with electronics manufacturer Foxconn in October 2025 that entails the two companies working together on general-purpose intelligent robots to transform how electronics are manufactured, with the goal of full factory automation.

Now, the company is working toward those goals with closer collaboration with Google’s AI prowess.

“Combined with Google’s incredible AI and infrastructure, we’re going to unlock the promise of physical AI for a much broader set of manufacturing businesses and developers. This will fundamentally shift production, from its economics to operations, and enable truly advanced manufacturing,” Tan White wrote in the company’s blog post.

This move makes a lot of sense for Google, as many tech leaders, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, see physical AI as the next natural step in the monetization and advancement of AI models and technology.

Snapchat announced on Wednesday that it’s hosting its first-ever awards show on March 21. The social media giant says the awards show, called “The Snappys,” is designed to celebrate “the creators shaping culture on Snapchat.”

Creators will receive awards like “Spotlight MVP,” “Best Storyteller,” and “Breakout Creator of the Year,” alongside awards across fashion, beauty, sports, music, food, and games. Additional categories include collaboration, comedy, and cultural impact.

“Together, these honors reflect the many ways creators spark conversations, build community, and define culture on Snapchat,” the company wrote in a blog post. “The Snappys reinforces Snapchat’s ongoing commitment to celebrating creators not just as users, but as artists, entertainers, and cultural leaders.”

Snapchat is the latest social media platform to launch awards for creators. Meta-owned Instagram introduced a new “Ring” award last October to recognize creators around the world. Instagram announced the 25 winners online, and each winner received a physical custom ring designed by English fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner, along with a digital golden ring around their Instagram profile.

In November, TikTok launched its first-ever TikTok Awards show in the U.S. Like Snapchat, Instagram handed out category-specific awards, like “Creator of the Year,” “Video of the Year,” “Muse of the Year,” “Breakthrough Artist of the Year,” and more. It’s worth noting that TikTok has also hosted awards shows in other countries, including Germany, Mexico, and Korea.

Snapchat’s awards are more in line with TikTok’s, as it will also host a traditional awards show where the winners will be revealed live at the event. The company says the show will bring together “creators, industry leaders, and special guests.” One of the “special guests” is DJ Khaled, who will be receiving Snapchat’s “Lifetime Achievement Award.”

By launching awards, Snapchat and its rivals are positioning themselves as more than just social media apps and as notable players in the entertainment industry.

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The Snappys will be hosted by comedian and creator Matt Friend and will take place at Snap‘s Santa Monica headquarters. Snapchat says it will release more details, including lists of nominees, in the coming weeks.

In Brief

When Alan Cole saw Elon Musk fans eagerly bidding up a contract on the prediction market Kalshi that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could effectively reduce federal spending in a year, he knew he had to take the bet, according to a story about Cole’s winnings in The Wall Street Journal.

If Cole, an international tax accountant, knew anything in life it was this: federal spending couldn’t be quickly whacked, he told the WSJ. Even if DOGE nixed some federal contracts and laid off workers (which it did), plenty of remaining obligations and the skyrocketing federal debt would remain.

So, he wagered his entire life savings — over $342,000 — to take the counter bet that the U.S. federal budget wouldn’t insta-shrink. He slowly amassed 3% of a Kalshi prediction market that had grown to $12 million (making a few hedging bets along the way), he told the WSJ.

When the government released the 2025 year-end spending report on February 20, showing increases compared to 2024, Cole walked away with $470,300 and a handsome $128,000 profit.

A veteran cybersecurity executive who prosecutors said “betrayed” the United States will spend at least the next seven years behind bars, after pleading guilty to stealing and selling hacking and surveillance tools to a Russian firm.

Peter Williams, a former executive at U.S. defense contractor L3Harris, was sentenced on Tuesday to 87 months in prison for leaking his former company’s trade secrets in exchange for $1.3 million in crypto between 2022 and 2025. Williams sold the exploits to Operation Zero, which the U.S. government calls “one of the world’s most nefarious exploit brokers.”

The successful conviction of Williams follows one of the most high-profile leaks of sensitive Western-made hacking tools in recent years. Even now that the case is over, there are still unanswered questions.

Williams, a 39-year-old Australian citizen who resided in Washington, D.C., was the general manager of Trenchant, the division of L3Harris that develops hacking and surveillance tools for the U.S. government and its closest global intelligence partners. Prosecutors say Williams took advantage of having “full access” to the company’s secure networks to download the hacking tools onto a portable hard drive, and later to his computer. Williams contacted Operation Zero under a pseudonym though, so it’s unclear if Operation Zero ever knew Williams’ real identity.

Trenchant is a crew of hackers and bug hunters who dig deep into other popular software made by companies like Google and Apple, identify flaws in those millions of lines of code, then devise techniques to turn those flaws into workable exploits that can be used to reliably hack into those products. These tools are typically called zero-day exploits because they take advantage of software flaws unknown to its developer, which can be worth millions of dollars.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleged that the hacking tools Williams sold could have allowed whoever used them to “potentially access millions of computers and devices around the world.”

For the past few months, I have been talking to sources and reporting on Williams’ story before news broke that he had been arrested. But what I had heard was patchwork and at times conflicting. I had heard someone had been arrested, but given the secret nature of the work involved in exploit development, proving it would be challenging.

Contact Us Do you have more information about this case, and the alleged leak of Trenchant hacking tools? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or Do you have more information about this case, and the alleged leak of Trenchant hacking tools? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or by email .

When I first heard of Williams, I wasn’t clear that I had even gotten his name right. At that point, his story was a rumor, moving through the hush-hush grapevine of zero-day exploit developers, sellers, and people with ties to the intelligence community.

I heard that maybe he was called John, or perhaps Duggan? Or all the different ways you can spell that in English.

Some of the first rumors I heard were contradictory. Apparently he stole zero-days from Trenchant, and maybe he sold them to Russia, or perhaps another enemy of the United States and its allies, like North Korea or China?

It took weeks just to confirm that there was indeed someone who even fit that description. (It turned out that Williams’ middle name is John, and Doogie is his nickname in hacker circles.)

Then, as the weeks of reporting rolled on, things started to become much clearer.

The Russian connection

As I first revealed in October, Trenchant fired an employee after Williams, who was still at the time head of Trenchant, accused the employee of stealing and leaking Chrome zero-days. The story was even more intriguing because the employee told me that after he was fired, Apple notified him that someone had targeted his personal iPhone.

What I learned was just the tip of the iceberg. I had heard more from my sources, but we were still piecing parts of the story together.

Soon after, prosecutors made their first formal accusation against a man named Peter Williams for stealing trade secrets, which first surfaced in the U.S. public court system. In that first court document, prosecutors confirmed that the buyer of these trade secrets was a buyer in Russia.

However, there was no explicit reference to L3Harris nor Trenchant, nor the fact that the trade secrets that Williams stole were zero-days. Crucially, we still couldn’t confirm for certain that it was the same Peter Williams, who we thought would have access to highly sensitive exploits as Trenchant’s boss, and not some terrible case of mistaken identity.

We still weren’t there.

On a hunch and with nothing to lose, we contacted the Department of Justice to ask if they would confirm that the person in the document was in fact Peter Williams, the former boss of L3Harris Trenchant. A spokesperson confirmed.

Finally, the story was out. A week later, Williams pleaded guilty.

When I first heard of his story, while I trusted my sources, I remained skeptical. Why would someone like Williams do what the rumors claimed? But he did, and did so for money, prosecutors allege, which Williams then used to buy a house, jewelry, and luxury watches.

It was a remarkable fall from grace for Williams, once seen as an accomplished and brilliant hacker, and especially for someone who previously worked at Australia’s top foreign spy agency and served in the country’s military.

the L3Harris building in Burlington, Canada Image Credits:JHVEPhoto / Getty Images

What happened to the stolen exploits?

We still don’t know specifically which exploits and hacking tools Williams stole and sold. Trenchant estimated a loss of $35 million, per court documents. But Williams’ lawyers said the stolen tools were not classified as a government secret.

We can glean some insight based on the circumstances of the case.

