North America’s data center vacancy rate reaches an all-time low of 1.6%

1.6%

Vacancy rates at North American data centers reached a record low of 1.6% in the first half of 2025, according to new data from real estate services firm CBRE. The rate represents “unrelenting demand” from hyperscalers and AI occupiers, the firm said in a press release.

That said, data center REITs like Equinix have performed poorly as investors punish it for its profit-eating capex spending, as the company — like the Big Tech businesses that also use its services — develops more data centers to get ahead of the AI boom.

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RIP the metaverse

Meta seems to be winding down its metaverse ambitions. We took a look back at what the company was going for.

Rani Molla, Jon Keegan4h

Rani Molla6h

Salesforce falls as Anthropic debuts Cowork tool

Salesforce is on track for its worst trading day in nearly two years, with shares down more than 6% Tuesday afternoon. One potential contributor: Anthropic’s release of Cowork, an autonomous digital assistant for completing office tasks. Essentially, Cowork is an agent-based version of Anthropic’s Claude chatbot that can access and manipulate files, automate workflows, and execute tasks on a user’s behalf.

Salesforce watchers will recall that the SaaS giant has thrown its weight behind its own agent-based workplace AI, Agentforce, which CEO Marc Benioff recently described as one of the company’s two main “momentum drivers.” In December, Benioff said he would consider renaming the company "Agenforce."

Introducing Cowork: Claude Code for the rest of your work.

Cowork lets you complete non-technical tasks much like how developers use Claude Code. pic.twitter.com/EqckycvFH3
— Claude (@claudeai) January 12, 2026

Meta will suffer the most from shouldering higher data center costs

Meta is no Google or Microsoft, but it’s spending like it is.

Rani Molla11h

Google reaches record high and crosses $4 trillion market cap after major wins for Gemini

Google parent Alphabet closed yesterday at a record-high stock price of $331.86, giving the company a market capitalization just above $4 trillion, as investors reward a string of wins for its Gemini AI model, including high-profile partnerships with Apple and Walmart.

After months of speculation, Apple announced a multiyear partnership to use Gemini to power its AI assistant, Siri, a major endorsement of Google’s AI prowess. That same day, Walmart said it would partner with Google to let customers purchase products directly through the Gemini chatbot, a move that would put Gemini in front of millions of Walmart shoppers and test whether AI chatbots can drive real commerce at scale rather than isolated queries. (Amazon, OpenAI, and Microsoft are experimenting with similar AI shopping tools.)

The stock is up nearly 1% again in premarket trading today. While Microsoft and Apple have both crossed $4 trillion in the past, they’ve since dipped below it, leaving Google and Nvidia as the only companies currently valued above the threshold.

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