Amazon’s new 7.65GW Texas AI data center power plant could become the largest source of CO₂ pollution in the US — custom 35-turbine gas plant authorized to emit 33 million tons of annual greenhouse gases

Amazon is reportedly building a 7.65GW natural gas power plant in Texas to feed a new AI data center, with permits allowing up to 33 million tons of CO₂ emissions per year.

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Kansas town silences public comment on gigawatt AI data center after receiving death threats, moves to virtual meetings — shift follows physics teacher’s arrest for clapping at data center hearing

Emporia, Kansas, switched to virtual city council meetings after death threats intensified against city leaders. The move also canceled public comments, prompting some members of the public to ask why it was affected, too.

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Amazon circumvents community vote for massive AI data center using 45-year-old rules — Gilroy residents locked out of public comment window

Residents of Gilroy, California, were caught by surprise when an Amazon data center started construction in their city. Negotiations for the project started in 2020, with public comments open until 2024, but it flew under the radar.

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Intel’s proposed orbital data centers would manage thousands of simple LEO satellites —two-tier network puts the brains of satellite constellations in higher orbit
 Intel’s proposed orbital data centers would manage thousands of simple LEO satellites —two-tier network puts the brains of satellite constellations in higher orbit

Intel’s orbital data center architecture uses powerful higher-orbit satellites to manage LEO constellations, reducing reliance on terrestrial control centers.

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AI creates 16 new viruses that never existed in nature after learning DNA’s pattern from 9 trillion nucleotides — experts warn such applications are way ahead of necessary guardrails

Researchers used Evo AI models trained on trillions of DNA building blocks to design entirely new viral genomes, 16 of which became viable bacteriophages capable of infecting and reproducing inside E. coli.

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NASA modded space station’s laptops so everyone could use the same charger — standardizing ISS chargers eliminated useless weight and reduced failure points

NASA ensured that all laptops destined for use in the International Space Station had the same ‘cannon’ power connector by implementing a modification.

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Protesters haul a guillotine to city council meeting about a potential AI data center, company rep cornered by protestors — ‘ it no longer felt safe to stay,’ developer escorted out by police

Some protesters brought a guillotine to public consultation for a potential data center in Salem, Oregon. Even though this was displayed outside the venue, it was a confrontation between the data center’s representatives and some of the community members that led the latter to leave early.

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This week on Tom’s Hardware Premium: August 8, 2026 — Inside China’s lithography efforts, co-packaged optics get a spotlight, and Samsung debuts next-gen memory tech
 This week on Tom’s Hardware Premium: August 8, 2026 — Inside China’s lithography efforts, co-packaged optics get a spotlight, and Samsung debuts next-gen memory tech

A redesigned Bench tool, inside China’s domestic Chipmaking efforts, breaking, and we offer a free technical breakdown of Samsung’s latest memory-related announcements.

Elon Musk’s massive Terafab chip-making facility starts to take shape — 100 million square feet of manufacturing space and $16.8B initial capital investment

SpaceX and Tesla officially begin to build the massive Terafab facility that will be three times bigger than Samsung’s Pyeongtaek campus.

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Anthropic co-designing custom AI inference chips to bypass costly Nvidia GPUs — Samsung reported as manufacturing partner for Claude maker

Anthropic has announced its building a team to co-design custom ASIC chips for AI inferencing workloads. This will give it greater control over its compute buildout and allow it to make its AI models specifically more efficient for its designs.