
Meta to spend hundreds of billions on AI data centres, says Mark Zuckerberg
In a post on his social media platform, Threads, Zuckerberg said Meta was building several multi-gigawatt clusters, and that one cluster, called Hyperion, could scale up to five gigawatts over several years."We're building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan," he added.Prometheus will be built in New Albany, Ohio, while Hyperion will be built in Louisiana and is expected to be fully online by 2030, Zuckerberg said.He said Meta would "invest hundreds of billions of dollars... to build superintelligence" and that the centres had been given "names befitting their scale and impact".Karl Freund, principal analyst at Cambrian AI Research, told the BBC, "clearly, Zuckerberg intends to spend his way to the top of the AI heap"."The talent he is hiring will have access to some of the best AI Hardware in the world," Freund added.Meta shares were trading 1% higher following the announcement, Reuters news agency reported. The stock has risen more than 20% so far this year.There are at least 10,000 data centres around the world hosting the cloud - remote servers that store digital information - with most of them located in the US, followed by the UK and Germany. AI-driven data centres are extremely energy and water intensive. One study estimates that these centres could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027. A single AI query - for example, a request to ChatGPT - can use about as much water as a small bottle you'd buy from the corner shop.
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The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump to unveil $70bn AI and energy plan at summit with oil and tech bigwigs
Donald Trump will join big oil and technology bosses on Tuesday at a major artificial intelligence and energy summit in Pittsburgh, outraging environmentalists and community organizations. The event comes weeks after the passage of a megabill that experts say could stymy AI growth with its attacks on renewable energy. The inaugural Pennsylvania energy and innovation summit, held at Carnegie Mellon University, will attempt to position the state as an AI leader, showcasing the technological innovation being developed in the city and the widespread availability of fossil fuel reserves to power them. At the gathering, Trump will announce $70bn in AI and energy investments for the state, Axios first reported, in a move the event's host Republican Pennsylvania senator Dave McCormick says will be a boon to local economies. But activists say the investment, which will boost planet-heating energy production, will have disastrous consequences for the climate and for nearby communities. 'Pennsylvanians are paying the price for decisions made behind closed doors: higher utility bills, contaminated water, poor air quality, and worsening health,' said Hilary Flint, Pennsylvania field organizing manager at the non-profit Center for Oil and Gas Organizing. Flint signed a Tuesday letter to Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro opposing his plans to work with Trump to expand AI, along with dozens of organizations and individuals. The event also comes less than two weeks after Republicans on Capitol Hill passed a Trump-backed budget bill which could dramatically increase the spending and effort needed to power AI data centers, thanks to its rollback of green energy tax credits. Renewable energy is almost always cheaper to build and easier to bring online than fossil fuels. Many tech executives invited to the event have said the availability of wind and solar are essential to the success of AI. Microsoft's Satya Nadella said last May that powering data centers with renewable energy would 'drive down the cost of AI', while OpenAI head Sam Altman said months earlier that 'there's no way' to grow his industry without a 'breakthrough' in affordable clean energy technology. Tech giants Google and its parent company Alphabet, as well as Meta have also both invested in wind and solar to power data centers. But the oil industry, whose top brass are also at the Pittsburgh summit, lobbied in favor of the megabill's green energy incentive rollbacks. 'It includes almost all of our priorities,' Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the fossil fuel industry's largest lobbying group, told CNBC about the legislation. Sommers is on the guest list for the event. The gathering, to which no public interest consumer or environmental groups were invited, is expected to severely downplay the climate and health consequences of this technological expansion fueled by oil and gas. Data centers used for AI are highly resource intensive, sometimes consuming as much power as entire cities. By the end of the decade, data processing, mainly for AI, is expected to consume more electricity in the US alone than manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined, according to the International Energy Agency. 'Political leaders should be investing their time meeting with frontline communities, environmental scientists, and renewable energy leaders and using their political muscle to create a just transition to renewable energy — not attending summits that double down on old, dirty energy,' said Jess Conard, Appalachia director at the environmental group Beyond Plastics, who lives in the nearby town of East Palestine, Ohio. 'Fossil fuels aren't progress, no matter how you try to rebrand them.' Critics have also raised concerns about security and privacy in the wake of AI's growth. The New York Times and other plaintiffs, including prominent authors Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Chabon and Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman, are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement; OpenAI has also received scrutiny for reported labor misconduct. Both OpenAI and Microsoft have defended their positions around copyright infringement allegations. 'Trump's radical AI plan is yet another example of the President siding with powerful corporations ahead of the American people,' said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.


Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The 'massive' extent of new U.S. lethal arms package to Ukraine revealed as Republicans debate sending more aid
NATO Secretary Mark Rutte said the new flow of arms form the U.S. to Ukraine will be 'massive' – with further munitions packages to follow following talks with President Trump. Rutte described the package in comments to the Daily Mail as he briefed lawmakers on a scheme to use the new financing proposal to funnel lethal weaponry to Ukraine as it staves off repeated Russian drone and missile attacks. The former Dutch PM is meeting with lawmakers still assessing President Donald Trump 's sudden U-turn on Ukraine – if the president applying new pressure on Moscow even while continuing to say American taxpayers have borne too much of the burden, and has publicly refused to pick sides in the war. 'How do you say it in English? Infinite – it's not finite,' Rutte told the Daily Mail between meetings in the Senate. 'This will be packages designed … to make sure that Ukrainians get a handle what they need, of course, taking into account what US can deliver, because you also still have to make sure that you have enough stuff and gear here to defend yourselves,' he said. 'But this is potentially massive. And not only air defense, it is also missiles and ammunition,' he added. He stressed that the proposal is designed to make sure that 'you have enough in stock for yourself,' amid concerns among top Pentagon officials who ordered a temporary pause to aid while it assessed U.S. stockpiles. He said the 'potentially massive air defense, plus missiles and ammunition' packages still had to be arranged at the granular level. 'But NATO is good at this, because we have designed these packages over three and a half years now with Ukrainian.' Rutte spoke a day after meeting with Trump in the office. The president deferred to Rutte in response to a question by the Daily Mail about whether there was a ceiling on what the Europeans are willing to meet. 'It's not that you can have a shopping list and you can order whatever you want, because the U.S. has to make sure that the U.S. keeps his hands on what US needs also to keep the whole world safe. Because in the end, you are the police agent of the whole world.' He brought up Germany and other major NATO allies 'talking about big numbers.' 'They are really enthusiastic about this. They're willing to go very far, I will tell you,' Trump added. As he left the White House today, Trump denied a key element of Financial Times report that Trump had a fiery conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky July 4 where he encouraged the Ukrainian to strike deep inside Russian territory. 'Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?' Trump asked his counterpart, according to the report. Asked if Zelensky should target Moscow, Trump replied: 'No, he shouldn't target Moscow.' Trump defended his latest statements toward Russia – that he will impose 'secondary tariffs' after 50 days if there is no deal with Moscow. 'What we decided is us making up its stockpiles available for Ukraine, paid for better Europeans, in a way, of course, that you have enough in stock for yourself. Potentially massive air defense, plus missiles and ammunition. But of course, all the details now will be work through.


The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
US inflation rose in June as Trump's tariffs start to show in prices
Inflation accelerated in June as the impacts of Donald Trump's tariffs slowly started to show in US prices. Business leaders have said for months that the high, volatile rates of Trump's tariffs will force companies to raise consumer prices. Prices remained stable in the spring, particularly as many of Trump's highest tariffs were paused; however, they started increasing in May and have continued to rise in June. Annual inflation rose to 2.7% in June, up from 2.4% in May, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks the prices of a basket of goods and services each month. Core CPI, which leaves out energy and food prices, ticked up slightly to 2.9%, compared with 2.8% in May. The prices of appliances, furniture and toys, products typically manufactured outside the US, all rose. Food prices increased by 3%, with the price of beef rising by more than 2% over the month, coffee up 2.2% and citrus fruit prices rising 2.3%. While the price of eggs has been dropping over the last few months, a dozen eggs are still 27% more expensive than last year. Inflation remains far below the price peaks seen three years ago, when price increases reached as high as 9%, and even a year ago, when increases were closer to 3%. But tariffs have appeared to halt inflation's downward path. According to the Yale Budget Lab, Americans now face an average tariff rate of 18.7% – the highest rate since 1933. That includes 30% tariffs on China, a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, 25% on auto parts and a universal 10% tariff on all imports. The levies currently in effect do not include those Trump is threatening to impose on other large US trading partners. Over the weekend, Trump threatened the EU and Mexico with 30% tariffs and Canada with a 35% tariff. Brazil is set to face 50% tariffs as punishment for the trial of the Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's former president, who is facing charges of attempting a coup. Prices will probably be pushed up much higher should these tariff rates go into effect, but it is unclear if and when that could happen. Trump initially set negotiation deadlines to 9 July, but pushed it back to 1 August as the date approached. Trump's trade advisers have said they aim to end negotiations by Labor Day at the beginning of September. Reacting to the latest inflation news, Trump renewed his call for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. 'Consumer Prices LOW. Bring down the Fed Rate, NOW!!!,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. As prices remain volatile, the Fed appears unlikely to adjust interest rates anytime soon, despite cutting rates three times in the fall. Fed officials, including the central bank's chair, Jerome Powell, have said that price increases are expected to continue in the summer, drawing away from the Fed's 2% inflation target.