Tech, in brief

Oracle sent a force majeure notice over Project Jupiter, a huge AI data centre being built in New Mexico, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. [1][4]

A force majeure clause excuses a company from parts of a contract when events outside its control get in the way. [2]

Oracle is not trying to leave as the site's main tenant. The notice would let it delay payments if the campus misses its 2028 opening. [2][4]

The notice went to STACK Infrastructure, the company building the site, which is owned by the investment firm Blue Owl. [3]

Project Jupiter sits in Dona Ana County near the US-Mexico border. It is part of Stargate, the plan to build computing power for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. [1]

The campus is meant to run on up to 2.45 gigawatts of gas-powered fuel cells from Bloom Energy, so it needs a steady gas supply. [1][2]

New Mexico's State Land Office refused the gas pipeline's route in March and again in July, citing emissions and the strain on water. [1]

Energy Transfer, the pipeline company, rerouted the line across federal land and moved its start from 15 August to 1 February 2027. [1][2]

A person who knows the deal told Reuters the programme is now a year late. Oracle says the site remains on its planned schedule, and that notices like this are commonplace. [3][4]

Blue Owl has about $3bn of its own money in the site and earns a lower return until it opens. A delay pushes back its bigger returns. [3]

Banks have lent $18bn for the campus, according to media reports. Bankers told Reuters the notice sent a chill through the market that lends to AI data centres. [4][3]

Oracle's shares closed 3.5% lower on Thursday and Blue Owl's 3.6%. Bloom Energy, which makes the fuel cells, fell almost 6%. [3][5]

Why it matters. The next fixed date is 23 November, when New Mexico's environment department must decide the fuel cells' air-quality permit; the gas pipeline is not due until 1 February 2027. [2]

Akamai, a US cloud company, signed an $11.6bn deal on Thursday to supply computing to Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models. [9] The contract runs for seven years. [9] Akamai also gave Anthropic the right to buy up to 5% of its shares at $111.33 each. [9] About 2% is tied to this deal, and the other 3% comes only if the deal grows by up to $9bn more. [9] Akamai's shares rose 22% in late trading. [9]

Why it matters. Akamai will spend about $1.7bn more this year buying parts, including memory, to serve the deal. [9] Anthropic gets a slice of the company it is paying, and a bigger slice if it commits more.

Anthropic is asking its shareholders to give its chief executive Dario Amodei and his six co-founders 50.1% of the votes, The Information reported on Thursday. [10] They would hold a special class of shares, copying a setup used at Palantir, a US data-analysis company. [10] The control would last as long as three of the seven keep a minimum number of shares. [10] It would not cover electing the seven-seat board, where one seat is empty. [10]

Why it matters. Anthropic is preparing to sell shares to the public, possibly after the US midterm elections in November. [10] New shareholders would put money in without being able to outvote the founders on most matters, and employees would get tie-breaking shares on some issues. [10]

The US Justice Department asked on Thursday to join Elon Musk's court challenge to a EUR 120m ($137m) fine the European Union gave his social network X. [11] EU regulators fined X late last year under the Digital Services Act, which makes big platforms do more to remove illegal and harmful posts. [11] It was the first fine under that law, after a two-year investigation. [11] The request went to the EU's General Court. [11]

Why it matters. A US official said the European Commission had tried to reach American companies outside its jurisdiction; the Commission says its laws target no nationality. [11] The US government is now asking to be a party to the case, not only a critic of it. [11]

The US Embassy in Canberra, Australia's capital, said on Tuesday that a draft Australian law could amount to censorship. [12] The law, proposed this month by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government, would let social media users switch off the systems that pick posts for their feeds. [12][13] They could then see only posts from accounts they follow. [13] The embassy said the rules could change what users see not just in Australia but around the world. [13]

Why it matters. Australia already bans social media accounts for children under 16, and platforms that break the new law could face large fines. [12] It is the second foreign platform rule the US government argued against this week, after the EU's fine on X. [11][12]

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company whose models shook the industry last year, now earns at a pace of $1bn a year, The Information reported on Thursday. [14] That is more than double its pace a few months ago. [14] Part of the rise came from raising its prices 2.3 to 4.5 times. [14] It is raising 50bn yuan ($7.45bn) at a 500bn-yuan value by the end of October. [14] Reuters could not verify the figures. [14]

Why it matters. Its boss, Liang Wenfeng, told investors more than 70% of its computing goes to training new models and less than 30% to answering users. [14] It is also preparing a possible listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. [14]