Given that the Justice Department said the stolen tools could be used to hack “millions of computers and devices,” it’s likely the tools refer to zero-days in popular consumer software, such as Android devices, Apple’s iPhones and iPads, and web browsers.

There is some evidence pointing in their direction. During a hearing last year, prosecutors read out loud a post published on X by Operation Zero, according to independent cybersecurity reporter Kim Zetter, who attended the hearing.

“Due to high demand on the market, we’re increasing payouts for top-tier mobile exploits,” read the post, which specifically mentioned Android and iOS. “As always, the end user is a non-NATO country.”

Operation Zero offers millions of dollars for details of security vulnerabilities in Android devices and iPhones, messaging apps like Telegram, as well as other kinds of software, such as Microsoft Windows, and hardware vendors, such as several brands of servers and routers.

Operation Zero claims to work with the Russian government. At the time Williams sold the exploits to the Russian broker, Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was already underway.

On the same day that Williams was sentenced, the U.S. Treasury announced it had imposed sanctions against Operation Zero and its founder Sergey Zelenyuk, calling the company a national security threat. This was the government’s first confirmation that Williams had sold the exploits to Operation Zero.

In its statement, the Treasury said the broker “sold those stolen tools to at least one unauthorized user.” At this point we don’t know who this user is. The user could be a foreign intelligence service, or it could be a ransomware gang, given that the Treasury also sanctioned Oleg Vyacheslavovich Kucherov, an alleged member of the Trickbot gang, who also allegedly worked with Operation Zero.

In a court document, prosecutors said that L3Harris was able to figure out that “an unauthorized vendor was selling a component” of one of the stolen trade secrets “by comparing company-specific vendor data found on a stolen component that matched.”

Prosecutors also said that Williams “recognized code he wrote and sold” to Operation Zero “being utilized by a South Korean broker,” further suggesting that both L3Harris and prosecutors know which tools were stolen and sold to Operation Zero.

Another unanswered question is: Did anyone, either the U.S. government or L3Harris, alert Apple, Google, or whichever tech company’s products were affected by the zero-day flaws, now that the exploits had leaked?

Any company or developer would want to know that someone could have used (or could still use) a zero-day against their users and customers so that they can patch the flaws as soon as possible. And at this point, the zero-days are of no use for L3Harris and its government customers.

When I asked Apple and Google, neither company responded to my inquiries. L3Harris did not respond either.

Who hacked the scapegoat, and why?

Then there’s the mystery of the scapegoat, who was fired after Williams accused him of stealing and leaking code.

At sentencing, Justice Department prosecutors confirmed that the employee was fired, saying Williams “stood idly by while another employee of the company was essentially blamed for [his] own conduct.” In response, Williams’ attorney rebuffed prosecutors, claiming that the former employee “was fired for misconduct,” citing claims of dual-employment and improper handling of the company’s intellectual property.

According to a court document submitted by Williams’ lawyers, as part of the L3Harris internal investigation, the company placed the employee on leave, seized his devices, transferred them to the U.S., and “offered them to the FBI.”

When reached for comment, an unnamed FBI spokesperson said the bureau had nothing to add apart from the Justice Department’s press release.

After being fired, that employee, whom we identified with the alias Jay Gibson, received a notification from Apple that his personal iPhone was targeted “with a mercenary spyware attack.”

Apple sends these notifications to users it thinks were the target of attacks using tools like those made by NSO Group or Intellexa.

Who tried to hack Gibson? He received the notification on March 5, 2025, more than six months after the FBI investigation had begun. The FBI “regularly interacted with [Williams] in late 2024 through the summer of 2025,” according to a court document.

Given the nature of the leaked tools, it is plausible that the FBI, or perhaps even a U.S. intelligence agency, targeted Gibson as part of the investigation into Williams’ leaks. But we just don’t know, and there’s a chance that neither the public, nor Gibson, will ever find out.

Updated to clarify 22nd paragraph attributing the tools’ lack of classification to Williams’ lawyers.

At Samsung’s Galaxy S26 live event on Wednesday, the company introduced a new display technology that allows users to turn on a privacy mode and prevent so-called “shoulder surfing” on a per-app basis. The display tech will offer a smarter and more flexible alternative to privacy films, which are overlaid on top of a smartphone’s screen to limit viewing unless you’re looking directly at the phone.

