#big tech
12 stories taggedbig tech.
US data centres could guzzle more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035
A new BloombergNEF report nearly doubles its own nine-month-old forecast, finding AI's hunger for power could add the equivalent of 12% of total US greenhouse gas emissions every day.
Australia may let AI companies scrape everything you post online, by default
The Albanese government is weighing changes that would give US tech giants open access to Australian content. Here is what that means for anyone who has ever posted, written or created anything on the internet.
Communities Around the World Are Pushing Back Against AI Data Centres
From Scotland to India, local groups say the giant buildings that power AI are eating too much energy and land. Governments are starting to listen.
AI Data Centres Are Thirsty. But How Thirsty, Exactly?
Protests are spreading across the American Southwest over water use at AI data centres. The real numbers are murky, and tech companies aren't making it easier to find them.
Jill Lepore's New Book Says AI Is Already Dismantling Democracy. Is She Right?
A Pulitzer-winning historian argues that big tech's grip on public life is not a future threat but a present reality, and her new book spells out exactly what that looks like.
Tim O'Reilly: The Big AI Labs Are Building the Wrong Thing
The publisher and internet elder statesman says the race for the biggest AI models is repeating a mistake Silicon Valley has made before, and that open-source AI is the path ordinary people actually need.
Banks Are Handing Their AI Future to a Handful of Tech Giants, Moody's Warns
The credit rating agency says finance's rush to adopt AI is creating dangerous dependence on a small group of Silicon Valley companies, with outages and price hikes the headline risks.
Big Tech's AI bets are making corporate profits look much bigger than they are
Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet booked billions in paper gains from their stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX. Strip those out and earnings growth looks a lot more ordinary.
Microsoft soars, Meta sinks: AI spending is splitting Big Tech in two
Both companies are pouring billions into artificial intelligence. One set of investors cheered. The other hit sell.
Australia's AI Plan Is Bold. The Tech Giants It Must Deal With Are Bigger Than Most Governments
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to get ahead of artificial intelligence. The companies he will need to negotiate with have revenues larger than many national economies.
Albanese to call AI a turning point as big as renewable energy, but artists get no copyright answers
Australia's prime minister will address AI policy in a Sydney speech this week, comparing the technology's rise to the renewable energy shift. Creative industries hoping for copyright protection news will have to keep waiting.
Big Tech's AI Data Centres Now Emit as Much Carbon as a Third of France
Microsoft, Amazon and Google collectively pumped out 119 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide last year. The main culprit: building more data centres to feed AI demand.