Microsoft has agreed to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas, that was originally built for Oracle and OpenAI, Bloomberg News reports. The facility offers roughly 700 megawatts of capacity and sits right next to the Stargate campus - Oracle and OpenAI's flagship AI infrastructure project.
Microsoft struck the deal with developer Crusoe after both Oracle and OpenAI walked away from negotiations over the site. Back in March, Bloomberg reported that Oracle and OpenAI had abandoned their expansion plans in Texas because financing talks stalled and OpenAI's needs had shifted. Oracle pushed back on those reports at the time, calling claims of delays at the Abilene site inaccurate.
Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and Crusoe have not commented on the new report, according to Reuters.
The lease aligns with Microsoft's broader push to expand its own computing infrastructure. In a recent podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he expects an oversupply of computing capacity and falling prices by 2027 or 2028 as a result of the current data center building boom. Nadella added that he's looking forward to renting capacity cheaply when that happens.
Munich-based Agile Robots and Google Deepmind have announced a strategic research partnership. The goal is to integrate Google Deepmind's Gemini Robotics AI models into Agile Robots' hardware, creating adaptable, intelligent robots built primarily for industrial settings where there's an "acute and growing need for adaptable, reliable automation."
Carolina Parada, Head of Robotics at Google Deepmind, called the collaboration an "important step in bringing the impact of AI to the real world." The plan is to use data from real-world operations to continuously improve the AI models, which in turn makes the robots more capable over time.
Agile Robots was founded in Munich in 2018 and now employs more than 2,500 people. The company says it has already deployed over 20,000 robotics solutions worldwide. Google Deepmind recently unveiled two new AI models—Gemini Robotics 1.5 and Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5—designed to let robots independently plan, understand, and execute complex tasks in the physical world.
Google Cloud unveiled new security features at the RSA Conference 2026 in San Francisco. The centerpiece is an AI agent called "Triage and Investigation" built for enterprise security teams and embedded in Google's "Security Operations" platform. The agent reviews security alerts on its own, automatically pulls in additional data and context, and assesses whether an alert represents a real threat or a false alarm. The goal is to help analysts in SOCs (Security Operations Centers - the security hubs of organizations) spend less time chasing false positives.
According to the new M-Trends report from Mandiant, Google's cybersecurity subsidiary, cybercriminals are becoming increasingly professional and organized. They're forming partnerships and deliberately destroying their victims' ability to recover, maximizing extortion pressure. The window between initial intrusion and attack has shrunk to just 22 seconds. A separate Mandiant report shows that attackers are now using AI tools that adapt in real time during an attack to evade security systems.
Google is also rolling out a new AI-powered dark web analysis tool. It automatically evaluates activity in hidden parts of the internet - things like forum posts and marketplaces where stolen data is traded. According to internal tests, the system can filter millions of these activities per day with 98 percent accuracy, flagging only genuinely relevant threats.
ChatGPT is making it easier to work with uploaded and generated files. Users can now find, reuse, and pull files into chats more quickly. A new toolbar lets you reference recently used files directly, and you can ask ChatGPT questions about files you've already uploaded. The web version also gets a new "Library" tab in the sidebar that gives you a clean overview of all your files.
ChatGPT's new Library tab (left) shows all uploaded files in one place, while the toolbar (top right) lets users quickly reference recent files in any chat. | Image: OpenAI
The feature is rolling out globally to Plus, Pro, and Business users. Users in the EU, Switzerland, and the UK will have to wait a bit longer, but OpenAI says the feature should follow soon.
Microsoft is hiring several leading AI researchers from the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and the University of Washington. The group includes former Ai2 CEO Ali Farhadi, language model researcher Hanna Hajishirzi, and multimodal expert Ranjay Krishna. All three will retain their university positions. They are joining Mustafa Suleyman's Superintelligence team at Microsoft AI. The move is part of Microsoft's effort to reduce its dependence on OpenAI for AI models.
For Ai2, founded in 2014 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the departures represent a major loss. Hajishirzi leads the open-source language model OLMo and a $152 million project with Nvidia and the NSF. The exits are also tied to a shift in funding: Ai2 was originally funded by Allen's Vulcan Inc. and later his estate. Its primary backer is now the Fund for Science and Technology (FFST), a $3.1 billion foundation created under Allen's instructions.
FFST, led by CEO Dr. Lynda Stuart, favors applied AI over costly frontier model research and is moving from annual funding to a proposal-based process, Geekwire reports. Future support is expected to prioritize real-world AI applications over open-source foundation models, which helps explain why researchers focused on model development are leaving.
OpenAI is pushing the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to add ChatGPT as an alternative to Google in so-called "choice screens" on Android phones and the Chrome browser. The CMA had previously designated Google as holding "strategic market status" in search and proposed giving users regular alternatives to choose from.
OpenAI argues, according to the Telegraph, that AI chatbots with search functionality should count as search engines, since users increasingly turn to them for queries. ChatGPT has offered web search since 2024 and now has around 900 million weekly users.
Google pushed back, calling the proposed pop-ups disruptive for users. Despite growing AI competition, Google's search revenues climbed 16 percent last year to $63 billion. Google's own AI system Gemini is also growing rapidly and competes directly with ChatGPT.
Meta acqui-hires Dreamer's entire team to bolster its lagging AI agent ambitions
The AI startup Dreamer is joining Meta Superintelligence Labs with its entire team, bringing co-founder Hugo Barra—a former Meta VP—back into Mark Zuckerberg’s orbit. The deal marks Meta’s second move in agent-based AI this year as the company tries to regain ground against competitors.
