Data center demand drives 66% surge in natural gas power plant costs
Tech companies, including Microsoft and Meta, have been falling in love with natural gas lately, rushing to build power plants fed by the fossil fuel to drive their data centers.…
Meta adds another 650 MW of solar power to its AI push
Meta signed another big solar deal on Thursday, securing 650 megawatts across projects in Kansas and Texas. American utility and power generation company AES is currently developing the solar-only projects,…
Who are climate conscious consumers? Not who you’d expect, says Northwind Climate
Sometimes, surprises are lurking in everyday data. Take a category of consumers that Doug Rubin’s startup, Northwind Climate, calls “climate doers.” They’re concerned about climate change and tend to prioritize…
Geothermal could power nearly all new data centers through 2030
There’s a power crunch looming as AI and cloud providers ramp up data center construction. But a new report suggests that a solution lies beneath their foundations. Advanced geothermal power…
ElevenLabs now lets authors create and publish audiobooks on its own platform
Voice AI company ElevenLabs is now letting authors publish AI-generated audiobooks on its own Reader app, TechCrunch has learned and the company confirmed. The announcement comes days after the company…
Data center tweaks could unlock 76 GW of new power capacity in the U.S.
Tech companies, data center developers, and power utilities have been panicking over the prospect of runaway demand for electricity in the U.S. in the face of unprecedented growth in AI.…
YouTube AI updates to include expansion of auto dubbing, age-identifying tech and more
In his annual letter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan dubbed AI as one of the company’s four “big bets” for 2025, pointing to the company’s investments in AI tools for creators,…
How to switch off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone, iPad and Mac
Apple released new software updates on Monday, including iOS 18.3, which automatically opts users into Apple Intelligence, at least for newer devices. Unlike what the tech industry seems to think,…
Gridware’s boxes literally listen to power lines to find outages
Tim Barat loved being a lineman at an electric company in Australia, where he grew up, even in the chaos of the Black Saturday brushfires in 2009 that torched over…
Here’s the full list of 49 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024
For some, AI fatigue is real. But clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised…