News Source Slashdot:Hardware

Race for All-Solid-State EV Batteries Heats Up with New Samsung SDI/BMW/Solid Power Partnership
All-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) "are widely viewed as the 'holy grail' of EV battery tech," writes Electrek, "promising to double driving range, halve charging times, and reduce costs." Toyota hopes to launch its first production EV powered by the batteries in 2027 or 2028, and Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are also testing the technology. But now Samsung SDI is teaming up with BMW and US-based battery company Solid Power for their own effort at commercializing all-solid-state EV batteries "in what's expected to be a trilateral powerhouse."BMW and Solid Power have been working together to develop the next-gen battery tech since 2022...Under the new agreement signed this week, Samsung will supply all-solid-state battery cells. Samsung will use Solid Power's Sulfide-Based Solid Electrolyte solution, while BMW will develop the battery pack and modules. The strategic alliance aims to take the lead in commercializing all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs). Together, they've created a real-world system for producing ASSB cells, pooling their expertise in batteries, automaking, and materials to bring it closer to mass production. Solid Power's electrolyte solution is designed for stability and maximum conductivity. By teaming up with BMW and Samsung SDI, the company said it aims to bring all-solid-state batteries closer to widespread adoption. "By pooling resources, BMW, Samsung SDI, and Solid Power have a real shot..." argues Electrek.

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Samsung Building Facility With 50,000 Nvidia GPUs To Automate Chip Manufacturing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Korean semiconductor giant Samsung said Thursday that it plans to buy and deploy a cluster of 50,000 Nvidia graphics processing units to improve its chip manufacturing for mobile devices and robots. The 50,000 Nvidia GPUs will be used to create a facility Samsung is calling an "AI Megafactory." Samsung didn't provide details about when the facility would be built. It's the latest splashy partnership for Nvidia, whose chips remain essential for building and deploying advanced artificial intelligence. [...] On Thursday, Nvidia representatives said they will work with Samsung to adapt the Korean company's chipmaking lithography platform to work with Nvidia's GPUs. That process will results in 20 times better performance for Samsung, the Nvidia representatives said. Samsung will also use Nvidia's simulation software called Omniverse. Known for its mobile phones, Samsung also said it would use the Nvidia chips to run its own AI models for its devices. In addition to being a partner and customer, Samsung is also a key supplier for Nvidia. Samsung makes the kind of high-performance memory Nvidia uses in large quantities, alongside its AI chips, called high bandwidth memory. Samsung said it will work with Nvidia to tweak its HBM4 memory for use in AI chips.

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Falling Panel Prices Lead To Global Solar Boom, Except For the US
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the Financial Times: Solar power developers want to cover an area larger than Washington, DC, with silicon panels and batteries, converting sunlight into electricity that will power air conditioners in sweltering Las Vegas along with millions of other homes and businesses. But earlier this month, bureaucrats in charge of federal lands scrapped collective approval for the Esmeralda 7 projects, in what campaigners fear is part of an attack on renewable energy under President Donald Trump. "We will not approve wind or farmer destroying [sic] Solar," he posted on his Truth Social platform in August. Developers will need to reapply individually, slowing progress. Thousands of miles away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, it is a different story. China has laid solar panels across an area the size of Chicago high up on the Tibetan Plateau, where the thin air helps more sunlight get through. The Talatan Solar Park is part of China's push to double its solar and wind generation capacity over the coming decade. "Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time," President Xi Jinping told delegates at a UN summit in New York last month. China's vast production of solar panels and batteries has also pushed down the prices of renewables hardware for everyone else, meaning it has "become very difficult to make any other choice in some places," according to Heymi Bahar, senior analyst at the International Energy Agency. [...] More broadly, the US's focus on fossil fuels and pullback of support for clean energy further cedes influence over the future global energy system to China. The US is trying to tie its trading partners into fossil fuels, pressing the EU to buy $750 billion of American oil, natural gas, and nuclear technologies during his presidency as part of a trade deal, scuppering an initiative to begin decarbonizing world shipping and pressuring others to reduce their reliance on Chinese technology. But the collapsing cost of solar panels in particular has spoken for itself in many parts of the world. Experts caution that the US's attacks on renewables could cause lasting damage to its competitiveness against China, even if an administration more favorable to renewables were to follow Trump's.

