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Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition: Data centers in space are feasible, but not ready for launch\u2026Accenture links promotions to AI logins\u2026AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li\u2019s startup World Labs raises $1 Billion. Nvidia\u2019s deal with Meta signals a new era in computing power.<\/em><\/p>\n The AI industry is on a power trip\u2014literally\u2013and it\u2019s getting desperate. Data centers already account for roughly 4% of U.S. electricity use, a share expected to more than double by 2030 as running and training AI models increasingly require gigawatts of power. Analysts project global data-center power demand could rise as much as 165% by the end of the decade, even as new generation and transmission infrastructure lag years behind need. In response, hyperscalers are scrambling\u2014cutting deals to build their own gas plants, exploring small nuclear reactors, and searching for power wherever they can find it.<\/p>\n Against that backdrop, it\u2019s not surprising that some of the industry\u2019s biggest players are starting to look to outer space for a solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a feature story published this morning, I dig into how\u2014even as tech companies are on track to spend more than $5 trillion globally on Earth-based AI data centers by the end of the decade\u2014Elon Musk is arguing the future of AI computing power lies in space, powered by solar energy. Musk has suggested that the economics and engineering could align within just a few years, even predicting that more AI computing capacity could be in orbit than on Earth within five.<\/p>\n The idea of orbital space centers itself isn\u2019t new. As far back as 2015, Fortune<\/em> was already asking the question: What if we put servers in space?<\/p>\n What\u2019s changed is the urgency. Today\u2019s power crunch has pushed the concept back into serious conversation, with startups like Starcloud getting attention and Big Tech leaders like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos all turning their attention to the possibilities of launching data centers into orbit.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, while Musk and other bulls argue that space-based AI computing could become cost-effective relatively quickly, many experts say anything approaching meaningful scale remains decades away. Constraints around power generation, heat dissipation, launch logistics, and cost still make it impractical\u2014and for now, the overwhelming share of AI investment continues to flow into terrestrial infrastructure. Small-scale pilots of orbital computing may be feasible in the next few years, they argue, but space remains a poor substitute for Earth-based data centers for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to understand the appeal, though: Talking with sources for this story, it became clear that the idea of data centers in space is no longer science fiction\u2014the physics mostly check out. \u201cWe know how to launch rockets; we know how to put spacecraft into orbit; and we know how to build solar arrays to generate power,\u201d Jeff Thornburg, a SpaceX veteran who led development of SpaceX\u2019s Raptor engine, told me.\u00a0 \u201cAnd companies like SpaceX are showing we can mass-produce space vehicles at lower cost.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is that everything else, from building massive solar arrays to lowering launch costs, moves far more slowly than today\u2019s AI hype cycle. Still, Thornburg said in the long run, the energy pressures driving interest in orbital data centers are unlikely to disappear. \u201cEngineers will find ways to make this work,\u201d he said. \u201cLong term, it\u2019s just a matter of how long is it going to take us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n With that, here\u2019s more AI news.<\/p>\n Sharon Goldman<\/strong> Google CEO Sundar Pichai says AI spending still makes sense despite bubble fears<\/span> \u2013 by Beatrice Nolan<\/span><\/p>\n Bill Gates pulls out of India\u2019s AI summit at the last minute, in the latest blow to an event dogged by organizational chaos<\/span> \u2013 by Beatrice Nolan<\/span><\/p>\n Elon Musk is pushing to build data centers in space. But they won\u2019t solve AI\u2019s power problems anytime soon<\/span> \u2013 by Sharon Goldman<\/span><\/p>\n Who is OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger? The millennial developer caught the attention of Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg<\/span> \u2013 by Eva Roytburg<\/span><\/p>\n Exclusive: Bain and Greylock bet $42 million that AI agents can finally fix cybersecurity\u2019s messiest bottleneck<\/span> \u2013 by Lily Mae Lazarus<\/span><\/p>\n Accenture links promotions to AI logins.