Good morning. Wild news in the Financial Times this morning, which reports that China has substantially increased energy subsidies for some of its largest data centers in a bid to bolster its position in the global AI race.
The move could “cut energy bills by up to half”—a meaningful step for companies like Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent as electricity costs rise from use of home-grown chips made by Huawei and Cambricon, which are less efficient than those made by California’s Nvidia.
(And no, data centers using foreign chips aren’t eligible for the discounts.)
The U.S. is certainly doing its part to help its own companies compete with China. Various states have given Big Tech tax breaks to build new data centers, and facility operators have lobbied the Trump administration to keep Biden-era clean energy tax credits—rather than hasten their demise—in a bid to stay globally competitive.
Are big, beautiful, AI-enabling energy subsidies on tap in the U.S.? We’ll see. Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
