Texas county passes data center ban for rural areas for a year, move comes in wake of AI data centers moving to remote areas to skirt regulations — state senator says counties cannot legally impose these bans

Hill County passed a one-year ban on data center projects, as the country authorities study the effects their effects on the community. Still, the County Attorney warned that they could get sued if they pass this moratoriu…

,
Pennsylvania residents complain they are being ‘bulldozed’ over AI data center concerns — lambast Gov. Shapiro in two-hour town hall, say he is losing support base

Pennsylvania residents blame Governor Josh Shapiro for the large number of data center projects in the state, despite his efforts to introduce policies that will balance development with the welfare of the people.
…

,
Intel announces McLaren F1 partnership, will battle AMD-powered Mercedes — deal includes chips for aerodynamic analysis, vehicle-dynamics simulation, race strategy analytics, and more

Intel has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with F1’s legendary McLaren Racing team. AMD has been Mercedes-AMG’s partner for six years.
…

,
70% of Americans oppose data centers near their homes, now less popular than nuclear power plants — opposition towards nearby AI infrastructure heating up as tech companies ramp up projects to acquire more compute

A new survey revealed that 7 out of 10 Americans are against data center developers building projects within the vicinity of their homes. This is a massive increase from the late 2025 survey which showed that 47% of people…

,
Amazon employees admit to using AI unnecessarily to pump up internal usage scores — workers complain of intense pressure to use AI tools

Amazon is the latest hyperscaler where employees have been caught inflating AI token consumption to hit internal usage targets.
…

,
Cloudflare cuts 20% of its jobs due to AI, and its stock takes a 19% spill — 1,100 jobs disappearing as company increased usage of AI sixfold over past months

Cloudflare cuts 20% of its jobs due to AI, and its stock takes a 19% spill. The company announced it will be cutting 1,100 jobs and has increased its usage of AI sixfold over the past few months.
…

,
Nvidia’s ISP piracy defense backfires as judge refuses to dismiss copyright lawsuit over more than 197,000 pirated books — scripts in NeMo Framework allegedly ‘have no other purpose’ than to speed up infringement

Nvidia said that its NeMo Megatron Framework has non-infringing uses and that it’s not liable for any piracy that its users might do.
…

,
Samsung chip workers reject $340,000 one-time bonus, demand annual payouts like SK hynix’s $900,000 — workers want share of AI windfall, impending 18-day strike could cost Samsung up to $11.7 billion

Negotiations between the National Samsung Electronics Union, which represents workers in the company’s chipmaking division, and management have seemingly broken down over a single issue.
…

,
Intel swipes Qualcomm veteran of 25 years to lead client computing — Alex Katouzian jumps ship to oversee consumer CPUs and physical AI

Intel appoints Alex Katouzian to lead client computing and physical AI efforts and confirms Pushkar Ranade as CTO, signaling a deeper shift toward AI-driven and edge computing systems
…

,
Skyrocketing component prices push Big Tech capex to record $725 billion — Microsoft alone attributes $25 billion of AI budget to increased memory and chip costs

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta plan to spend a combined $725 billion on capital expenditure in 2026, a 77% increase over last year’s record $410 billion.
…

,