The first TPU in space is running a Google DeepMind Gemma 4 model and writing cheesy poetry.

As thousands of datacentres are constructed across Europe, the Guardian and Investigate Europe have uncovered disturbing evidence that some workers building them are exposed to dangerous conditions and living in fear of speaking out

Sandu* checked his watch. He was winding down the last 15 minutes of his shift at a vast Google datacentre site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, in March, when the call came in. The 34-year-old electrical tester had already worked almost 10 hours, but says such last-minute jobs were normal: “I had no choice. People have been fired after saying no.”

The task was one Sandu had done many times before and involved a series of tests measuring the safety and integrity of the electrical wiring. A protective suit was locked away in an equipment room. The round trip would have added another 15 minutes to the job, he says, and people were waiting, so he decided not to retrieve the suit.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

© Illustration: Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

© Illustration: Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

As thousands of datacentres are constructed across Europe, the Guardian and Investigate Europe have uncovered disturbing evidence that some workers building them are exposed to dangerous conditions and living in fear of speaking out

Sandu* checked his watch. He was winding down the last 15 minutes of his shift at a vast Google datacentre site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, in March, when the call came in. The 34-year-old electrical tester had already worked almost 10 hours, but says such last-minute jobs were normal: “I had no choice. People have been fired after saying no.”

The task was one Sandu had done many times before and involved a series of tests measuring the safety and integrity of the electrical wiring. A protective suit was locked away in an equipment room. The round trip would have added another 15 minutes to the job, he says, and people were waiting, so he decided not to retrieve the suit.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Guardian Pictures/Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

© Illustration: Guardian Pictures/Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

© Illustration: Guardian Pictures/Alamy/Mei-Ling McNamara

Authorities allege company may have breached Finnish environmental laws by forgoing required impact assessment

• ‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

Finnish ⁠police have launched a criminal investigation into possible breaches ⁠of the country’s environmental ⁠laws ​at the site of a planned Google datacentre in rural northern Finland.

Authorities allege that Tuike Finland, a Google subsidiary, cleared and drained 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest at the planned site in Muhos before environmental impact assessments required by Finnish law had been completed.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities allege company may have breached Finnish environmental laws by forgoing required impact assessment

• ‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

Finnish ⁠police have launched a criminal investigation into possible breaches ⁠of the country’s environmental ⁠laws ​at the site of a planned Google datacentre in rural northern Finland.

Authorities allege that Tuike Finland, a Google subsidiary, cleared and drained 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest at the planned site in Muhos before environmental impact assessments required by Finnish law had been completed.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

Net profit slid 25% from a year earlier to $26.2bn, well short of expectations, though revenue rose to $127.6bn

Shares in the Google parent Alphabet fell double digits Wednesday evening into Thursday trading, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in stock market value from the $4tn tech giant.

The company had reported lower-than-expected profit and a slowdown in its advertising business while it maintained big spending on AI.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Aleksandra Michalska/Reuters

© Photograph: Aleksandra Michalska/Reuters

© Photograph: Aleksandra Michalska/Reuters

The announcement came alongside parent company Alphabet's third-quarter earnings report, which saw revenue grow 25% year over year to $127.6 billion.

A new developer platform will let businesses bring their services to Google's AI experiences, potentially changing how consumers discover and use apps.

The autofill update lets Chrome pull flight confirmations, tracking info, order details, and other information from your inbox, with your permission.

Constellation Energy will get $5 billion in government loans to modernize nuclear reactors. Most of the new capacity is already committed to Google, Amazon, and Meta.

Massive note conversions reveal the true extent of Amazon's ownership in Anthropic.

Genie 4 can maintain a consistent scene for up to two minutes, double Genie 3's limit, and offers better physics and more humanlike characters. 

At TechCrunch Disrupt last week, two founders and a VC discussed how to not just gain an early following but keep one.

Google is bringing Gemini's Personal Intelligence feature to cars, allowing its AI assistant to draw on information from Gmail, Calendar, Maps, YouTube, and other Google services to deliver more personalized responses while driving.

Google has joined Amazon in releasing a developer tool that makes it easy for PyTorch users to move their apps off Nvidia GPUs.