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Loading the player… Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a major talking point, with newly-elected Democratic governors and congressmemberslikely to support additional regulation. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha discuss what the election will mean for the tech industry moving forward — not just when it comes to data centers (whichOpenAI is already trying to rebrand), but also increased government scrutiny of Big Tech. Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You also can follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.
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Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a major talking point, with newly-elected Democratic governors and congressmemberslikely to support additional regulation. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha discuss what the election will mean for the tech industry moving forward — not just when it comes to data centers (whichOpenAI is already trying to rebrand), but also increased government scrutiny of Big Tech. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You also can follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.
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Meta recently launchedits Muse agents— a new generation of cuddly agentic helpers. Now, the company has launched Spaces, a new way to communicate and collaborate with them. As far as I can tell, Spaces are basically breakout conversations that revolve around a particular topic — although Meta refers to them as “custom experiences.” They live in the sidebar of the interface where you interact with your Muse agent. Clicking on the Space brings up the conversation, where Muse works toward a particular goal on your behalf. For instance, if you wanted to plan a vacation, you could open a new Space focused on that particular project, and whenever you want to work on it with Muse, you would click to open that particular tab. Or, if you’re focused on collecting recipes for an upcoming family event, you’d open a new Space for that particular project. Other examples Meta gives are a holiday gift tracker, a wedding planner, or a space for DIY projects. “Describe an idea in chat, and Muse builds a space for you, whether that’s a tracker, a planner or a project board,” Meta says. Spaces can also be easily integrated with third-party apps and information, Meta says. “Connect the apps you use, and your spaces keep themselves up to date in the background, so new concert dates, price changes, or savings progress show up without you having to ask,” the company says. On Friday, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO,postedabout the new feature on X: “Playing around with spaces in Muse lately — tell Muse what you need and it builds it. I’ve made a BBQ game, an event tracker, and a home control dashboard. Excited to see what you build.” Muse agents — and the cuddly avatars that enclose them — have been greeted with a relatively warm reception over the past few months. During its earnings call in October,Zuckerberg said thatits agents had 10 million users in the U.S. and Canada — less than two months after the agents debuted. The company is obviously busy building out the user experience around the agents. Spaces is actually the second new Muse feature that Meta has debuted over the last week. On Thursday, the company alsoannounced Muse Voice, which allows users to video chat with their agent and give it commands verbally. The company is in competition with other cute and cuddly AI agents — includingOpenAI’s dotsand SpaceXAI’sGrokbot, which were debuted with similarly cartoonish personas.

Security researchers have discovered hundreds of copies of a Chinese-made AI hacking tool publicly exposed to the internet for anyone to access, potentially allowing outsiders to launch cyberattacks against unsuspecting targets. The hacking software, called Artex, is an open source autonomous penetration testing tool, meaning software that automatically probes computer systems for weaknesses, and it’s been linked to several cyberattacks since its public release in July. As open source software, it’s free for anyone to download and run on their own servers, making it a popular tool for those who cannot access Anthropic or OpenAI’smost advanced cybersecurity AI modelsfor discovering security vulnerabilities. Microsoft haspreviously describedArtex as a system of AI agents that can conduct cyberattacks “from reconnaissance through data exfiltration with little needed human interaction.” In ablog post, cybersecurity firm Censys, which scans the internet for exposed or vulnerable systems, said that it identified more than 800 distinct deployments of Artex that were accessible from the web without needing a password to log in. Silas Cutler, principal security researcher at Censys who wrote the blog post, said that not every instance of Artex is operated maliciously and many are used for authorized testers. But it’s unclear why hundreds of these Artex systems are exposed to the web, as the software does not require them to be accessible from the internet. The findings underscore how even powerful hacking tools can be misconfigured to be publicly accessible by anyone, increasing the chance that someone will find and misuse them. The publicly accessible systems also expose attack tools, such as implants (hidden malicious software) used to compromise and maintain persistent access to a victim’s network. Security companies have linked the use of Artex to several broad-scale cyberattacks, includingagainst the Korean finance industry in September. Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike attributed the attacks to a Chinese-speaking hacker who used an Artex instance in the attacks, in part because the hacker had left an “open directory” hosting the system. Censys said that its data showed the Artex instance in question had been publicly exposed for months, and appeared to contain more attack data that extended “well beyond South Korean banks,” including payment and gaming companies. Artex was also used in an attack on IT support giant ConnectWiseearlier in October, which allowed Chinese-linked hackers to spy on thousands of organizations whose data and files are hosted in Microsoft’s cloud. Microsoft, which has visibility into the attack, said in a blog post that the hackers used Artex to break into customers’ cloud environments and steal their data at such speed that defenders had “little time to detect and respond.” Many of the attacks linked to Artex involved exploiting simple vulnerabilities, such as guessing weak or known passwords, and a lack of multi-factor authentication. The findings show that simple vulnerabilities, including misconfigurations, can expose both the attacker and their targets. Artex has since announced it would go closed-source, effectively limiting further releases for paid customers. There are still dozens of copies of Artex’s code available on code-sharing sites that can still be used in active attacks.

