Author: Trendici
As in the UK, proposed datacentre construction in the US is undergoing a geographical shift. There, the datacentre pipeline is shifting towards the centre of the country, with Texas and other midwestern states being the main beneficiaries. That’s due to a combination of available power and maturing technologies that can mitigate water use, especially in potentially water-constricted states such as Texas. That’s according to US datacentre analyst Synergy, which looked at the current US datacentre footprint and future plans of the world’s major cloud and datacentre operators. These hyperscalers and large datacentre operators had 1,360 operational sites at the…
The AI debate right now centres almost entirely on models – which LLM is smarter, whether they’ll be commoditised, whether OpenAI or Anthropic or Google wins the arms race. These are real questions. But they’re not the most important ones. The most important question is what sits between the model and the outcome. And right now, that layer barely exists. Call it the context engine. Here’s the problem with a genius in a room. Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have both used some version of this analogy – imagine having a hundred brilliant minds working on your hardest problems.…
A backdrop of swirling winds and hail on a tour of what’s been billed Europe’s first microgrid-powered datacentre threw the challenge for its project partners into sharp relief. “If we’d only known how difficult it would be,” says Ian Whitfield, Pure Data Centres Group (PureDC) chief engineering and technology officer. “Although, of course, we didn’t think it would be easy, so we’re very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve [with partner AVK-SEG].” The end of the project is now near, having been seven years in the making, with most construction happening in the past two or three…
The Lepas L6 will arrive in the UK at the back end of the year as a Hyundai Kona-rivalling crossover with hybrid and electric power. Cousin to the hugely popular Jaecoo 7, the L6 will be Lepas’s second UK model following the flagship L8, which will arrive this summer to rival the Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4. Lepas (whose name is a portmanteau of ‘leopard’, ‘leap’ and ‘passion’) is owned by Chinese giant Chery and has been created with a focus on the European market. It’s a sibling brand to Omoda, Jaecoo and Chery. The five-seat L6 will be offered with…
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently made a comparison between how much energy had been consumed by humanity over the millennia and the energy consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) inference. In an interview at the AI Summit in India, he suggested we consider the energy needed for a human to do an inference query. “It takes 20 years of life – and all of the food you eat during that time – before you get smart.” The implication being that AI is a massive shortcut in the evolution of the human race, where a human in today’s society is…
The BYD-owned Denza brand has thrust itself onto the European stage with a lavish launch event at the Palais Garnier in Paris. This cinematic, blockbuster-scale soirée marked its official entry into the European market – and it was by far and away the most opulent launch event I’ve ever attended. The Palais Garnier is, of course, the Parisian opera house. Completed in 1875, it’s a bona fide cultural institution and the legendary inspiration for Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. The guest list was suitably stellar: motorsport royalty like Felipe Massa and Jean Todt rubbed shoulders with a glittering array…
This Denza is not quite like any Chinese car that has gone before it. You can – and I would – argue that other Chinese cars aim to beat the competition by offering more: more power, more tech, and more space, all for less money. However, Denza is offering more for, well, more. Prices are yet to be confirmed, but this EV will cost around £100,000 at least. In France, it will be similar. In Australia – £55,000 to £60,000, and in China, about £45,000. The EV (a PHEV will follow) uses a 309bhp motor on the front axle and…
As a result, the next generation of the luxury SUV will be launched primarily with a PHEV system centred on a 3.0-litre V6 and offer a similar output to today’s 456bhp. Alongside the incoming plug-in hybrid models, Walliser confirmed that Bentley will continue to offer pure-ICE power. But this powertrain option will be kept to “selective” models and depend on “markets. and legislation”, he said, noting the differences in emission laws, particularly in the key US market. As well as enabling Bentley to offer pure-petrol cars in markets such as the US, it is also possible that limited-run special models…
Level-three autonomy is on the ropes again – just as it looked like the dream of your car taking over the boring bits of driving was becoming a reality.The two car makers that had finally put a ‘hands-off, eyes-off’ solution on the road, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, have both pulled support for the technology, returning it to limbo.
As propaganda tools go, little is more effective than the sight and sound of a gargling, mid-mounted, highly strung six-pot echoing through a forest. The shriek of the Metro as it approached pummelled spectators from head to toe. It’s Megadeth on four wheels. Were the 6R4 anything but a Metro, we might never have been gifted that sound. A larger, heavier Rover or Austin might have meant turbocharging would have been an acceptable compromise, and the resulting soundtrack may have fallen flat. Nor, for that matter, would it have been so utterly outrageous to look at. Those comically extended arches…