As Samsung pointed out, these traditional privacy films come with trade-offs — like dimmer screens or more difficulties when you’re trying to show someone else something on your phone.

Image Credits:Samsung

Its solution is a new display technology for mobile devices that uses two different types of pixels: narrow pixels and wide pixels. This architecture, which Samsung dubbed Black Matrix, will narrow the path of light emitted from each pixel to precisely control the light visible to you when the privacy mode is enabled. When it’s turned off, a widened standard pixel works with the narrow pixels to deliver the light in every direction.

samsung Image Credits:Samsung

The Privacy Display feature is also customizable, so you can set certain apps or notifications to trigger privacy mode, while others are viewed normally. For instance, you could set your messaging app or banking app to always be displayed in a private mode, but leave it off for other apps where privacy is less of a concern. This flexibility also extends to notifications, essentially blacking out certain alerts when viewed from a side angle.

Samsung says there’s also a setting for “maximum privacy protection,” which intensifies the privacy effect further by bringing down the bright areas and lifting the darker ones.

Image Credits:Samsung

The new display will initially be available on the high-end Galaxy S26 Ultra smartphone, which also includes support for upgraded and faster AI and a custom chipset.

The privacy screen was demoed live on stage during the event Wednesday, with creator Miles Franklin (of MilesAboveTech) showing the technology in action. In the demo, the feature appeared to work as advertised, including for smaller elements on the screen like specific notifications.

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The company had teased the technology ahead of Wednesday’s event, but hadn’t yet explained how it would work. It noted that the feature would work with specific apps, protecting users when they enter PINs, patterns, or passcodes.

Wearables startup CUDIS is launching its newest series of health rings this week. The updated ring comes equipped with a number of features, including an AI “agent coach” designed to keep users on track to attain their fitness goals.

CUDIS says it differentiates itself from other wearables by not just delivering health metrics but also incentivizing healthy behavior through a points system. Users garner digital “health points” for healthy behaviors — things like daily sleep, 10,000 steps every day, sports activities, and conversations with the ring’s AI coach — which can then be redeemed through an integrated marketplace for discounts on health supplements and other products.

The ring’s AI Agent Coach, meanwhile, is designed to leverage generative AI to aid with healthy programs for exercise and daily health. The company says that its agent generates tailored programs including “daily tasks, recovery protocols, supplement recommendations, and direct referrals to licensed medical professionals.”

The ring also tracks a host of body metrics and daily behaviors, such as sleep quality, stress management, movement, and recovery. This helps them see how these metrics affect their Pace of Aging (PoA), showing whether their body is aging faster or slower than their chronological age, the company explains.

CUDIS CEO and co-founder Edison Chen told TechCrunch that since his company’s first wearable was launched in 2024, the company has sold over 30,000 units across its first two models. The app’s user base has also grown to 250,000 users across 103 countries, he added.

“Our strongest markets so far have been North America, Europe, and Asia,” Chen said. “What we’re good at is pattern recognition for healthy people trying to optimize,” Chen told TechCrunch.

“The AI spots when you’re trending in the wrong direction, such as chronic poor sleep, declining HRV, elevated resting heart rate, and either suggests lifestyle changes or connects you to a professional. The control is in the escalation pathway to the right care access,” he said.

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The company claims that it keeps user data encrypted and secure via the Solana blockchain. It has previously been described as a “web3 AI wellness company.” (TechCrunch was not able to test the smart ring directly to verify its security claims.)

CUDIS announced $5 million of seed funding in 2024. The round was led by Draper Associates and included a number of other investors, including a number of blockchain-associated investor groups like Skybridge, DraperDragon, Monke Ventures, and Foresight Ventures, among others. The company also plans to launch a Kickstarter soon.

An editor for YouTube’s most popular creator, MrBeast, has been accused by the predictions market Kalshi of insider trading on the platform.