JPMorgan, the US bank, raised its rating on CoreWeave on Thursday, a company that rents out AI computing power. [15] The bank said CoreWeave is signing more short contracts at higher prices, because demand for AI chips is strong. [15] The same day Bank of America raised its sales forecasts for Nebius, a similar company. [5] An analyst said Nebius keeps some capacity for one-to-three-year contracts at about twice what the biggest cloud firms pay. [5]

Why it matters. A short contract costs the customer more for the same computing. [15][5] JPMorgan read the shift as a sign that lenders now trust the demand will last. [15]

Google plans to launch a satellite called MVP on 1 October, carrying the equivalent of one data-centre server. [16][17] It holds four of Google's own AI chips and can answer simple AI questions from orbit. [16][17] It will fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg in California, built with the satellite company Planet Labs. [16][17] It is the first step of Project Suncatcher, Google's plan to run AI data centres in space on sunlight. [16]

Why it matters. Elon Musk says AI in space will be the cheapest way to power it within five years, and many experts doubt it. [17] The satellite passed a shaking test on the ground, and Google's research chief said he still wondered how it would do in space. [16]

A fire broke out on Wednesday evening at a Starlink ground station in central Poland, deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said. [18] Starlink is SpaceX's satellite internet service, and the station carries connections for the region, including Ukraine. [18] Gawkowski said the fire engulfed its power station and generator and was deliberate sabotage. [18] The systems were working again by Thursday. [18]

Why it matters. He said Russia's role was not established, and Russia denies sabotage in Poland. [18] A ground station is where satellite internet meets the ground, and this one serves institutions including the Ukrainian military. [18]

Finland's President Alexander Stubb said on Thursday he pleaded with Elon Musk to let Ukraine use Starlink over Russian territory. [19] Starlink does not work over Russia. [19] Ukrainian officials believe switching it on there would help them hit mobile missile launchers within several hundred kilometres of the border. [19] Russia's use of ballistic missiles hit record levels this summer, and Ukraine's air-defence ammunition is badly depleted. [19]

Why it matters. Musk switched Starlink on over Ukraine in 2022, and it now carries much of Ukraine's battlefield communications. [19] Where the service works is decided by one company, so a head of state made his plea to its owner. [19]

OpenAI will give Ukraine's government access to Daybreak, its programme of AI tools for cyber defenders, the company said on Wednesday. [20] Ukrainian teams will use it to find flaws in software and test fixes faster, working with Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation. [20] The BBC reported the tools will be free. [20] Ukraine's cyber response team handled nearly 6,000 incidents in 2025, including attacks on hospitals and power. [20]

Why it matters. The aim is to protect the systems Ukrainians rely on for power, phone networks and hospital care. [20] Defenders in France, Germany, Poland and at the EU's cyber agency already use OpenAI's cyber models. [20]

New Jersey fined DataOne $1.1m this week for running 62 gas generators without permits at a planned data centre in Vineland. [21] Reporters from The Guardian and Floodlight News had filmed 45 of them running, using thermal drones, in August. [21] Each generator ran at 1,982 kilowatts, and the state requires a permit from 37. [21] DataOne has 45 days to apply for permits or stop, and can keep running meanwhile. [21]

Why it matters. Neighbours say the site powers Microsoft's AI tools and sits near farmland, homes and two schools. [21] They raised concerns in February, the fine came six months later, and DataOne says it disagrees with it. [21]

Groups for US mayors, counties and cities told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US telecoms regulator, on 21 September that its plan to override local permit rules is illegal. [22] The FCC wants towns to decide broadband permits within 120 days and to limit the fees they charge. [22] It says local delays make some networks too costly to build. [22] The cities asked for a 180-day deadline on internet providers to build once approved. [22]

Why it matters. Cities say some providers file permits to claim space on poles and then never build, to keep rivals out. [22] The final rule decides whether towns or providers are held to a clock when a street waits for broadband. [22]

Lovable, a Swedish company whose tool builds apps from plain descriptions, said this week its sales now run at $600m a year. [23][24] In June it put the figure at about $500m. [23] Co-founder Fabian Hedin said two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies use it, often because staff found it on their own. [23][24] A Forbes editor said it was about $200m when he visited the company last summer. [24] Lovable raised $400m at a $13.3bn value in August. [23]

Why it matters. Staff in finance, sales and HR now build their own software without waiting months for engineers. [24] Security teams worry about all the new code, and Hedin said that worry is fair. [24]