OpenAI has reportedly raised $11 billion so far in a new funding round that values the AI lab at $1.25 trillion. Bloombergreported onthe new funding on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The $11 billion is part of a larger funding round that hasn’t closed yet, according to the outlet. The round is expected to close in the coming weeks and could total about $20 billion, a source told Bloomberg. In late September, Bloombergreportedthat OpenAI was looking to raise $30 billion in the upcoming round. The current figures fall well short of that target. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for comment and will update this story if it responds. The news comes only hours after Bloombergalso reportedthat potential buyers of shares in the IPO of OpenAI’s chief competitor, Anthropic, are eyeing a substantially lower valuation than Anthropic had targeted. Bloomberg writes that some potential buyers believe Anthropic’s valuation could be as low as $1.1 trillion, compared with the$2 trillionthat investors were said to be expecting roughly a month ago. OpenAI previously intimated that it would go public this year but subsequently delayed its plans. There are expectations that the companywill IPO next yearat some point. The market for AI hangs in a particularly precarious place. The Democratic landslide in the U.S. midterms — and overwhelmingly negative voter sentiment around data centers — hascaused jitters throughout the market, with many anticipating potential regulatory challenges in the future.
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Crusoe, an eight-year-old, Denver-based data center developer recently valued at$30.9 billion,confirmedFriday it has sold an unfinished data center project in southeastern Wyoming to Google. Google, which Crusoe had tried and failed to land as a customer for the project, is taking over the development after reportedly raising concerns about its cost and construction timeline under Crusoe’s management. Crusoe initially announced the project last year with Blackstone-backed infrastructure company Tallgrass, planning to eventually scale it to 10 gigawatts of power capacity. Google did not disclose how much it paid Crusoe for the unfinished project, but it announced plans toinvest $17 billionto develop the data center campus. The deal highlights how difficult it can be for independent data center developers to deliver massive projects on time and within budget, given the challenges of securing equipment and power. Growing opposition from local communities can further complicate development. Despite taking over the Wyoming facility, Google hasn’t walked away from working with Crusoe entirely. Crusoe is developinganother datacenter for Google near Amarillo, Texas. The deal to sell the site to Google was first reportedby Bloombergin June, but the Wyoming setback didn’t stop Crusoe from raising a$3.9 billion roundin September. Crusoe makes money by leasing data center space to customers that bring their own GPUs, by renting out its own GPUs, and by selling compute power used to run AI models, known as inference. Crusoe’s largest projects serve some of the biggest names in AI. Its campus in Abilene, Texas, is being built in phases for Oracle and OpenAI, and the company is also constructing a separate 900-megawatt campus next door for Microsoft, with its first building expected to come online in mid-2027. Meta is also a customer, and Bloomberg reported that the trading firm Jane Street signed a$13 billion, five-year cloud deal with Crusoe. Crusoe was founded by Chase Lochmiller, now its CEO, and Cully Cavness, who started it as a cryptocurrency-mining business powered by natural gas that would otherwise have been burned off. In September, alongside its $3.9 billion funding round, the company addedthree board members, including JB Straubel, the Redwood Materials founder and Tesla board member who invested in Crusoe in 2021. Crusoe later became the first customer of Straubel’s energy-storage business.

Their departures come as Claude Code expands its role in Anthropic’s AI coding business.
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Altman’s recent comment on RAM shortage has reignited the debate over memory allocation between AI data centres and consumer devices.
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The new capabilities give AI agents business context, enterprise controls and the ability to execute recurring tasks autonomously.
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Security, governance and model dependence are emerging as major concerns for businesses, even as executives report productivity gains from AI investments.
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FDE salaries in India range from Rs 32 lakh to Rs 1.55 crore annually, with compensation rising alongside experience
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Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s new Muse assistant are becoming alternatives to traditional search.
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