Sherwood News

The AI infrastructure debate’s heating up, as spending on data centers set to outpace office construction

Multiple gargantuan data center projects got announced this week — some people see huge risks of fruitless spending, while others, like Sam Altman, think the build-out could be too slow.

Claire Yubin Oh, David Crowther

9/26/25 9:51AM

Depending on who you ask, the AI data center boom is either an obscene waste or not fast enough.

Just yesterday, famed investor David Einhorn cautioned that there’s a “chance that a tremendous amount of capital destruction is going to come through this cycle.” Sam Altman, however, thinks that OpenAI’s hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of spending will “look slow” in hindsight.

It’s hard to get your head around just how quickly the data center boom is taking off, but a viral chart from Joey Politano helps provide context. Indeed, according to Census Bureau data, construction spending for data centers in the year to July has reached an annualized rate of $41 billion — nearly exceeding the construction costs of all private offices in the US.

That’s a whopping 2,200% increase since July 2014.

With such an attractive alternative, investors are increasingly choosing to build data centers rather than offices, a trend accelerated by the shift toward remote work as many offices empty out postpandemic.

Data center construction spending accelerated after ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, and the Census Bureau soon started to publish data center expenditure as a separate category. (Until then, data center was, ironically, lumped into the wider “Office” segment.)

Considering the Census Bureau’s annual spending data covers until the end of July, the data likely does not include the latest construction plans, such as the following, to name but a few, suggesting it’s only a matter of time before these two lines cross:

Nvidia and OpenAI’s $100 billion, 10-gigawatt data center megadeal.
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank’s $500 billion “Stargate” project, which just announced the first five of its new data center sites.
Meta’s planned “Titan Cluster” data centers.

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Jon Keegan12/24/25

Chinese AI chatbots reportedly must answer 2,000 questions, prove censorship compliance

For American companies building AI today, it is basically a free-for-all, a self-regulation zone with zero federal restrictions.

But for Chinese AI companies, the Chinese Communist Party exerts strict control over what models get released, and what questions they cannot answer.

A report in the Wall Street Journal details the rigorous tests that AI models are subjected to before being released on the global stage to compete with Western AI models.

AI models must answer 2,000 questions that are frequently updated, and achieve a 95% refusal rate for queries related to forbidden topics, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or human rights violations, according to the report.

The strict regulatory framework does have some safety advantages, such as preventing chatbots from sharing violent or pornographic material as well as protections from self-harm, an issue which American AI companies are currently wrestling with.

China Is Worried AI Threatens Party Rule—and Is Trying to Tame It

A report in the Wall Street Journal details the rigorous tests that AI models are subjected to before being released on the global stage to compete with Western AI models.

Rani Molla & Jon Keegan12/24/25

Report: OpenAI has started mocking up what ads in ChatGPT could look like

2025 saw OpenAI ink a flurry of massive deals. To pay for it all, the company has realized that it can’t get there on $20 per month subscriptions alone. It also needs to monetize its hundreds of millions of free users.

To this end, despite repeatedly denying that ads are coming to ChatGPT, a new report says OpenAI is actually working through all those details.

Citing people familiar with the discussions, The Information reports employees have discussed different ways to prioritize sponsored information in ChatGPT in response to relevant queries.

Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, its offerings have been ad-free, relying instead on a freemium subscription model. But with Google recently telling advertisers it plans to bring ads to Gemini next year, and with OpenAI burning through truckloads of cash, the pressure to follow suit is growing.

OpenAI is looking at its AI model-developing competitors Meta and Google, who are pulling in hundreds of billions of dollars per year in advertising revenue, to arrive at this conclusion. It’s also seemingly inspired by Amazon’s (and Google’s) idea of sponsored product placement.