After an investigation, Kalshi said it “found reasonable cause” to believe that this editor, Artem Kaptur, had used non-public, insider information about MrBeast videos to inform his betting on matters involving the MrBeast YouTube channel.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and competitor Polymarket allow users to place bets on a wide variety of future events, like who will win a political election, how many albums a certain musician will sell in a week, or when the sequel to a popular film will be announced.

Kalshi did not disclose the specific bets that Kaptur placed about MrBeast, but some markets on the platform allow users to bet on what words the creator will say during an upcoming video — private information that a video editor could feasibly influence. Kalshi users can also trade on when MrBeast will get married, or when his company, Beast Industries, will announce an IPO.

A Beast Industries spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company does not tolerate this behavior, and that this stance extends to company employees, as well as contestants on MrBeast’s Amazon Prime show “Beast Games.” Contestants are also made aware that their knowledge of confidential information precludes them from participating in related prediction markets.

“With regard to this particular matter, we’ve already initiated an independent investigation as part of our overall ongoing efforts to ensure the integrity of our workplace and trust with our global audiences,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We welcome Kalshi — and hopefully others in the space — also taking this issue seriously, but it only works if they are willing to communicate their findings, so we’re hopeful they’ll be more open to that in the future.”

Kalshi says that Kaptur traded around $4,000 on YouTube streaming markets in August and September 2025. He made a $5,397.58 profit, prompting Kalshi to fine him for that amount, plus a $15,000 penalty. Kalshi also banned Kaptur for two years. The company said in its blog post that it will donate the fine to a consumer education non-profit.

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Kalshi also fined Kyle Langford, a candidate for political office in California, who traded about $200 on his own candidacy, then posted about it on social media.

The markets on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are so vast that it’s challenging to ensure that the users trading on them are not using private knowledge to their advantage, which is against the rules. When it comes to securities like stocks, similar behavior is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison.

The potential for these markets to be manipulated has drawn attention among U.S. lawmakers.

Last month, one Polymarket user suspiciously bet $32,000 that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power by the end of January — just hours later, the U.S. military captured Maduro, earning that user a $400,000 payout.

In response, Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) proposed legislation that would make it illegal for government employees to trade on prediction markets related to government policy, government actions, or political outcomes.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said in a Linkedin post last month that he supports the bill, since Kalshi already adheres to the rules it would enforce. He claimed that alleged insider trading cases are not occurring on U.S.-based platforms (both Kalshi and Polymarket are based in the U.S.).

“This American bill only applies to regulated, American companies and not to unregulated, non-American companies, which is where the alleged issues are occurring,” Mansour wrote. “Prediction markets, like any industry, are not a monolith: there are important distinctions that matter.”

Updated, 2/25/25, 3:45 PM with comment from Beast Industries.

Across the country, discontent has exploded over the ever-growing glut of server farms that have accompanied the AI boom. Anger has grown so loud that it’s begun to shift legislative agendas. Some states and communities are mulling temporary bans on new data center development altogether. Earlier this month, New York joined the club, with a bold new proposal to halt the local cloud build-out in its tracks.

A new bill in New York State would impose a three-year moratorium on the issuance of new permits for data center construction throughout the state, while local regulators are given a chance to study the environmental and economic impacts the industry is having on communities. The bill’s co-authors, state senator Liz Krueger and Assemblymember Anna Kelles, have called the legislation the “strongest” introduced in the country.

While no statewide moratoriums have passed so far, local bans are proliferating fast. Several weeks before Krueger and Kelles introduced their bill, the New Orleans City Council passed a moratorium, pausing all new data center construction in the city for one year. In early January, Madison, Wisconsin, passed a similar law after protests erupted over regional tech projects.

Similar policies have also passed in droves of communities throughout construction hot spots like Georgia and Michigan, as well as in many other regions throughout the country.

Environmental activists have long taken aim at data centers, but the more recent concerns have come from high-level lawmakers, drawing on populist anger at the tech industry broadly. In conservative Florida, for instance, Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced an AI “bill of rights” that gives local communities the right to limit new data center construction.

In liberal Vermont, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has suggested a nationwide moratorium. And in Arizona, where the political milieu is decidedly mixed, Gov. Katie Hobbs recently said she supported pulling the industry’s tax incentives. Politicians have even begun to fight over the topics, with the governor of Mississippi taking shots at Sanders online over his moratorium proposal.

