Read full article about: Nebius plans $10 billion AI data center in Finland near Russian border
AI infrastructure company Nebius Group is building a 310-megawatt data center in Lappeenranta, Finland, close to the Russian border. The project is valued at over $10 billion and would become one of the largest AI data centers in Europe. Finnish developer Polarnode is already constructing the facility, with a phased launch planned starting in 2027.
Nebius recently signed contracts totaling more than $40 billion with Microsoft and Meta. The new data center will train AI models and run AI applications but isn't tied to a single customer. Nebius picked Finland for its low energy prices, renewable power, and cool climate, all of which help cut cooling costs. The facility would be the company's largest site outside the US and is expected to cover roughly 10 percent of Nebius' total planned capacity, according to CEO Arkady Volozh.
Read full article about: California sets its own AI rules for state contractors, pushing back against federal policy
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Monday requiring companies with state contracts to implement safeguards against AI misuse. Specifically, companies must ensure their AI systems don't generate illegal content, reinforce harmful biases, or violate civil rights. To prevent misinformation, state agencies will also be required to watermark AI-generated images and videos.
The order includes a separate provision for handling federal directives: if the U.S. federal government designates a company as a supply chain risk, California will conduct its own review and potentially continue working with that vendor. This comes in the wake of the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, which bars government contractors from using Anthropic's technology for U.S. military work.
Within 120 days, California's procurement and technology agencies are expected to develop recommendations for new AI certifications. These would let companies demonstrate compliance with responsible AI practices and public safety protections.
The executive order reinforces California's push to chart its own course on AI regulation, independent of the Trump administration, which has repeatedly tried to block independent state-level AI laws.
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Insiders liken AI to "the Ozempic of the music industry" as hitmakers reportedly hide their generator use
The use of AI generators in professional music production is growing fast, but the industry would rather not talk about it. Top producers and songwriters are quietly embracing the technology behind the scenes, and while established creatives are finding new opportunities, an entire class of working musicians fears for its livelihood, according to extensive research by Rolling Stone.
Read full article about: Microsoft rolls out Copilot Cowork more broadly and lets AI models check each other's work
Microsoft is making "Copilot Cowork" more widely available and launching a new AI research agent. The previously announced feature builds on Claude Cowork and lets the system handle multi-step tasks using tools, accessing and outputting files. It also includes calendar planning and daily briefings. The feature is available as part of the Frontier program.
Microsoft's "Researcher" tool now has a "Critique" function where one AI model writes a draft and a second one reviews it. It pulls from both Anthropic and OpenAI models. Microsoft says the new agent hits best-in-class deep research performance and outperforms Perplexity with Claude Opus 4.6 by 7 points. Microsoft's benchmark doesn't include a comparison with OpenAI's new GPT-5-based Deep Research, though.
There's also a new "Model Council" feature where users can compare answers from different AI models side by side to see where they agree or differ. All of these updates ship as part of Wave 3 of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
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Source: Microsoft Tech Blog | Copilot Cowork
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Read full article about: OpenAI's Sora burned a million dollars a day while losing half its users in record time
OpenAI's Sora app saw rapidly declining usage while costing the company around one million dollars a day, according to the Wall Street Journal. After a hyped launch, the app grew to about one million users, but that number quickly dropped to around 500,000 and never recovered.
On top of the shrinking user base, OpenAI ran into copyright issues and growing internal concerns that the cheap, low-quality engagement videos people were generating could damage the OpenAI brand. Sora proved more liability than asset. Development costs piled up too. According to the report, OpenAI canceled training runs for new video models entirely.
The real nail in Sora's coffin was increasing competitive pressure from Anthropic. OpenAI chose to redirect its limited compute toward coding, enterprise, and agent-based AI products, areas with greater long-term business value. Sora fell victim to a strategic pivot: away from complex video generation, toward the most economically promising parts of the business. The Sora team will now focus on world models for robotics. The Sora app shuts down in April, with the API following in September.
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Source: Wall Street Journal
Read full article about: AI-generated dating show pulls 10 million views per episode on TikTok
AI-generated dating show "Fruit Love Island" averages over 10 million views per episode on TikTok.
The show features fruit characters flirting, fighting, and cheating on each other in a villa modeled after the real "Love Island" series. Since launching last week, 21 episodes have been published. Viewers can vote on what happens next through an online form.
Justine Moore of Andreessen Horowitz sees the show as proof that AI-generated content can attract a mass audience, according to the Wall Street Journal. Despite obvious AI flaws like out-of-sync lip movements, the show has built a real following. Fans have already created recap videos, fan accounts, and parodies. It's fitting that the reality dating format - already a low-effort genre on television - is now being replicated by AI. Maybe AI slop is just the natural successor to trash TV.
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Read full article about: Mistral AI borrows 830 million dollars to operate a new data center near Paris
Mistral AI has taken out a loan of 830 million dollars. The money will fund the operation of a new data center near Paris in Bruyeres-le-Chatel. The deal lets Mistral avoid giving up any company shares, but it also saddles the startup with significant debt, a risk for both the company and the banks backing the loan, especially given that Mistral is unlikely to be profitable anytime soon.
The new facility will be equipped with 13,800 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 GPUs and deliver 44 megawatts of output capacity. A consortium of global banks is backing the loan, including Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole CIB, HSBC, La Banque Postale, MUFG, and Natixis.
By the end of 2027, the French AI company plans to provide 200 megawatts of computing capacity across Europe to meet demand from governments and businesses looking to build their own AI systems. Mistral is the only European frontier AI startup positioned to benefit from growing concerns across the continent about technological dependence on the US.
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Source: Mistral AI