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The World's Secret Electricity Superusers Revealed
An anonymous reader shares a report: The rush to secure electricity has intensified as tech companies look to spend trillions of dollars building data centers. There's an industry that consumes even more power than many tech giants, and it has largely escaped the same scrutiny: suppliers of industrial gases. Everyday items like toothpaste and life-saving treatments like MRIs are among the countless parts of modern life that hinge on access to gases such as nitrogen, oxygen and helium. Producing and transporting these gases to industrial facilities and hospitals is a highly energy-intensive process. Three companies -- Linde, Air Liquide and Air Products and Chemicals -- control 70% of the $120 billion global market for industrial gases. Their initiatives to rein in electricity use or switch to renewables aren't enough to rapidly cut carbon emissions, according to a new report from the campaign group Action Speaks Louder. "The scale of the sector's greenhouse gas emissions and electricity use is staggering," said George Harding-Rolls, the group's head of campaigns and one of the authors of the report. Linde's electricity use in 2024 exceeded that of Alphabet's Google and Samsung Electronics as well as oil giant TotalEnergies, while the power use of Air Liquide and Air Products was comparable to that of Shell and Microsoft. Yet unlike fossil fuel and tech companies, these industrial gas companies are far from household names because their customers are the world's largest chemicals, steel and oil companies rather than average consumers. The industry relies on air-separation units, which use giant compressors to turn air into liquid and then distill it into its many components. These machines are responsible for much of the industry's electricity demand, and their use alone is responsible for 2% of carbon dioxide emissions in China and the US, the world's two largest polluters.

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Nvidia Takes $1 Billion Stake In Nokia
Nvidia is taking a $1 billion stake in Nokia, sending the Finnish telecom giant's shares up 22%. The two companies also struck a partnership to co-develop next-generation 6G and AI-driven networking technology. CNBC reports: The two companies also struck a strategic partnership to work together to develop next-generation 6G cellular technology. Nokia said that it would adapt its 5G and 6G software to run on Nvidia's chips, and will collaborate on networking technology for AI. Nokia said Nvidia would consider incorporating its technology into its future AI infrastructure plans. Nokia, a Finnish company, is best known for its early cellphones, but in recent years, it has primarily been a supplier of 5G cellular equipment to telecom providers.

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Early Reports Indicate Nvidia DGX Spark May Be Suffering From Thermal Issues
Longtime Slashdot reader zuki writes: According to a recent report over at Tom's Hardware, a number of those among early buyers who have been able to put the highly-coveted $4,000.00 DGX Spark mini-AI workstation through its paces are reporting throttling at 100W (rather than the advertised 240W capacity), spontaneous reboots, and thermal issues under sustained load. The workstation came under fire after John Carmack, the former CTO of Oculus VR, began raising questions about its real-world performance and power draw. "His comments were enough to draw tech support from Framework and even AMD, with the offer of an AMD-driven Strix Halo-powered alternative," reports Tom's Hardware. "What's causing this suboptimal performance, such as a firmware-level cap or thermal throttling, is not clear," the report adds. "Nvidia hasn't commented publicly on Carmack's post or user-reported instability. Meanwhile, several threads on Nvidia's developer forums now include reports of GPU crashes and unexpected shutdowns under sustained load."

