
A peek inside an Ottawa AI data centre and what it takes to keep it cool
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Tyler Technologies Reports Strong Q2 2025 Earnings
Tyler Technologies ( (TYL)) has released its Q2 earnings. Here is a breakdown of the information Tyler Technologies presented to its investors. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Tyler Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of software solutions and services for the public sector, offering innovative technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations. The company operates primarily in the enterprise software and platform technologies sectors, providing a range of solutions including public administration, courts and public safety, education, and property management. In its latest earnings report for the quarter ending June 30, 2025, Tyler Technologies reported a significant increase in total revenues, reaching $596.1 million, up from $541.0 million in the same period last year. The company's net income also saw a notable rise, reaching $84.6 million compared to $67.7 million in the previous year, indicating strong financial performance and growth. Key highlights from the report include a substantial increase in subscription revenues, which rose to $405.1 million from $333.7 million year-over-year, driven by strong demand for SaaS and transaction-based services. The company's operating income also improved, reaching $95.6 million, reflecting effective cost management and operational efficiency. Additionally, Tyler Technologies continued to invest in research and development, with expenses rising to $50.8 million, underscoring its commitment to innovation and product development. Despite challenges in professional services and maintenance revenues, Tyler Technologies has demonstrated resilience and adaptability in its business model, maintaining a robust financial position with total assets of $5.43 billion. The company's strategic focus on recurring revenue streams and technological advancements positions it well for sustained growth in the public sector market. Looking ahead, Tyler Technologies remains optimistic about its growth prospects, with management emphasizing continued investment in technology and expansion of its product offerings to meet the evolving needs of public sector clients. The company's strong financial performance and strategic initiatives are expected to drive further success in the coming quarters.


CBC
6 hours ago
- CBC
That substance in the water of Great Slave Lake is likely just ash, says DFO
A substance spotted in the water of Great Slave Lake on Thursday is likely "a collection of ash," said Fisheries and Oceans Canada. An "unknown, black substance" near Mosher Island was reported to the Canadian Coast Guard's Arctic Region Marine Environmental and Hazards Response (MEHR) team Thursday morning. MEHR collected samples and submitted them for testing. Based on the evidence, they've confirmed that the curvy black line in the water is ash, likely from a burn barrel "or something of that nature," wrote Jeremy Hennessy, a public affairs officer for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in an email. Brian Fidler lives next to Yellowknife Bay and noticed the streak in the water when he was looking out his window. Fidler has lived in Yellowknife for almost five years and said he's never seen anything like it before. "It was a beautiful morning. The water was flat, calm," he said. "I noticed the boats in the little bay there and this weird line that came out seemed to trail from the Yellowknife River direction and kind of curl around." Fidler said it looked like the substance was floating towards Jolliffe Island. While the substance didn't give off the "rainbow kind of fuel" that oil spills are typically characterized with, Fidler said he was still concerned because he didn't know what the slick was. "If more is gonna be coming out into the lake, I don't want to see that. I don't wanna put my boat through it," he said. "If it is chemical or petroleum based, it's not good for the environment. It's not good for our lake." An on-water assessment by MEHR indicated that the substance is not oil-based. There are no impacts to Yellowknife's drinking water and it "is not believed to pose any danger to the public or to wildlife in the area," Hennessy wrote.


