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Aisha Down

@aishadown.bsky.social

Global technology reporter at the Guardian. You can reach me securely on Signal at aishadown.57

10 Posts397 Follower 73 Folgt

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 3d ago

Excellent to see Bloomberg following up on @edzitron.com and my scoop from August - but raises unsettling questions about where, exactly, all the money has gone - and where are the Nvidia GPUs? www.theguardian.com/technology/2... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Are Microsoft’s AI plans being held back by a shortage of chips?

Guardian investigation finds apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced chips it has in operation

theguardian.com

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 3d ago

Holy shit. Bloomberg just verified one of my biggest scoops - that Microsoft only has 2gw of operational capacity. I had it at 1.993GW in prep for the story that @aishadown.bsky.social and I did for the guardian. Vindication! www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Brody Ford @BrodyFord
Lot of speculation out there about how many GPUs are actually deployed.
Today, Microsoft has about 2GW of Al-specific capacity live. around 17% of the total fleet.
Only about 2 gigawatts of the company's current 12-gigawatt capacity is centered on Al-specific chips, the people said. This is expected to grow to about a third of the 38 gigawatts Microsoft plans to have online in 2032, they said.
Brody Ford @BrodyFord_ • 23h
scoop: Microsoft is planning a massive expansion of its data center fleet to 38 gigawatts. $msft w/ @mattmday bloomberg.com/news/features/...
3:15 PM • Sep 11, 2026 • 12.5K Views

Are Microsoft's AI
plans being held back by a shortage of chips?
Guardian investigation finds
apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity - and the
number of advanced chips it
has in operation
By Aisha Down and Ed Zitron
A Microsoft datacentre in the North Holland village of
Middenmeer in the Netherlands. Photograph: Ramon van
Flymen/EPA

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 5d ago

@horadam.bsky.social - hoping to be in touch with you.

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 2w ago

@jennycohn.bsky.social - hoping I might reach you?

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 2w ago

@breelanc.bsky.social - I'm the Guardian reporter working on the Peter Thiel piece and would be interested in speaking with you.

Mary Peltola @marypeltola.com · 4w ago

Tens of thousands of Alaska voters made their voices heard in our open primary election, and I couldn’t be more grateful for everyone’s support. On to November 3rd!

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 3mo ago

What are the stakes of OpenAI's IPO? Last year, they were building the machine god and everything seemed possible. But it's 2026 now, and money is important. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

As the tech mega-IPO race heats up, has OpenAI missed its moment?

With rivals racing to market to raise ‘eye-popping sums’, the spotlight is now on the AI sector’s one-time ‘poster child’

theguardian.com

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 4mo ago

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

More than 100 UK datacentres plan to burn gas to generate electricity

Requests for gas connections by operators amount to more than 15 terawatt hours per year, endangering climate targets

theguardian.com

Tim Squirrell @tmsqrll.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Months of investigative work at @foxglovelegal.bsky.social, now covered in the Guardian, have led me to one inexorable conclusion: the government hasn’t a bloody clue what it’s doing about data centre carbon emissions. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

UK departments at odds over energy demands of AI datacentres

Discrepancy in forecasts raises questions over government planning for net zero

theguardian.com

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 5mo ago

@richtennach.bsky.social - hoping to reach you for a story we're working on at the Guardian

Adam Kinzinger @adamkinzinger.substack.com · 5mo ago

I wanna point out something serious. The admin has been complaining about Iran winning the information war. This same administration shut down Voice of America, and other information operations the US govt does. It’s a self goal. Actions have consequences

Noah Shachtman @noahshachtman.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Laying off @joemenn.bsky.social is the newsroom management equivalent of stapling your dick to the wall. Truly insane move, and one of many.

Joseph Menn@joemenn.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.

Caroleeena @caroleeena.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Today's Poem reminds me of my grandmother Ethel Mabry who was the one who got up early and started the woodstove and then cooked breakfast. Things I took for granted then but don't now.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 8mo ago

An insane, perfect encapsulation of it all: The same day Trump’s agents kill a Veterans Affairs ICU nurse in broad daylight, the CEOs of Apple and Amazon join Trump to watch a private screening of a film about his wife directed by an alleged sexual abuser who was seen shirtless in the Epstein Files

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 8mo ago

Meet ‘Amelia’: the AI-generated British schoolgirl who is a far-right social media star

The avatar, created to deter young people from extremism, has been subverted and is breaking out of niche online silos In certain corners of the internet, on niche news feeds and algorithms, an AI-generated British schoolgirl has emerged as something of a phenomenon. Her name is Amelia, a purple-haired “goth girl” who proudly carries a mini union flag and appears to have a penchant for racism. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