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Westinghouse Is Claiming a Nuclear Deal Would See $80 Billion of New Reactors
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, Westinghouse announced that it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that would purportedly see $80 billion of new nuclear reactors built in the US. And the government indicated that it had finalized plans for a collaboration of GE Vernova and Hitachi to build additional reactors. Unfortunately, there are roughly zero details about the deal at the moment. The agreements were apparently negotiated during President Trump's trip to Japan. An announcement of those agreements indicates that "Japan and various Japanese companies" would invest "up to" $332 billion for energy infrastructure. This specifically mentioned Westinghouse, GE Vernova, and Hitachi. This promises the construction of both large AP1000 reactors and small modular nuclear reactors. The announcement then goes on to indicate that many other companies would also get a slice of that "up to $332 billion," many for basic grid infrastructure. The report notes that no reactors are currently under construction and Westinghouse's last two projects ended in bankruptcy. According to the Financial Times, the government may share in profits and ownership if the deal proceeds.

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Jet Engine Shortages Threaten AI Data Center Expansion As Wait Times Stretch Into 2030
A global shortage of jet engines is threatening the rapid expansion of AI data centers, as hyperscalers like OpenAI and Amazon scramble to secure aeroderivative turbines to power their energy-hungry AI clusters. With wait times stretching into the 2030s and emissions rising, the AI boom is literally running on jet fuel. Tom's Hardware reports: Interviews and market research indicate that manufacturers are quoting years-long lead times for turbine orders. Many of those placed today are being slotted for 2028-30, and customers are increasingly entering reservation agreements or putting down substantial deposits to hold future manufacturing capacity. "I would expect by the end of the summer, we will be largely sold out through the end of '28 with this equipment," said Scott Strazik, CEO of turbine maker GE Vernova, in an interview with Bloomberg back in March. General Electric's LM6000 and LM2500 series -- both derived from the CF6 jet engine family -- have quickly become the default choice for AI developers looking to spin up serious power in a hurry. OpenAI's infrastructure partner, Crusoe Energy, recently ordered 29 LM2500XPRESS units to supply roughly one gigawatt of temporary generation for Stargate, effectively creating a mobile jet-fueled grid inside a West Texas field. Meanwhile, ProEnergy, which retrofits used CF6-80C2 engines into trailer-mounted 48-megawatt units, confirmed that it has delivered more than 1 gigawatt of its PE6000 systems to just two data center clients. These engines, which were once strapped to Boeing 767s, now spend their lives keeping inference moving. Siemens Energy said this year that more than 60% of its US gas turbine orders are now linked to AI data centers. In some states, like Ohio and Georgia, regulators are approving multi-gigawatt gas buildouts tied directly to hyperscale footprints. That includes full pipeline builds and multi-phase interconnects designed around private-generation campuses. But the surge in orders has collided with the cold reality of turbine manufacturing timelines. GE Vernova is currently quoting 2028 or later for new industrial units, while Mitsubishi warns new turbine blocks ordered now may not ship until the 2030s. One developer reportedly paid $25 million just to reserve a future delivery slot.

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NextEra Energy Partners With Google To Restart Iowa Nuclear Plant
NextEra Energy and Google have partnered to restart Iowa's long-shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, marking the first major U.S. attempt to revive a decommissioned reactor. "We expect Duane Arnold to be back online in early 2029, and the plant will provide more than 600 MW of clean, safe, 'always-on' nuclear energy to the regional grid," said Google in a blog post. Reuters reports: Under the 25-year agreement, the tech giant will purchase power from the 615-MW plant for its growing cloud and AI infrastructure in the state, while also driving significant economic investment to the Midwest region. One of the plant's minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), will purchase the remaining portion of the plant's output on the same terms as Google, NextEra said. The utility added that it had also signed agreements to acquire CIPCO and Corn Belt Power Cooperative's combined 30% interest in the Duane Arnold plant, bringing NextEra's ownership to 100%.

