Amazon says it will stop using NDAs in data center talks with local governments
Amazon says it will no longer use non-disclosure agreements when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move by Microsoft earlier this year, according to TechCrunch. The secrecy around such deals has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure.
TechCrunchOriginally published 1 min
Why it matters
TechCrunch reports that opposition to AI infrastructure has led to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums on data centers, from New York to San Francisco. Greater transparency may ease some of that distrust, though whether it changes the outcome of local decisions remains to be seen.
Ukrainian drones struck data center infrastructure belonging to Yandex, often described as “Russia’s Google.” According to Ars Technica, one of the damaged facilities houses supercomputers used to train Yandex’s AI model.
TypeSafe AI raised $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Sequoia and DCVC participating. Its model, Jev, launched on September 15 and does not generate text: it outputs calibrated probabilities — “decisions” — for automation tasks. The company says about a third of Fortune 500 companies already use it.