Silicon Valley is shifting away from chatbot queries toward a future filled with resource-intensive agentic AI--and it's driving the data center buildout. Welcome back to Power Play! Each week, senior writer Molly Taft tackles a topic around this midterm season's biggest issue: data centers. If you've got a question or thought for the column, feel free to shoot Molly an email at [email protected] or reach them securely on Signal at mollytaft.76. "What on earth are they building all of these data centers for?" an exasperated friend asked me recently.

Inside Meta's Push to Put Robots to Work in Data Centers The company is testing robots that can swap cables, reset servers, and take on other tasks performed by technicians, fueling concerns among some workers that their jobs could be at risk. Meta is testing robots that can plug in cables, reset servers, and handle other tasks inside its data centers, according to several current and former workers familiar with the projects. The ongoing effort, which has not been previously reported, may eventually allow Meta to operate its rapidly expanding data center footprint with fewer humans, keeping labor costs in check as its spending on AI infrastructure soars . Meta is using robots and related hardware from several different vendors, including Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB, according to the same workers, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. Kinova and ABB declined to comment.

One of Meta's Offices Was Briefly Overtaken by a Rogue Squirrel The animal escaped after apparently arriving inside a package at Meta's Bangkok office, injuring one employee before finally being caught. Meta's year so far hasn't exactly been a picnic. A squirrel apparently got loose inside a building in Bangkok, Thailand, where some of the tech giant's regional teams are based. The critter spent at least 20 minutes darting past staff, according to an internal memo seen by WIRED. It noted that the squirrel minorly injured a janitor before finally being caught.

The lab will beam back data to train AI models to predict how proteins behind age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and certain cancers behave. Space is becoming the next frontier in longevity research. A British startup just launched self-run chemical experiments into orbit, in the hopes zero-gravity data might shine a light on a group of disease-causing proteins too difficult to study on Earth. But first they need to check their autonomous laboratory will work in space. Mass Balance's grapefruit-sized apparatus containing chemicals, sensors and control elements to keep the chemicals functioning launched on a SpaceX transporter on Tuesday morning.

New York City's Summer of Ludd festival is teaching people how to live offline amid the suffocating presence of Big Tech. A papier-mâché woman is the backdrop to a play about the Luddite movement. On a Sunday evening in the middle of Tompkins Square Park in New York City's East Village, hundreds of people gather in front of a giant papier-mâché face of a woman wearing a crown. She's the backdrop of a play, her body made up of curtains that look like a dress but serve a dual purpose, allowing actors to scurry on and offstage. I'm here to watch a performance called " Luddite Recreations," which is a history of the Luddite movement--a group of artisans and textile workers who resisted the adoption of machines during the early years of the Industrial Revolution in England and whose resistance to being displaced from their work was met with violence by the British monarchy.

Silicon Valley's Elite Financial Advisers Say This Era of Wealth Is Different The rich are getting richer. Here's what wealth advisers are telling their tech clients right now. If anyone in tech has already started their Hot IPO Summer, it's Silicon Valley's elite wealth advisers. Two private wealth managers who work with high-net-worth techies told me they've seen an uptick in activity from their client base, some of whom are expecting a big liquidity event this year. We're talking, of course, about the employees and early investors at SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic who are coming into mind-boggling riches.

SpaceX's stock market debut has thrust the richest man in the universe into an unexplored frontier of wealth. There are thousands of billionaires across the world. But there is only one trillionaire. Elon Musk became the first person to amass a personal fortune of over $1,000,000,000,000--that's 12 zeros--after shares of his rocket company SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday. SpaceX's initial public offering on Thursday valued the company at nearly $1.8 trillion, up from its most recent private valuation of around $1.25 trillion.

Best Power Banks Best Smart Rings Routers vs. Modems Choose the Right Laptop Smart Sprinklers Deals Delivered The company is mapping Alexandria and, soon, Arlington--right across from the power center of Washington, DC. Self-driving cars aren't yet permitted to operate in Virginia. But Alphabet-owned Waymo began transporting its cars to the state last week, a Waymo representative told Virginia officials, to map Arlington and Alexandria, in the northern part of the state. For most autonomous vehicle companies, mapping, or the creation of sensor-aided and ultra-precise digital representations of streets and the features around them, is the first step required to launch a local robotaxi service. Drivers will operate the mapping vehicles for now, Waymo says.

Ford and GM are backing away from electric vehicles and moving into the battery storage business. And it all comes back to AI. Automakers make cars--it's in the name. But lately, politics, current events, and Wall Street's latest preoccupation, artificial intelligence, have them looking a lot more like energy companies. The pivot, analysts say, could give US auto manufacturers struggling through a transition to electric vehicles an easier path over the next few years. Whether it works will come down to the same technology that automakers once promised would power the majority of their lineups: batteries .

A recent attack on Sam Altman's home and OpenAI offices has put corporate security under renewed scrutiny. Records reveal how much some tech firms spend to arm up. Elon Musk called violent crime in San Francisco " horrific " and moved the offices of his social media business X outside the city in 2024 because of safety and business considerations. Other local tech companies have attempted to address their security concerns by partnering directly with cops. Airbnb and Salesforce are among businesses that for years have contracted San Francisco police to protect their offices on a regular basis, according to public records obtained by WIRED.