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Qualcomm Announces AI Chips To Compete With AMD and Nvidia
Qualcomm has entered the AI data center chip race with its new AI200 and AI250 accelerators, directly challenging Nvidia and AMD's dominance by promising lower power costs and high memory capacity. CNBC reports: The AI chips are a shift from Qualcomm, which has thus far focused on semiconductors for wireless connectivity and mobile devices, not massive data centers. Qualcomm said that both the AI200, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack. Qualcomm is matching Nvidia and AMD, which offer their graphics processing units, or GPUs, in full-rack systems that allow as many as 72 chips to act as one computer. AI labs need that computing power to run the most advanced models. Qualcomm's data center chips are based on the AI parts in Qualcomm's smartphone chips called Hexagon neural processing units, or NPUs. "We first wanted to prove ourselves in other domains, and once we built our strength over there, it was pretty easy for us to go up a notch into the data center level," Durga Malladi, Qualcomm's general manager for data center and edge, said on a call with reporters last week.

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Some US Electricity Prices are Rising -- But It's Not Just Data Centers
North Dakota experienced an almost 40% increase in electricity demand "thanks in part to an explosion of data centers," reports the Washington Post. Yet the state saw a 1% drop in its per kilowatt-hour rates. "A new study from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the consulting group Brattle suggests that, counterintuitively, more electricity demand can actually lower prices..."Between 2019 and 2024, the researchers calculated, states with spikes in electricity demand saw lower prices overall. Instead, they found that the biggest factors behind rising rates were the cost of poles, wires and other electrical equipment — as well as the cost of safeguarding that infrastructure against future disasters... [T]he largest costs are fixed costs — that is, maintaining the massive system of poles and wires that keeps electricity flowing. That system is getting old and is under increasing pressures from wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather. More power customers, therefore, means more ways to divvy up those fixed costs. "What that means is you can then take some of those fixed infrastructure costs and end up spreading them around more megawatt-hours that are being sold — and that can actually reduce rates for everyone," said Ryan Hledik [principal at Brattle and a member of the research team]... [T]he new study shows that the costs of operating and installing wind, natural gas, coal and solar have been falling over the past 20 years. Since 2005, generation costs have fallen by 35 percent, from $234 billion to $153 billion. But the costs of the huge wires that transmit that power across the grid, and the poles and wires that deliver that electricity to customers, are skyrocketing. In the past two decades, transmission costs nearly tripled; distribution costs more than doubled. Part of that trend is from the rising costs of parts: The price of transformers and wires, for example, has far outpaced inflation over the past five years. At the same time, U.S. utilities haven't been on top of replacing power poles and lines in the past, and are now trying to catch up. According to another report from Brattle, utilities are already spending more than $10 billion a year replacing aging transmission lines. And finally, escalating extreme-weather events are knocking out local lines, forcing utilities to spend big to make fixes. Last year, Hurricane Beryl decimated Houston's power grid, forcing months of costly repairs. The threat of wildfires in the West, meanwhile, is making utilities spend billions on burying power lines. According to the Lawrence Berkeley study, about 40 percent of California's electricity price increase over the last five years was due to wildfire-related costs. Yet the researchers tell the Washington Post that prices could still increase if utilities have to quickly build more infrastructure just to handle data center. But their point is "This is a much more nuanced issue than just, 'We have a new data center, so rates will go up.'" As the article points out,"Generous subsidies for rooftop solar also increased rates in certain states, mostly in places such as California and Maine... If customers install rooftop solar panels, demand for electricity shrinks, spreading those fixed costs over a smaller set of consumers.