OpenAI hired Sam Yam, who co-founded Patreon, the site where fans pay creators each month, to lead a new creator product. [25] Patreon's former head of product and head of engineering are joining him. [25] Yam told followers to watch OpenAI's developer event, DevDay, on Tuesday 29 September. [25] Patreon cut 20% of its staff, 93 people, in July. [25]

Why it matters. OpenAI has not said what it will offer creators. [25] The hire follows its first worldwide sales chief, named last week, and the purchase of the camera start-up Glass Imaging this month. [25]

Lightspeed, a Silicon Valley investment firm, told its investors on Thursday it wants $250m for a new India fund aimed at early AI start-ups. [26] That is half the size of its $500m India fund from 2022, which has already committed 80% of its money. [26] Indian media had reported a target of $300m to $350m. [26] Lightspeed backs Sarvam AI, which India's government picked to help build the country's own AI models. [26]

Why it matters. Lightspeed sized the fund to match how fast it is actually investing in India. [26] Its rival Accel raised a $550m India fund in August. [26]

Oracle's Japanese arm reported record results for June to August on Thursday, and its shares rose 7%. [27] Sales rose 13% to 74.86bn yen ($472m), and cloud sales rose 31.7%. [27] It said demand had driven use of its Tokyo and Osaka data centres. [27] Oracle committed more than $8bn to cloud and AI in Japan over ten years, starting in 2024. [27]

Why it matters. The rise came in the same week the US parent's shares fell over the New Mexico notice. [27][5] Oracle's Japanese data centres are earning now, while Project Jupiter brings in no revenue this year, a broker said. [4]

Hubble Network, a satellite start-up in Seattle, raised $200m at a $1.6bn value, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. [28] It is building 60 satellites in low orbit that talk to ordinary Bluetooth chips. [28] That lets companies track packages, vehicles and medicines through a mix of satellites and ground stations. [28] Its boss, Alex Haro, co-founded the family-location app Life360. [28]

Why it matters. It is one of two plans this week to put computing and connections into orbit, alongside Google's AI satellite. [16][28]

Xiaomi, the Chinese phone maker, showed its 18 Pro phones at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. [29] They are among the first phones on Qualcomm's newest chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. [29] Their screens can be made hard to read from the side, so people nearby cannot see them. [29] They start at 5,999 yuan ($894) in China, with a global launch later this year. [29]

Why it matters. The privacy screen follows Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra, and Xiaomi's switches on for chosen apps or places. [29] The phones can also spot a snooper with the front camera and suggest turning it on. [29]

F-Droid, a free store for open-source Android apps, released version 2.0, its first major update in a decade. [30] The app was rebuilt from scratch, with a cleaner layout and a search that reads app descriptions. [30] It now installs apps with fewer warning pop-ups by using a Google approval step. [30] Unlike Google's Play Store, it does not track what people tap to push ads. [30]

Why it matters. Google is preparing a system to check the developers of apps installed from outside its store. [30] How easy F-Droid stays to use depends on how Google writes those rules. [30]

A US federal judge ordered James Williams, a Reddit moderator, to pay Nintendo $4.5m on Wednesday. [31] Nintendo said he helped run online shops of pirated Switch games. [31] He never answered the lawsuit, so the judge ruled by default. [31] The award is $150,000 for each of 30 games, including Animal Crossing. [31]

Why it matters. The order also tells him to shut the pirate shops at once. [31] Nintendo has won a run of piracy cases, including one in the Netherlands against cartridges that play copied games. [31]

Engineering students at ITESO, a university in Guadalajara, Mexico, built a portable robot lab for high schools that lack one. [32] Called RoboMeshA, it runs its own network, so pupils connect from a web browser with nothing installed. [32] They can drive the robot or watch it find and avoid obstacles on its own. [32] A team of 15 engineering students, with teachers and volunteers, built it through EPICS in IEEE, a programme of the engineers' professional body. [32]

Why it matters. Many Guadalajara high schools have keen teachers and students but no robotics lab. [32] The kit brings robotics and AI lessons into an ordinary classroom. [32]

Buyers of company bonds are asking AI firms for better terms, Reuters reported on Tuesday. [7] The biggest cloud companies are expected to borrow a record $420bn next year, 60% more than this year, Goldman Sachs estimates. [7] Fund managers say they do not fear defaults, but cannot see the returns on so much building. [7] Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan, said this spending went from about $300bn last year to about $700bn this year. [8]

Why it matters. Dimon said it could reach $1 trillion next year. [8] When lenders ask for more, the extra cost falls on whoever must borrow to build, the same week Oracle's notice made them ask who carries a delay. [7][3]