Feds Throw Cash at AI Companies; Apple-$500 Million to Buy US Rare Earth Magnets; Meta Building a 5 GW AI Data Center; New Find-My Compatible Wallet Card 

Uncle Sam is handing out the cash to the top AI firms, having them develop military applications. The $200 million grants went to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI. Engadget.com says the money will be used to “develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas.” In other words, this is primarily for military applications. A press release says the move will “broaden” the Department of Defense’s use of AI to “address critical national security needs.” The release continued, noting that this will “accelerate the use of advanced AI” in the “warfighting domain.” As part of this effort, CDAO will be providing access to the latest generative AI models to “Combatant Commands, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff.” What is CDAO? Oh, how the government loves these appreciations. It stands for Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. 

Apple has announced a $500 million multi-year commitment to buy US made rare earth magnets. According to macrumors.com, they have been developed  and are being built in a state of the art plant by MP Materials at a factory in Fort Worth, TX. Already, close to all the magnets in Apple devices are made from 100% recycled rare earth elements. The companies are partnering to build a rare earth recycling line in Mountain Pass, CA, too. Apple says the new ventures will support dozens of new US jobs in manufacturing and R&D, and will be part of its overall pledge to spend more than $500 billion in the US over the next 4 years.

Meta is building a data center dubbed Hyperion which will supply their new AI lab with 5 gigawatt of computational power. Techcrunch.com notes that this is Meta’s latest move to get a leg up on OpenAI and Google in the AI race. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Hyperion’s footprint will be large enough to cover most of Manhattan. The actual center will be located in Louisiana, however. The center will be online with 2 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2030, but will scale up to 5 within several years. I note that I say, gigawatts, which is the accepted pronunciation…despite Doc Brown in Back to The Future saying Jigawatts. A lot of fans of the movie still pronounce it that way.

If you use Apple’s Find My system with the Air Tags, you know they are handy for most things, but not so much for a wallet. There are third party vendors who make wallet sized cards though. I have used one from Chipolo for several years. It is about double the thickness of a credit card. the only down side is, when the battery goes, you have to buy a new one…it isn’t replaceable. Macrumors.com reports that Native Union has come out with the Find It Card and Find It tag, which work with Apple’s Find My system. They go the Chipolo one a bit better…as the wallet card lasts about 6 months on the battery charge….then can be recharged with a MagSafe Qi based charger! At $40, a much better deal than a no-deposit, no return one like I have used. Native Union also makes a little round device with a hole drilled in it called the Find It Tag. That one is designed to go on your luggage or a key chain with a little wire ring. It’s $20, and has a replaceable CR2032 battery that lasts a year..same battery as the Air Tags use. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.