According to the report, in addition to trying to build new kinds of ad units, OpenAI is considering a few options:

Leaning into chats that are clearly about buying a product, and giving priority placement to sponsored results — though this only works out to about 2.1% of queries, according to OpenAI.
Showing ads based on the treasure trove of information it has on users, by mining their chat histories
A “sponsored” sidebar showing ads related to the conversation

But the company realizes it has to be careful to not turn off users, who might not trust a chatbot that peppers sensitive conversations with ads.

OpenAI’s Ads Push Starts Taking Shape

Citing people familiar with the discussions, The Information reports employees have discussed different ways to prioritize sponsored information in ChatGPT in response to relevant queries.

According to the report, in addition to trying to build new kinds of ad units, OpenAI is considering a few options:

Leaning into chats that are clearly about buying a product, and giving priority placement to sponsored results — though this only works out to about 2.1% of queries, according to OpenAI.
Showing ads based on the treasure trove of information it has on users, by mining their chat histories
A “sponsored” sidebar showing ads related to the conversation

But the company realizes it has to be careful to not turn off users, who might not trust a chatbot that peppers sensitive conversations with ads.

Rani Molla12/24/25

NHTSA investigates Tesla Model 3 over concerns mechanical door release is “not readily accessible or easily identifiable”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Wednesday it is investigating the emergency exit controls on 179,071 model year 2022 Tesla Model 3 vehicles after receiving a defect petition alleging the vehicles’ “mechanical door release is hidden, unlabeled, and not intuitive to locate during an emergency.”

The investigation is separate from a probe the agency announced this fall into instances of electronic door handles on 2021 Tesla Model Y vehicles becoming inoperable from the outside.

The action follows a series of reporting from Bloomberg examining the role of Tesla’s door designs in accident fatalities. Tesla has previously said it is working on redesigns to its door handles.

Jon Keegan12/23/25

FCC bans new Chinese drones and components from DJI and Autel Robotics

Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) banned new drones and critical components from the market-leading Chinese drone manufacturer DJI, and smaller firm Autel Robotics, calling the foreign made drones “an unacceptable national security risk.”

The ban covers all drones and related components from any foreign manufacturer. DJI dominates the worldwide (nonmilitary) drone market, with a market share greater than 90%, according to some estimates.

In addition to hobbyists, the quadcopter-style drones made by DJI are used heavily by a wide variety of businesses including agriculture, infrastructure inspection, real estate, and also by first responders. Blocking foreign drones leaves many critical industries without a viable US-made alternative, as the industry has struggled to develop new supply chains that don’t come from China and match the quality of DJI’s hardware and software.

Shares of Florida-based drone builder Unusual Machines are up over 8% in early trading. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor and advisor to the company.

DJI has said its drones do not present a security risk, and welcome a national security review, noting that their drones can be used without an internet connection, and all data is saved locally.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr said:

“I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign drones and related components, which pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List. Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will work closely with U.S. drone makers to unleash American drone dominance.”

U.S. Bans New China-Made Drones, Sparking Outrage Among Pilots

Shares of Florida-based drone builder Unusual Machines are up over 8% in early trading. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor and advisor to the company.

DJI has said its drones do not present a security risk, and welcome a national security review, noting that their drones can be used without an internet connection, and all data is saved locally.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr said:

“I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign drones and related components, which pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List. Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will work closely with U.S. drone makers to unleash American drone dominance.”

Rani Molla12/23/25

Tesla’s EU sales fell nearly 40% in the first 11 months of 2025

From January through November this year, Tesla sales fell 39% to 129,000 in the European Union compared with the first 11 months of 2024, according to new data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, known as ACEA. In that same time, sales of Chinese competitor BYD grew 240% to 110,000. BYD first outsold Tesla there this spring, but Tesla is still outpacing BYD for the year.

Overall, sales of battery electric vehicles in the EU rose 28%.

Tesla has struggled throughout this year in Europe, its third-biggest market — something CEO Elon Musk has blamed on Europe’s lack of regulatory approval for its Full Self-Driving tech, though the decline likely has more to do with competition from China.

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