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Bill Gates-Backed 345 MWe Advanced Nuclear Reactor Secures Crucial US Approval
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this article from Interesting Engineering:Bill Gates-backed TerraPower's innovative Natrium reactor project in Wyoming has cleared a critical federal regulatory hurdle. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has successfully completed its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project, known as Kemmerer Unit 1, and found no adverse impacts that would block its construction. The commission officially recommended that a construction permit be issued to TerraPower subsidiary USO for the facility in Lincoln County. This announcement marks a significant milestone, making the Natrium project the first-ever advanced commercial nuclear power plant in the country to successfully complete this rigorous environmental review process... The first-of-a-kind design utilizes an 840 MW (thermal) pool-type reactor connected to a molten salt-based energy storage system. This storage technology is the plant's most unique feature. It is designed to keep the base output steady, ensuring constant reliability, but it also allows the plant to function like a massive battery. The system can store heat and boost the plant's output to 500 MWe when demand peaks, allowing it to ramp up power quickly to support the grid. TerraPower says it is the only advanced reactor design with this unique capability. The Natrium plant is strategically designed to replace electricity generation capacity following the planned retirement of existing coal-fired facilities in the region. While the regulatory process for the nuclear components continues, construction on the non-nuclear portions of the site already began in June 2024. When completed, the Natrium plant is poised to be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States. The next step for the construction permit application is a final safety evaluation, which is anticipated by December 31, 2025, according to announcement from TerraPower, which notes that the project is being developed through a public-private partnership with the U.S. Energy Department. "When completed, the Natrium plant will be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States."

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As Texas Power Demand Surges, Solar, Wind and Storage Carry the Load
Texas's electricity demand has surged to record highs in 2025 but renewable energy is meeting the challenge. According to new data from the Energy Information Administration, solar output has quadrupled since 2021, wind continues steady growth, and battery storage is increasingly stabilizing the grid during evening peaks. Electrek reports: ERCOT, which supplies power to about 90% of the state, saw demand jump 5% year-over-year to 372 terawatt hours (TWh) -- a 23% increase since 2021. No other major US grid has grown faster over the past year. [...] The biggest growth story in Texas power generation is solar. Utility-scale solar plants produced 45 TWh from January through September, up 50% from 2024 and nearly four times what they generated in 2021 (11 TWh). Wind power also continued to climb, producing 87 TWh through September -- a 4% increase from last year and 36% more than in 2021. Together, wind and solar supplied 36% of ERCOT's total electricity over those nine months. Solar, in particular, has transformed Texas's daytime energy mix. From June to September, ERCOT solar farms generated an average of 24 gigawatts (GW) between noon and 1 pm -- double the midday output from 2023. That growth has pushed down natural gas use at midday from 50% of the mix in 2023 to 37% this year. The report notes that while natural gas is still Texas's dominant power source, it isn't growing like it used to. "Gas comprised 43% of ERCOT's generation mix during the first nine months of 2025, down from 47% in the first nine months of 2023 and 2024," reports Electrek.

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Apple Begins Shipping American-Made AI Servers From Texas
Apple has begun shipping U.S.-made AI servers from a new factory in Houston, Texas -- part of its $600 billion investment in American manufacturing and supply chains. CNBC reports: Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan said on Thursday that the servers will power the company's Apple Intelligence and Private Cloud Compute services. Apple is using its own silicon in its Apple Intelligence servers. "Our teams have done an incredible job accelerating work to get the new Houston factory up and running ahead of schedule and we plan to continue expanding the facility to increase production next year," Khan said in a statement. The Houston factory is on track to create thousands of jobs, Apple said. The Apple servers were previously manufactured overseas.

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IBM Says Conventional AMD Chips Can Run Quantum Computing Error Correction Algorithm
IBM announced that its quantum error-correction algorithm can now run in real time on standard AMD field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips -- a major step toward making quantum computing more practical and affordable. Reuters reports: In June, IBM said it had developed an algorithm to run alongside quantum chips that can address such errors. In a research paper seen by Reuters to be published on Monday, IBM will show it can run those algorithms in real time on a type of chip called a field programmable gate array manufactured by AMD. Jay Gambetta, director of IBM research, said the work showed that IBM's algorithm not only works in the real world, but can operate on a readily available AMD chip that is not "ridiculously expensive." "Implementing it, and showing that the implementation is actually 10 times faster than what is needed, is a big deal," Gambetta said in an interview. IBM has a multi-year plan to build a quantum computer called Starling by 2029. Gambetta said the algorithm work disclosed Friday was completed a year ahead of schedule.

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