The political resistance is coming just as tech companies commit more and more money to building out infrastructure. The four biggest spenders — Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — plan to spend a whopping $650 billion in capital expenditures over the next year, the vast majority of it going to data center build-outs. Even more spending is planned in the following years, as the companies race to secure as much compute capacity as possible.

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But the speed and scale of those projects has made them increasingly unpopular, according to recent polling. A recent Echelon Insights poll found 46% of respondents would oppose plans to build a data center in their community, compared with 35% in support. A different poll from Politico found that, while there is considerable concern about the facilities, many voters don’t have much of an opinion either way — making it possible for public sentiment to be swayed in either direction.

The industry is already spending big to attempt to change those numbers — at least in the regions where it matters. In January, the Financial Times reported that some of the industry’s biggest data center operators were planning a “lobbying blitz,” with plans to “boost spending on targeted advertising and engagement” aimed at the communities where they build.

Tech companies are also making real concessions, like the planned Rate Payer Protection Pledge that would make them responsible for supplying power to any new AI data centers. But it’s not clear those measures will be enough to bring the public around.

Dan Diorio, of the Data Center Coalition, argued, in a conversation with TechCrunch, that data centers should appeal to smaller communities because they provide revenue without straining those communities’ limited resources. If the incentives are cut off and companies decide not to build in those places, the revenue also won’t be there. “That’s where statewide policy considerations come in,” he said. “Are you going to limit communities in which these businesses could be a significant benefit for them?”

The logic behind pressing pause

In general, data center moratoriums are meant to give communities breathing room while policymakers study the potential costs and benefits of allowing such facilities to be built in their communities. The rate of construction in some states has accelerated at such a pace that communities are unsure of how the industry will impact them in the long run.

Justin Flagg, director of communications and environmental policy for Sen. Krueger’s office, told TechCrunch that the legislation was driven, in part, by what he called the energy affordability crisis in New York. Said crisis has troubled both rate payers and politicians.

A group of 30 state lawmakers recently called upon the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, to declare an “energy state of emergency” in New York due to rate increases. While there are a diversity of factors at work in driving up energy prices, there’s a consensus that the growth in data centers is making the problem worse, not better.

“There’s broad discontent being expressed about energy prices,” Flagg said. “We certainly hear that constantly from our constituents, whose electric and gas rates are going up.” He added that local pushback was also being driven by environmental concerns — which he described as the “water impact and the noise and the local infrastructure impact as well.”

In response to those grid concerns, major tech companies — including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and OpenAI — have promised to pay for their additions to the electrical grid in the communities where they operate, often installing behind-the-meter power sources paired with the new data centers.

The Washington Post recently reported that Silicon Valley is increasingly looking to build its own private electrical supply — a kind of “shadow grid” — that can be used to operate the power-consumptive properties that are now fueling the AI industry. The strategy involves standing up massive new private power sources instead of relying on the public grid.

One example of this practice comes from xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup, which — at the site of its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, known as “Colossus” — built a series of methane gas turbines that have been accused of polluting the local community.

The company’s efforts have already run into significant trouble. xAI had reportedly told local officials that, due to a legal loophole, the turbines were exempt from air-quality permits. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that Musk’s company was not exempt from the permits, making their previous operation illegal. Environmental activists, decrying the facility’s discharge of “smog-forming pollution, soot, and hazardous chemicals,” announced earlier this month that they planned to sue the company over it. Musk’s facility has since permitted its turbines.

As the xAI example illustrates, if the “shadow grid” strategy purports to solve one problem (public grid overload), it threatens to create a host of new ones — with environmental activists and local communities alike expressing concern for how the new facilities could spew pollution into people’s backyards.

At the federal level, the Trump administration — which has made AI one of its top priorities — has also sought to characterize the industry as responsible stewards of the communities in which they build. Indeed, Trump officials have floated a hypothetical policy to force AI companies to internalize the costs of their additions to local electrical grids, although the details on this policy remain vague.

