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.
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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…

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs to pay for AI infrastructure — insatiable compute demand means the company can’t rule out further headcount reductions

Meta spent $72.2 billion on capex in all of 2025. The midpoint of its new 2026 guidance would nearly double that figure in a single year.
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Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon capex spending to hit $725 billion in 2026, up 77% from last year — analyst says bear thesis is ‘garbage’

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta collectively plan to spend $725 billion on capex in 2026, up 77% from last year’s record $410 billion.
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