SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman see insatiable demand for artificial intelligence (AI) that makes it imperative to keep building ever more computing capacity. Speaking via teleconference at SoftBank World, the two business partners argued that advancing AI would lead to new jobs that are not yet imagined, and the advancement of robotics will help kickstart a "self-improvement" loop. "As we drive the cost of AI down, more people want to use it," Altman said in response to Son's question about diminishing returns from further expansion. "So if we make the cost of AI 10 times cheaper, people wanna use it 30 times as much or whatever. And the demand for intelligence in the world just seems to be huge."

Fox News anchor Bret Baier has the latest on the Murdoch Children's Research Institute's partnership with the Gladstone Institutes for the'Decoding Broken Hearts' initiative on'Special Report.' This week's Senate hearing on U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence made it clear that we are not just in an AI race with China and the rest of the world. We are in a race to build the foundation of the 21st century global economy while strengthening our national security. That foundation is made of silicon, steel and megawatts. America's ability to lead in AI hinges on a simple but urgent question – can we build the computing infrastructure fast enough to unleash AI's full potential and drive a competitive advantage? The emerging AI cloud computing infrastructure is not like the general-purpose cloud that still powers most of the digital world.

Ibiden, the dominant supplier of chip package substrates used in Nvidia's cutting-edge semiconductors, may need to dial up the pace of production capacity increases to keep up with demand, according to its chief executive officer. Sales of the 112-year-old company's AI-use substrates are robust with customers buying up all that Ibiden can sell, CEO Koji Kawashima said in an interview, adding that that demand is likely to last at least through next year. Ibiden is building a new substrate factory in Gifu Prefecture, expected to go online at 25% production capacity around the last quarter of 2025 before reaching 50% by March 2026. But that may not be enough, Kawashima said. The company is in talks about when to get the remaining 50% capacity online.

Google is officially putting its weight behind advanced "mini" nuclear reactors in an effort to produce new clean to meet growing AI energy demands. On Tuesday, the company announced an agreement with California-based small nuclear reactor (SMR) startup Kairos Power to commission the development of six or seven reactors that could add 500 megawatts of clean energy to the US electrical grid within the next decade. Google's buy-in represents the biggest investment for the experimental new reactor type from a tech company and could play a key in making so-called next-generation nuclear commercially viable. The deal is part of a broader embrace of nuclear power by tech giants who are frantically searching for ways to fuel their increasing energy consumption while attempting to stick to their climate goals. In a blog post, Google said it expects the first of Kairos reactors to come online as early as 2030, with the other five six operational by 2035.

You are not about to surrender your life and understanding of the world to machines. That head of yours with its conscious mind, reading this column, remains in the driving seat and always will. It's true that the capacity of machines to supplement human intelligence, monitor us, mimic us and replace routine jobs and tasks is exploding and in the wrong hands could represent a step change in creating dark forms of economic and social control. But that is the battle for democracy, with the confrontation of the worst of capitalism taking on a new dimension. It does not mean that the end of human life is nigh – it means we have to be cleverer in fashioning responses.