U.S. data centers use 17 to 19 billion gallons of water to cool their hot-running chips each year – and that number is expected to triple in the next five years, according to The Water Foundation.
That’s an expensive and politically tricky proposition for investors throwing billions of dollars at the challenge of scaling up AI. One way to use less water is to do a better job monitoring…
Data centers are now a midterm issue, even in Brooklyn
November 3, 2026
On Thursday evening, I slipped on my neon yellow heels and a floral mini dress. It’s New York, so I can wear whatever I want to a midterm election event full of media types, techies, policy advocates, and, well, does anyone else even exist at these things? I walked…
AI can make tech CEOs’ lives easier. What about everyone else?
November 2, 2026
Dazzle AI CEO Marissa Mayer recently became the latest tech CEO to face criticism over seemingly out-of-touch comments extolling the usefulness of AI.
In Mayer’s case, that involved asking an AI tool for help with a school-assigned description of her daughter. For…
Last-minute Halloween costumes for tech nerds
November 1, 2026
It happens to the best of us – you’ve completely dropped the ball on figuring out a Halloween costume. Naturally, you’ve decided to solve this problem by turning to… TechCrunch? Yeah, sure, why not. I’ve got some ideas.
Here are some last-minute techy Halloween costumes. Effort levels vary.
Recursive self-improvement
AI leaders like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman have…
Cracks are emerging in the AI spending boom
November 1, 2026
Investors are getting nervous about AI infrastructure spending just as the Big Tech companies double down.
Over the past two weeks, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft have outlined plans to spend more than $740 billion on capital expenditures this year, which Wall Street…
Zest, the restaurant discovery app that launched earlier this year, is already thinking about a future where mobile apps are no longer the primary interface. On Thursday, the startup introduced a new feature: a personal AI-powered “restaurant concierge” that…
Google Suncatcher’s prototype space data center is online and communicating with the ground after launching earlier this month alongside more than 100 other spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The satellite, which carries four Google Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and generates up to 1 kW of electricity, is intended to pave the way for future networks of close-flying satellites…
Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz warns that the AI boom is ‘a great opportunity to go deceive people’
October 31, 2026
“You Can See Everything,” the documentary capturing disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ final weeks before prison, is sparking national conversation as it becomes one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. The film, directed by Nathan…
AI infrastructure company Runware is making news again, just months after unveiling the Sonic Inference Pod, a modular data center built in a factory and shipped to customers ready to install. Now the company has bigger plans. It told TechCrunch it wants to build a factory…
Meta quietly launches an AI fashion app called Style Sketch
October 30, 2026
Meta has quietly launched Style Sketch, an AI fashion app that helps users put together outfit ideas using clothes they already own. The app connects to Instagram to build a virtual closet from photos you’ve posted, or lets you add items manually by snapping a photo, recording a quick video, or uploading images from your camera roll.
Style Sketch then suggests outfit combinations built from…
