Wednesday, February 4, 2026

The Obtain: Squeezing extra steel out of growing older mines, and AI’s fact disaster


In a pine forest on Michigan’s Higher Peninsula, the one energetic nickel mine within the US is nearing the tip of its life. At a time when carmakers need the steel for electric-vehicle batteries, nickel focus at Eagle Mine is falling and will quickly drop too low to warrant digging.

Demand for nickel, copper, and uncommon earth components is quickly rising amid the explosive development of metal-intensive knowledge facilities, electrical automobiles, and renewable power tasks. However producing these metals is turning into more durable and costlier as a result of miners have already exploited the most effective assets. Right here’s how biotechnology might assist.

—Matt Blois

What we’ve been getting fallacious about AI’s fact disaster

—James O’Donnell

What would it not take to persuade you that the period of fact decay we have been lengthy warned about—the place AI content material dupes us, shapes our beliefs even once we catch the lie, and erodes societal belief within the course of—is now right here?

A story I revealed final week pushed me over the sting. And it additionally made me notice that the instruments we have been bought as a treatment for this disaster are failing miserably. Learn the total story.

This story initially appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly e-newsletter on AI. To get tales like this in your inbox first, enroll right here.

TR10: Hyperscale AI knowledge facilities

In sprawling stretches of farmland and industrial parks, supersized buildings full of racks of computer systems are springing as much as gas the AI race.

These engineering marvels are a brand new species of infrastructure: supercomputers designed to coach and run giant language fashions at mind-­bending scale, full with their very own specialised chips, cooling programs, and even power provides. However all that spectacular computing energy comes at a price.

Learn why we’ve named hyperscale AI knowledge facilities as of our 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences this yr, and try the remainder of the record.

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