OpenAI's Sachin Katti serves as Head of Industrial Compute, which means he gets to help figure out how to line up trillions of $ in AI compute. @shiringhaffary.bsky.social & I spoke with him about his role, Nvidia, AWS, memory shortages & more www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Former Academic Guiding OpenAI’s Trillion-Dollar AI Buildout

For months, OpenAI’s Sam Altman has been talking up plans to spend trillions of dollars on an unprecedented buildout of data centers stocked with advanced chips to power AI.

bloomberg.com

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is retiring and will be replaced with AI exec Asha Sharma, who says the company will recommit to console gamers. Matt Booty is becoming chief content officer reporting to Sharma. Sarah Bond will leave the company.

FTC is accelerating an antitrust probe of Microsoft and has sent requests for information to cloud and office software rivals relating to things like licensing Office/Windows for rival clouds & AI/Copilot, sources tell @sisco.bsky.social, me & @mattmday.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

FTC Ratchets Up Microsoft Probe, Queries Rivals on Cloud, AI

The US Federal Trade Commission is accelerating scrutiny of Microsoft Corp. as part of an ongoing probe into whether the company illegally monopolizes large swaths of the enterprise computing market w...

bloomberg.com

Congratulations to @bloomberg.com for earning an Honorable Mention for “The Hidden Costs of AI”. Read: bloom.bg/4rmdhDc By: Josh Saul, @naurtorious.bsky.social , Leonardo Nicoletti, @michellema.bsky.social , @dinabass.bsky.social , Demetrios Pogkas and Andre Tartar

NEW: I took a trip down to Obsidian Entertainment to talk about their stunning 2025, in which they somehow shipped three games. They were remarkably candid about their successes, their failures, and their plans for navigating the future. For Businessweek Magazine: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Inside Xbox, a Game Studio Is Trying to Reinvent Itself

Microsoft’s Obsidian Entertainment is searching for ways to make games more quickly and on smaller budgets.

bloomberg.com

SCOOP from Douglas Macmillan Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE custody was homicide, recording says www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE custody was homicide, recording says

A fellow detainee says he witnessed Geraldo Lunas Campos being choked to death by guards at the ICE detention center in Texas on Jan. 3.

washingtonpost.com

honor of the 25th anniversary of the original Xbox unveiling at CES, here's a gift link to read the oral history I wrote for the 20th anniversary www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... (thanks to Mark Milian for the lovely edit of way too many words on this one)

A year after the LA wildfires, the price tag for the costliest blazes in US history is still climbing. Who pays is uncertain. Our story on how risk and damage have spread beyond burned neighborhoods and the fight to limit losses and shift liability: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

One Year After LA Fires, Recovery Is a Battleground

The price tag for the costliest blazes in US history is still climbing and disputes over who will pay are escalating.

bloomberg.com

I spoke to Johanna Faries, president of Blizzard Entertainment, about improving the company's culture, fixing the opaque bonus system, her ideal game release schedule, Xbox pressure, and much more www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Blizzard President Talks Culture, Bonuses and Releasing More Games

Johanna Faries, who took over as president of Blizzard in 2024, reveals what’s coming from the storied studio

bloomberg.com

I have always wanted to take a close look at the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel. For 40th anniversary, we dove deep with spreadsheet pioneers, Excel's original team and the current gen of experts and influencers by @chafkin.bsky.social and me www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Microsoft Is the House That Excel Built

The ubiquitous spreadsheet software is expensive, derivative and depressing. It’s also the software the world can’t quit, even in the era of AI tools.

bloomberg.com

Has the whole Liverpool squad been replaced by their Temu versions?

Lots of AI datacenter, neocloud and chip stuff this am: Cerebras signing an MOU with Guyana for a multibillion data center to serve the Caribbean nation and its neighbors + unveils a global sovereign AI program: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Cerebras to Help Build Guyana Data Center, Unveils Sovereign AI Push

Cerebras Systems Inc. is teaming up with the government of Guyana on a multibillion-dollar deal to build the area’s first data center, part of a push by the AI chip upstart to help countries expand th...

bloomberg.com

I really have nothing nice to say about this Liverpool match...and my mother always said if you can't say anything nice...

Also Microsoft is keeping its 20% revenue share, sources tell us, but OpenAI has more time to make payments.

