Today’s news gets at the heart of the “how” of AI infrastructure: How is it being built, both physically and as a business? In Texas, we see Fermi America and Hyundai E&C turning to nuclear energy to power the next generation of AI data centers, with a hybrid plant set to go online by 2032. Meanwhile, Airtel is expanding its digital reach with a coalition of partners in order to put together a sovereign cloud and telco software platform to serve Asia and Africa. In South Korea, SK Telecom is also focused on local AI infra availability, ramping up its AI ambitions with a sovereign GPU-as-a-service platform, built on over 1,000 Nvidia B200s and set to support a national AI model program. Across regions, tech players are seeking to build AI infrastructure that balances control and scalability. More below!
Kelly Hill
Executive Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
AI grid taps nuclear power: Fermi America and Hyundai E&C will co-develop a nuclear hybrid energy project in Texas to power AI and data centers, with construction set for 2026 and a 2032 launch target.
Airtel unveils sovereign cloud: Airtel’s digital unit Xtelify launched a sovereign cloud and global telco software suite, signing deals with Singtel, Globe, and Airtel Africa to expand AI-powered platforms across Asia and Africa.
SKT builds AI hub: SK Telecom debuts a sovereign GPU-as-a-Service platform using more than 1,000 Nvidia B200 GPUs, selected to power Korea’s national AI model program and housed in the Gasan AI data center.
AI-Powered Telecom Infrastructure
Supermicro, in collaboration with NVIDIA, delivers AI-powered infrastructure tailored for telcos, enhancing operational efficiency, network management, and customer experiences. Explore now
AI Today: What You Need to Know
GPT comes to Snapdragon: OpenAI has released its first, chain-of-thought reasoning model for on-device inference, dubbed gpt-oss-20b. It can run on devices with Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon processors.
Silicon Valley’s ‘hard tech’ era: Exploding interest and investment in AI and infrastructure means a massive change of pace for app-and-software-obsessed Silicon Valley. NYT on the ebbs and flows at the epicenter of tech.
Foxconn flips a factory: Foxconn is selling a largely-defunct, former EV factory in Lordstown, Ohio, to a partner. But Foxconn will continue to operate at the site and reportedly plans to switch the factory over to making servers for AI data centers.
Singapore eyes US R&D exodus: Singapore is ramping up efforts to attract multinationals to relocate their operations and R&D facilities, particularly in AI and Industry 4.0, amid U.S. tariffs — and to stay competitive amid global uncertainty.
From dough to data: Here’s a surprise: Low-margin bread makers like Bimbo Bakeries have their say on industrial AI, and suggest adoption is a ways off because of high costs and data-readiness challenges. The message? Sort your IoT data first.
Stealth crawling: Cloudflare has declared that Perplexity’s bot crawlers are evading “no crawl” directives from websites by disguising their identities when met with a virtual roadblock. Perplexity is cagey about its responsibility.
Battling bots: Straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were: Cloudflare details its findings on Perplexity’s crawlers and why it has removed them from its verified list of permitted crawlers. It expects bot and crawler evasion tactics to continue.
Silicon link layer: Open Compute has released a new version of a universal link layer for supporting greater silicon diversity and “economically viable and dynamic, reconfigurable AI [clusters],” saying: “innovation in silicon needed to be amplified.”
North Carolina DC site: Data center company Tract, which operates hundreds of data centers, is proposing a new data center site in rural Mooresville, North Carolina. The land is owned by racing legend Dale Earnhardt’s widow.
The forgotten AI summit: Long before ChatGPT, top AI minds gathered on a private island to debate the future of intelligence—funded by Jeffrey Epstein. Newly unsealed files are raising fresh scrutiny of elite research institutions.