Globe and Mail
7 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Toronto's Blue J Legal raises $167-million as demand for its ChatGPT-like chatbot for tax pros takes off
Blue J Legal Inc, a Toronto software startup that sells a chatbot for tax specialists powered by large-language models, has secured $167-million in financing led by two U.S. venture capital firms. The company reported in two filings on July 25 with Canadian securities regulators that that it had raised $161-million from investors outside Canada, and $6.4-million more within Canada. A corporate filing by Blue J with the federal government last week indicates the financing values it at more than US$300-million. One of the securities filings reveals the company has added two directors, Cathy Gao – a partner with Sapphire Ventures in San Francisco – and Allen Miller, a partner with Oak HC/FT in New York. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the two U.S. funds co-led the deal. Past investors include Canada's Mistral Ventures, Relay Ventures and Generation Capital, as well as U.S. funds Ten Coves Capital and LDV Partners. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source as they are not authorized to discuss the matter. Blue J was set to announce its financing next Tuesday and only agreed to share details with The Globe on condition it waited to publish the news three hours after a U.S. publication broke the story. The Globe declined. 'At this time, Blue J cannot confirm any details' until Tuesday, spokeswoman Holland Eichorn said in email Friday. The company is one of several legal software firms bringing AI-driven products to law firms to hasten the automation of often tedious, time-consuming legal work. Many have experienced blistering sales growth, sparking massive investor interest. In June, U.S.-based Harvey AI, a legal AI software firm, raised US$300-million in a deal valuing the company at US$5-billion. That was co-led by venture capital giants Kleiner Perkins and Coatue, four months after raising a similar amount at a US$3-billion valuation. And in June, Burnaby, B.C.-based legal software firm Clio paid US$1-billion for Barcelona-based vLex LLC, maker of an artificial intelligence tool that keep lawyers from accidentally citing fake court rulings. Legal data giant Thomson Reuters Corp., whose controlling shareholder, the Thomson family, owns The Globe and Mail, has also been active in developing and buying AI-powered tools to offer clients. Blue J is a University of Toronto spinout led by Benjamin Alarie, the Osler Chair of Business Law with the school's faculty of law, which began developing artificial intelligence-powered software in the mid-2010s. Its original product helped lawyers and accountants speed-up the process of researching complex taxation matters, powered by predictive analytic software. Blue J raised venture capital and its early product sold decently, counting Canada's big four accounting firms and the Canada Revenue Agency as customers. But 'it was OK, it wasn't awesome, it wasn't a home run,' Mr. Alarie said in an interview early this year. After OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, the conversational AI chatbot that provides text responses to questions in seconds, Mr. Alarie realized his company could fold generative AI capabilities into its product to answer far more tax research questions. Blue J incorporated OpenAI's large language model technology into its product, relaunching it in mid-2023. That effort produced answers in about 90 seconds, but they were wrong about half of the time, a byproduct of the quirky tendency of LLMs to generate 'hallucinations,' or incorrect information. Blue J set about to improve the product, in part by licensing data from Tax Notes, a leading publisher of tax views and commentary, and benefiting from improvements to successive releases of LLMs. By last December, Blue J could produce answers within 10 seconds that were 95 per cent-plus accurate and enabled users to have technical back and forth conversations about complex tax matters with the program. Some firms found their users could save two hours a week each using BlueJ, which retails for $2,995 each year in Canada per user. 'You just need to be able to articulate a technical tax question clearly and you get a ton of value out of Blue J almost immediately, which is a huge selling feature and why things are going so well for us,' Mr. Alarie said in December. By the end of this year, Mr. Alarie has predicted Blue J will be more than 99 per cent accurate. The speed and accuracy of the product spurred interest as legal and accounting firms – from solo practitioners to large enterprises – flocked to the platform. Blue J was boosted by distribution partnerships with the National Association of Tax Professionals in the U.S. and associations representing chartered professional accountants in Canada and the US. Customers include KPMG, Richter LLP and Baker Tilly. By early this year, Blue J was expanding in the UK market. Annual recurring revenues soared, reaching US$2-million by the end of 2023, and US$9-million a year later from the new product. Sales have continued to expand at a fast clip, clocking in at more than $20-million on an annualized basis now, making Blue J a relatively rare company selling software to enterprises to experience strong sales growth amid an ongoing period of economic uncertainty. 'This is really working,' Mr. Alarie said in January. We have really good product-market fit.' Keeping up with constant tax law changes 'is a never-going-away problem.'