Techmeme@techmeme.com · 9mo ago

OpenAI-Microsoft deal: Microsoft gets a 27% stake, access to its AI models until 2032, including AGI-level models, and OpenAI will buy $250B of Azure services (Brody Ford/Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

BREAKING: Amazon is making "significant" cuts to its video-game division, moving away from MMOs like New World, and gutting its Irvine and San Diego development studios www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Amazon Makes ‘Significant’ Cuts In Video-Game Division

Tech giant will reduce game development work

bloomberg.com

Fans have spent the last two years wondering why Xbox is closing studios, canceling games, raising prices, cutting jobs, and releasing its games on rival PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. This ambitious 30% profit margin target helps explain many of those moves. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Microsoft Pushes Xbox Division to Hit Higher Profit Margins

Management’s goal of 30% profit margins for gaming has led to job losses, canceled projects

bloomberg.com

SCOOP: For the last two years, Microsoft has pushed Xbox to hit profit margins of 30%, an ambitious target that's far higher than the industry average. This chase for profit has led Xbox to raise prices, cut thousands of jobs, and rethink everything. Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Microsoft Pushes Xbox Division to Hit Higher Profit Margins

Management’s goal of 30% profit margins for gaming has led to job losses, canceled projects

bloomberg.com

I for one can't wait for next week when we nail Mo and Cody to the touchline again, ask our fullbacks to underlap constantly, and nobody knows what anybody else is doing while our press looks like steaming dogshit but individually we create enough xG to say maybe on another day...

Well that was not an enjoyable match at all. Slot’s got a lot to work out here.

Globally, data centers are expected to consume more than 4% of electricity by 2035 - if they were a country they’d rank 4th in power use www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202... via @bloomberg.com By Josh Saul, Leonardo Nicoletti, Demetrios Pogkas, @dinabass.bsky.social @naurtorious.bsky.social

Electricity now costs 267% more (!!) for 1 month vs. what it cost 5 years ago near data center hotspots. Awesome reporting from Josh Saul @dinabass.bsky.social Leonardo Nicoletti @naurtorious.bsky.social Demetrios Pogkas (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

bloomberg.com

Invisible Technologies, a Scale AI rival that helped train ChatGPT, raised $100M, sources say at a $2B+ valuation, and reports $134M in 2024 sales (Dina Bass/Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

OD, the collaboration between Xbox and Hideo Kojima, is still in development, a Microsoft spokesperson tells me.

BREAKING: Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence, sources tell Bloomberg News. This news arrives weeks after a mass layoff in which Xbox canceled several other big titles.

Microsoft finally reported an Azure revenue number, after years of various less-than-specific ways of describing cloud sales that elicited complaints from analysts, investors, reporters &even a post-MSFT Steve Ballmer bloomberg.com/news/article... by @mattmday.bsky.social @brodyford.bsky.social

Microsoft Gives Azure Cloud Sales for First Time at $75 Billion

Microsoft Corp. said its Azure cloud-computing unit generated more than $75 billion during the 2025 fiscal year, the first time the company has put a dollar figure on a critical business it has spent ...

bloomberg.com

Many of Xbox's subsidiaries are getting hit by the layoffs this morning, including Call of Duty studios such as Raven. Big cuts at Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 - nearly 50% of staff, per source.

BREAKING: The new MMORPG project from Zenimax Online Studios, maker of Elder Scrolls Online, has been canceled as part of the Xbox layoffs, sources tell Bloomberg News. The project, code-named Blackbird, had been in development since 2018. Still more news to come this morning.

Google has signed the first commercial deal with nuclear fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems and will make a second investment in CFS (both of undisclosed size) as cloud and AI companies look for more sources of energy. With Will Wade www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Google Is Betting on a Fusion Future in Power Deal With Commonwealth

Google will also invest again in Commonwealth, which expects its first commercial plant will generate power in the early 2030s

bloomberg.com

Breaking: Microsoft is planning major job cuts at Xbox that will begin next week, sources tell Bloomberg News. Not yet clear how many people, but it's expected to be big. This will be the fourth mass layoff at Xbox in the last 18 months. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Microsoft Plans Major Job Cuts at Xbox Gaming Division

The video-game division’s latest round of layoffs is expected next week

bloomberg.com

One of the top-ranked hackers in the US isn't a person - it's an AI from a company called @xbow.com Founded by former GitHub Copilot chief Oege de Moor, Xbow has closed a $75 mln Series B round backed by Altimeter, Sequoia and Nat Friedman www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

One of the Best Hackers in the Country is an AI Bot

Xbow, the startup behind a highly ranked hacking security tool, has raised $75 million

bloomberg.com