Debate over taxes

For years, communities have incentivized data center development through tax breaks. Last summer, an analysis by CNBC found that 42 states throughout the U.S. either have no sales tax or provide full or partial sales tax exemptions to tech firms. Of that number, some 16 states publicly reported how much they had awarded to companies through tax breaks. The forfeited revenue amounted to some $6 billion over a period of five years, the outlet wrote.

Now, however, more and more states are thinking about turning off the spigot. In Georgia, for instance, a variety of bills were recently introduced that would crack down on the industry’s benefits. State senator Matt Brass, who has introduced a bill that would nix the server sales tax exemption, told TechCrunch that he doesn’t think tech companies need the extra money, nor does he think dispensing with the benefit will dissuade them from doing business in the state. “In Georgia, if you compare us to other states, our property taxes are low, our property values are low, our overall tax burden is low,” Brass said. “So, you know, our overall business climate is good. That should be the attraction.”

Brass, who chairs the state’s rules committee, told TechCrunch that he expects there to be significant support for his policy. A similar piece of legislation passed the Georgia legislature in 2024, but it was vetoed by the governor. Brass added that, were the exemption to be done away with, he believes it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the state.

In Ohio, a similar policy battle is currently playing out. A group of Democratic lawmakers recently introduced legislation that would — like in Georgia — move to nix the state’s sales tax exemption. A similar policy was introduced last year, but — like in Georgia — it was defeated by the state’s governor, Mike DeWine.

“The most ridiculous tax break on the books currently is for data centers,” one of the bill’s supporting lawmakers, state Sen. Kent Smith, recently said. “That tax break needs to end, for the benefit of everyone who’s got an electric bill.”

At the same time, there are still plenty of lawmakers who support the server sales tax exemption. In Colorado, state representative Alex Valdez recently introduced a bill that would enshrine data centers’ loophole for the next 20 years. Valdez told TechCrunch that the exemption is merely a carrot to get tech companies in the door. Once they set up a base of operations in the state, they become a source of passive revenue that inevitably boomerangs back to benefit the communities in which they operate, he said.

In Brief

The Trump administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against countries’ attempts to regulate how American tech companies handle foreigners’ data, arguing that data sovereignty laws threaten the advancement of AI services and technology, Reuters reported, citing an internal diplomatic cable.

The cable, signed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, says such laws would “disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit AI and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship,” according to the report.

The cable pushes diplomats to “counter unnecessarily burdensome regulations, such as data localization mandates.” It also orders them to track proposals that would promote data sovereignty laws, and urged diplomats to promote the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum, an international group that claims to enable “trusted data flows globally through international data protection and privacy certifications.”

The order comes as countries around the world increase scrutiny of how Big Tech companies and AI firms are using their citizens’ data. The European Union has led the charge on this front with laws like the GDPR, the Digital Services Act and the AI Act, seeking to curb tech companies’ control and exploitation of user data and hold them accountable.

The Trump administration has historically opposed such regulatory approaches, and this order reinforces that position as the government seeks to boost U.S. AI companies.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Splunk揭露Splunk Enterprise Windows版存在DLL搜尋順序劫持風險，可能讓本機低權限的使用者在Splunk服務啟動流程中觸發不當載入，進一步把權限提升到Windows的SYSTEM等級。該漏洞編號為CVE-2026-20140，CVSS v3.1分數7.7，屬高風險（High）等級，官方敦促用戶升級至已修補版本以降低風險。

漏洞出現在Splunk Enterprise for Windows較舊版本。當低權限Windows使用者能在安裝Splunk的系統磁碟上建立目錄，並將惡意DLL寫入該目錄，Splunk Enterprise for Windows可能在服務啟動時不當載入該DLL，之後當Splunk Enterprise實例重啟時，該DLL可能以Windows的SYSTEM等級權限執行，形成典型的本機權限提升（LPE）風險。

Splunk指出，Splunk Enterprise for Windows低於10.2.0、10.0.3、9.4.8、9.3.9、9.2.12的版本皆可能受影響，建議升級至10.2.0、10.0.3、9.4.8、9.3.9、9.2.12或更高版本。Splunk也強調此議題限於Windows環境，若Splunk Enterprise未在Windows上執行則不會受到影響。