Adam Gianforcaro @adamg.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Ada Limón

TORN
Witness the wet dead snake, its long hexagonal pattern weaved around its body like a code for creation, curled up cold on the newly tarred road.
Let us begin with the snake: the fact of death, the poverty of place, of skin and surface. See how the snake is cut in two—its body divided from its brain.
Imagine now, how it moves still, both sides, the tail dancing, the head dancing.
Believe it is the mother and the father.
Believe it is the mouth and the words.
Believe it is the sin and the sinner-the tempting, the taking, the apple, the fall, every one of us guilty, the story of us all.
But then return to the snake, pitiful dead thing, forcefully denying the split of its being, longing for life back as a whole, wanting you to see it for what it is: something that loves itself so much it moves across the boundaries of death to touch itself once more, to praise both divided sides equally, as if it was easy.

Susan L. Leary @susanlleary.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I can’t imagine my life without the poetry of Carl Phillips 💙 @cphillipspoet.bsky.social

Blurry Finally in Too Soon Each of Us

A water-meadow is not a flood-meadow.

A working meadow's not a fallow field.

Heartbreak like a bloodhound better off abandoned because untamable.

There's a slant of light I used to call Self-Portrait as a Lion, Bringing Down a Stag.

Jacqueline Sweet @jsweetli.bsky.social · 8mo ago

NEW: It appears billionaire Bill Ackman has donated $10k to a GoFundMe for Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renee Good. Ackman has reposted the fundraiser but hasn’t posted about his own donation.

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 8mo ago

the endless ground of your own deep pulse, Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young

Be ahead of all partings, as if they were
behind you, like the winter that’s just past.
For among the winters is one so endlessly winter
that your heart, if you overwinter, can survive it.

Be dead in Eurydice, always—, climb with more song,
climb with more praise, back up into pure relation.
Here in the kingdom of decay, among what’s wasting,
be a tingling glass that shatters itself with sound.

Exist while you know the state of nonexistence,
the endless ground of your own deep pulse, so that
you can fulfill it completely this one time.

With the used-up, as well as the muffled and useless
stock of full nature, the unreckoned sum,
count yourself in, rejoicing, and then demolish the count.

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I want to stay in bed, Robert Kinsley

HOME ALONE IN MID-NOVEMBER,
WAITING FOR A POEM

The morning comes on like
a bout with loneliness,
dark clouds sweep in low
across the valley, rain
sets in hard from the west.
I want to stay in bed,
refuse it all, like the junk mail
I always end up opening.
For hours, I pace among these rooms
parting the air with my hands,
searching the horizon
for traces of light that catch
and turn somehow to poem.
All I see from the window
are the dark shapes of geese
winging past, like children
who are leaving home for good.
The day slips by, another empty
envelope marked occupant.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 9mo ago

The 'kin' of ‘napkin’ means "little." ‘Nap’ comes from ‘nape,' which means “tablecloth.” So a napkin is a little tablecloth. 10/10, no notes.

Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope.aramzs.xyz · 9mo ago

This, unfortunately, has been very obviously coming. I suspect this is only the leading edge of a whole bounty hunter complex. aramzs.xyz/noteworthy/t...

The bounty hunter tendency, the future of privacy, and ad tech's new profit frontier.

The future privacy battle has higher stakes then ever as state-level US politics lean into deputizing citizens to use whatever data they can to commit human rights abuses.

aramzs.xyz

Sam Biddle@sambiddle.com · 9mo ago

NEW: A variety of military and intelligence contractors have already signed on to help ICE's immigrant bounty hunter program. A review of procurement data shows 10 companies stand to make up to *ONE BILLION* dollars from the program by 2027. theintercept.com/2025/12/23/i...

Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 9mo ago

“These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”

Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed
to kill the story.
If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 10mo ago

“If we handed in stuff that was AI-generated, we would be kicked out of the uni, but we’re being taught by an AI" -- on how maybe AI shouldn't transform higher education. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI

Staffordshire students say signs material was AI-generated included suspicious file names and rogue voiceover accent

theguardian.com

Aisha Down @aishadown.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Ross Douthat here makes a fantastic argument for ... just subscribing to The Guardian instead.

Editing the Blue-Gray Lady@nytdiff.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Change in Headline

Before: Did Women Ruin the Workplace?
After: Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?

Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 10mo ago

If I was working at the Times (would never happen lol) I would be talking to my women colleagues and perhaps outside counsel about whether this constitutes a Title VII violation.

Kate Baldwin@katebaldwin.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Current printed title (and better summary):

NYT headline “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?”