Despite the fever-pitch hype around generative AI, reality is proving more complicated: MIT NANDA’s recent report on the “Gen AI Divide” found only 5% of enterprises are seeing real ROI so far, despite pouring tens of billions of dollars into pilots that are rarely making it to production-level scale. Still, massive bets on AI infrastructure continue. Crusoe Energy Systems is chasing a $10 billion valuation as it builds a $12 billion Texas campus for OpenAI and Oracle, while Lambda is partnering with EdgeConneX to expand data centers in Chicago and Atlanta, with ambitions to deploy over a million GPUs by 2030. The message: The money and infrastructure are racing ahead, even as business value has yet to be proven out. Let’s take a look.
Kelly Hill
Executive Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
AI reality check: A recent from MIT NANDA on the “Gen AI Divide” put forward some numbers that threw cold water on red-hot AI hype: Only 5% of enterprises were seeing ROI on gen AI. Here are the report highlights.
Crusoe eyes $10B valuation: Crusoe Energy Systems is raising funds at a potential $10B valuation, tripling last year’s mark, as it builds global AI infrastructure including a $12B Texas campus for OpenAI and Oracle.
Lambda expands AI infra footprint: EdgeConneX and Lambda will expand data center infrastructure in Chicago and Atlanta, with a 23 MW high-density facility in Chicago due in 2026. Lambda aims to deploy more than 1 million GPUs by 2030.
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AI Today: What You Need to Know
Age of AI cyberattacks: Modern technology creates growth opportunities, but it also creates new security risks. Businesses can no longer simply react to threats; security has to be built into the foundation.
Call it AI-Tube: Without asking permission or telling people, YouTube has been secretly using AI to tweak people’s videos in the past few months. The results are subtle but noticeable, and some users are unhappy.
People vs DCs: Activist groups in 24 states have used lawsuits, negotiations, and grassroots campaigns to stall or stop $64 billion in U.S. data center projects between early 2023 and March 2025, according to Data Center Watch.
The downfall of Intel: The New York Times follows the chipmaker’s journey from icon to a government project, with the sale of a 10% stake to the Trump administration.
Hyperscale pure-play: Hyperscale Data issued a letter to stockholders, informing them that the former bitcoin mining company would now hold its bitcoin stash and focus on its transformation to an AI data center company.
AI and testing: A look at two mega-trends shaping telecom testing: Embedding AI into networks for efficiency and optimization, and upgrading infrastructure to handle AI’s compute, bandwidth, and latency demands.
Testing DCs: Data center network issues often stem from cabling problems. Fluke Networks has put together new Versiv kits for testing DC infrastructure, including fiber, copper and connectors.
DC HVAC: HVAC company Modine has opened a new 100,000-sf facility in Chennai, India, for regional production of data center cooling equipment to meet “accelerated demand” from APAC customers.
Gaming’s ‘new era’: The gaming industry is on the cusp of having dynamic, “living games,” Google says, with cloud platforms and gen AI supporting rapid live-ops and environments meant to “captivate players for years.”
AI automation in telecom: Imagine telecom networks that predict outages, reroute traffic, and self‑heal—without human intervention. AI‑powered automation is reshaping service assurance, field ops, and customer support.
