Today’s theme is AI and power: Power for AI, and AI as the power behind new investments and strategies. Power is often the biggest bottleneck for data center development … and San Jose knows it. The city wants to be the data center star of the West Coast and is beefing up its grid accordingly, working with utility PG&E to add new transmission capacity and guarantee timelines and capacity for data centers. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Air France-KLM seeks to put AI’s power to work across its operations. And in Texas, Samsung just landed a $16.5B deal with Tesla to manufacture its next-gen AI6 chip — fueling U.S. chipmaking and giving Samsung’s foundry biz a much-needed jolt. All the buzz is below.
Kelly Hill
Executive Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
California dreamin’: San Jose wants more than just tech HQs—it wants the servers, too. The city is working with PG&E to supercharge its grid with new transmission capacity while guaranteeing timelines and access for data centers.
AI takes off at Air France:Air France-KLM is working with Accenture and Google Cloud to build a “generative AI factory” to scale AI across operations using cloud infrastructure.
Samsung lands Tesla chip deal: Tesla has signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to produce its next-gen AI6 chip at Samsung’s Texas fab — boosting U.S. chipmaking and reviving Samsung’s struggling foundry business.
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TM fuels AI at scale: TM Global ramps up sovereign GPUaaS rollout with modular AI infrastructure, nationwide edge nodes, and secure Malaysian data centers—fueling cross-border enterprise AI growth across Southeast Asia’s fast-evolving digital economy.
Too much, too fast?: China is looking to consolidate surplus computing power into a national cloud network by 2028 as data center supply has outpaced demand and projects have been cancelled. This follows a long period of aggressive infrastructure building.
Four federal DC sites: The Department of Energy has tagged four federal locations in Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina for AI data center and power development. The four are among 16 sites identified earlier this year.
Governors’ priorities: The National Governors Association has asked its members to prioritize a number of policy areas related to AI infrastructure, including broadband deployment, water infrastructure and permit streamlining.
IBM’s new AI leader: The former head of the Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and AI Office, Radha Plumb, will lead “AI-first transformation” at IBM and shape how the company deploys AI for itself and its customers.
Sanofi — all-in on AI: People fear the revolution because of job losses. But human-plus-AI beats human-without-AI, every time; and the only jobs getting replaced are the second kind. So says Paul Hudson, CEO of pharma firm Sanofi, in a good McKinsey podcast interview. His firm is “all-in”, he says.
Just who’s the NPC?: Gen AI is widely expected to take over the video games space in the next few years. While tools aren’t there yet, demos are raising some unsettling aspects — like characters appearing to gain sentience.