<\/strong> Accenture<\/span><\/span> is beginning to track senior employees\u2019 use of its internal AI tools\u2014and factoring that data into leadership promotion decisions\u2014highlighting how even AI-heavy consultancies are struggling to get top staff to change how they work. According to internal communications seen by the Financial Times<\/span><\/span><\/em>, promotion to leadership roles will now require \u201cregular adoption\u201d of AI tools, with Accenture monitoring individual log-ins for some senior managers as part of this summer\u2019s talent reviews. The move reflects a broader challenge across consulting and accounting firms, where executives say senior partners are far more resistant to AI adoption than junior staff, prompting a \u201ccarrot and stick\u201d approach. While Accenture says it has trained more than 550,000 employees in generative AI and is reorganizing around an AI-centric \u201cReinvention Services\u201d unit, the policy has drawn internal criticism\u2014including claims that some tools are unreliable\u2014and underscores the widening gap between AI ambition and day-to-day enterprise use.<\/p>\n AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li\u2019s startup World Labs raises $1 Billion.<\/strong> Bloomberg<\/em> reported that World Labs<\/span><\/span>, a startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li<\/span><\/span>, has raised $1 billion in new funding to pursue \u201cworld models,\u201d an approach aimed at helping AI systems reason about and operate within the three-dimensional physical world. The round included a $200 million investment from Autodesk<\/span><\/span>, alongside backing from Andreessen Horowitz<\/span><\/span>, Nvidia<\/span><\/span>, and Advanced Micro Devices<\/span><\/span>, according to the company. World Labs joins a growing cohort of startups focused on world models, including a venture led by Yann LeCun<\/span><\/span>, as investors look beyond large language models toward AI systems better suited for robotics and scientific discovery. The company launched its first product, Marble, late last year, which generates 3D environments from text or image prompts, and says the new capital will accelerate work in those areas. Li is best known for her role in creating ImageNet<\/span><\/span>, a foundational dataset that helped drive modern breakthroughs in computer vision; the startup did not disclose its valuation, though Bloomberg News<\/span><\/span> previously reported it had been in talks around a roughly $5 billion figure.<\/p>\n Nvidia\u2019s deal with Meta signals a new era in computing power.<\/strong> A\u00a0new Wired<\/span><\/span> <\/em>story argues that Nvidia<\/span><\/span>\u2019s latest deal with Meta<\/span><\/span> marks a shift in how AI computing power is being built. It\u2019s no longer just about buying more powerful GPUs to train AI models; companies now need a full stack of chips to run them at scale. Alongside billions of dollars\u2019 worth of Nvidia GPUs, Meta is also buying Nvidia\u2019s Grace CPUs\u2014making it the first major tech company to publicly commit to those chips at scale. Analysts say the move reflects how newer AI systems, especially so-called \u201cagentic\u201d AI that runs tasks continuously, rely heavily on traditional CPUs to coordinate data, manage workflows, and support inference. A recent Semianalysis<\/span><\/span> report underscores the point, noting that some AI data centers now require tens of thousands of CPUs just to handle the data produced by GPUs\u2014an infrastructure burden that barely existed before the AI boom.<\/p>\n According to JLL’s new North America Data Center Report, d<\/span>ata center vacancy remains at a record-low 1% for the second consecutive year, despite unprecedented construction to support the AI boom, a “powerful statistic that challenges bubble concerns.” With 92% of capacity under development already pre-leased or owner-occupied, the report said today\u2019s buildout “reflects sustained structural demand rather than cyclical imbalance.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The report also pointed to more than 35 gigawatts of data center capacity under construction in North America, roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of the UK or Italy. Today, 64% of capacity under construction is located in markets including West Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In fact, Texas, when viewed as a single market, could overtake Northern Virginia as the world\u2019s largest data center market by 2030, the report said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Feb. 16-21: <\/strong>AI Action Summit, New Delhi, India.<\/p>\n Feb. 24-26:\u00a0<\/strong>International Association for Safe & Ethical AI (IASEAI), UNESCO, Paris, France.<\/p>\n March 2-5:\u00a0<\/strong>Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain.<\/p>\n March 16-19:\u00a0<\/strong>Nvidia GTC, San Jose, Calif.<\/p>\n April 6-9:<\/strong> HumanX, San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #running #power #Space #wont #escape #hatch #decades<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[768,2920,3661,14113,2936,14114,4076,1124,3349,3370,2307],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
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