Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
AI is transforming industries, but the data centers powering it require more energy and water than ever. At the break, join Christoph Beck, Chairman and CEO of Ecolab, for insights on using water effectively while safeguarding this critical resource for future generations.
Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Monday, January 26th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. NVIDIA is pouring an additional $2 billion into CoreWeave. The company said today that they'd build new AI factories on NVIDIA's computing platform technology, operated by CoreWeave, with a goal of 5 gigawatts of capacity by 2030.
NVIDIA already owned a 6.6% stake in CoreWeave, according to FactSet. The chipmaker's new investment comes amid investor jitters about CoreWeave's model of buying NVIDIA chips using high-interest debt, then renting access to other AI companies. Concerns about CoreWeave's financing model and a significant delay in one of its data center projects have caused the stock to plunge since October.
The Trump administration plans to take a stake in a rare earth metal company as part of a proposed $1.6 billion funding deal. USA Rare Earth has a mining project in Texas and plans to manufacture rare earth magnets needed for drones, wind turbines, and other technology in Oklahoma. The deal is the administration's latest move to bolster the position of the US in critical industries.
Several of those deals have involved the US government taking equity stakes in companies. And we exclusively report that quantum computing company IonQ has struck a deal to buy chip maker Skywater Technology for roughly $1.8 billion. The deal is the biggest one yet for IonQ, which has a market value above $16 billion.
IonQ aims to solve problems too difficult for traditional computers across a range of industries, for example, assisting with drug discovery and national defense. Skywater is a U.S.-based semiconductor foundry serving industries including quantum computing, defense, and aerospace. IonQ's CEO said the deal would help it become the NVIDIA of quantum. That's your TNB Tech Minute.
Join us again this afternoon for more.
How are data center operators working to improve sustainability and water savings at every stage of the data center lifecycle? Here's Ecolab's Christoph Beck with some thoughts.
The Mach 7 or the Mach 4, the ones that are really so focused on high-tech, are the most forward-looking.
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Chapter 2: What new investment is Nvidia making in CoreWeave?
They have the means, they have the mindset, they have the passion for innovation, and they're really open to try new things as well because everything is new with AI and with that technology as well.
I think even if we're not where we wanted to be with that industry right now, we will be ahead in the next few years because innovation that's coming up right now is working much better than we thought. And it's really thinking in circular ways, being in a data center or in a microchip manufacturing plant.
Learn more about Ecolab at Ecolab.com.
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