Feed aggregator

Grilling usually involves burning fossil fuel. But some manufacturers are offering electric grills and citing climate change and convenience as reasons to switch.

(Image credit: Jeff Brady)

In honor of National Don't Fry Day, here's what you should know about checking for skin cancer at home and when to see a doctor.

The U.S. has officially accepted a luxury jetliner from Qatar as a gift, and slated it to become a new Air Force One. Experts say that overhaul could take years and cost hundreds of millions.

(Image credit: Roberto Schmidt)

Tush pushes, prison breaks, luxury jets and orange cats: This week's quiz is the usual potpourri of the silly and sublime. Actually, not the latter.

Nina Badzin, host of a friendship podcast, explains why staying friends with people from our past matters — and how to nurture relationships with old friends across time and distance.

Loving Day, the landmark case that overturned U.S. state laws against interracial marriage, is on June 12. NPR wants to hear from people who celebrate this day.

(Image credit: Kevork Djansezian)

Today, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing virtually every industry, but its rapid adoption also comes with a significant challenge: energy consumption.

Data centers are racing to accommodate the surge in AI-driven demand and are consuming significant amounts of electricity to support High-Performance Computing, cloud computing services, and the many digital products and services we rely on every day.

Why are we seeing such a spike in energy use? One reason is heavy reliance on graphics processing unit (GPU) chips, which are much faster and more effective than processing tasks. More than just an advantage, this efficiency has now made GPUs the new standard for training and running AI models and workloads.

Yet it also comes at a high cost: soaring energy consumption. Each GPU now requires up to four times more electricity than a standard CPU, an exponential increase that is quickly – and dramatically – changing demands for energy in the data center.

For example, consider these recent findings:

The New York Times recently described how OpenAI hopes to build five new data centers that would consume more electricity than the three million households in Massachusetts.

According to the Center on Global Energy Policy, GPUs and their servers could make up as much as 27 percent of the planned new generation capacity for 2027 and 14 percent of total commercial energy needs that year.

A Forbes article predicted that Nvidia’s Blackwell chipset will boost power consumption even further – a 300% increase in power consumption across one generation of GPUs with AI systems increasing power consumption at a higher rate.

These findings raise important power-related questions: Is AI growth outpacing the ability of utilities to supply the required energy? Are there other energy options data centers should consider? And maybe most importantly, what will data center’s energy use look like in both the short- and long-term future?

Navigating Power Supply and Demand in the AI Era

Despite growing concerns, AI has not yet surpassed the grid’s capabilities. In fact, some advancements suggest that AI energy consumption could even decreases. Many AI companies expended vast amounts of processing power to train their initial models, but newer players like DeepSeek now claim that their systems operate far more efficiently, requiring less computing power and energy.

However, AI’s sudden rise is only one factor in a perfect storm of energy demands. For example, the larger electrification movement, which has introduced millions of electric vehicles to the grid, and the reshoring of manufacturing to the U.S., is also straining resources. AI adds another layer to this complex equation, raising urgent questions about whether existing utilities can keep pace with demand.

Data centers, as commercial real estate, are also subject to the age-old adage, “location, location, location.” Many power generation sites – especially those harnessing solar and wind – are located in rural places in the United States, but transmission bottlenecks make it difficult to move. That power to urban centers where demand is highest. Thus far, geodiversity and urban demand have not yet driven data centers to these remote areas.

This could soon change. Hyperscalers have already demonstrated their willingness and agility in building data centers in the Arctic Circle to take advantage of natural cooling to reduce energy use and costs. A similar shift may take hold in the U.S., with data center operators eyeing locations in New Mexico, rural Texas, Wyoming, and other rural markets to capitalize on similar benefits.

Exploring Alternative Energy Solutions

As strain on the grid intensifies, alternative energy solutions are gaining traction as a means of ensuring a stable and sustainable power supply.

One promising development is the evolution of battery technology. Aluminum-ion batteries, for example, offer several advantages over lithium-based alternatives. Aluminum is more abundant, sourced from conflict-free regions, and free from the geopolitical challenges associated with lithium and cobalt mining. These batteries also boast a solid-state design, reducing flammability risks, and their higher energy density enables more efficient storage, which helps smooth out fluctuations in energy supply and demand – often visualized as the daily “duck curve.”

Nuclear energy is also re-emerging as a viable solution for long-term, reliable power generation. Advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) offer a scalable, low-carbon alternative that can provide consistent energy without the intermittency of renewables.

However, while test sites are under development, SMRs have yet to begin generating power and may still be five or more years away from large-scale deployment. Public perception remains a key challenge, as strict regulations often require plants to be situated far from populated areas, and the long-term management of nuclear waste continues to be a concern.

Additionally, virtual power plants (VPPs) are revolutionizing the energy landscape by connecting and coordinating thousands of decentralized batteries to function as a unified power source. By optimizing the generation, storage, and distribution of renewable energy, VPPs enhance grid stability and efficiency. Unlike traditional power plants, VPPs do not rely on a single energy source or location, making them inherently more flexible and resilient.

Securing a Sustainable Power Future for AI and Data Centers

While it’s hard to predict what lies ahead for AI and how much more demand we’ll see, the pressure is on to secure reliable, sustainable power, now and into the future.

As the adoption of AI tools accelerates, data centers must proactively seek sustainable and resilient energy solutions. Embracing alternative power sources, modernizing grid infrastructure, and leveraging cutting-edge innovations will be critical in ensuring that the power needs of AI-driven industries can be met – now and in the years to come.

We list the best web hosting services.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

People blame gun violence on different things depending on their political leanings. But Jens Ludwig, an economist at the University of Chicago, has found a different reason behind it. Today, we bring you a story on solutions to gun violence.

Today's StoryCorps is about a love that lasted through the seasons. Patrice Hudson was apprehensive about online dating until she met Byron Ball, a high school science teacher who, like her, was a single parent and had been married before.

For SaaS businesses eyeing a successful exit, particularly when engaging with sophisticated Private Equity (PE) and tech investors, the era of simply showcasing impressive top-line growth is over.

Today, data reigns supreme. It's the bedrock upon which compelling value stories are built, the lens through which operational efficiency and scalability are scrutinized, and ultimately, the key to unlocking those coveted higher valuation multiples.

A robust data strategy, coupled with the ability to extract meaningful insights, is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but a fundamental requirement for securing a lucrative exit in today’s competitive landscape.

What investors are looking for

So, what exactly are these discerning investors looking for in the data of a prospective SaaS acquisition? The foundation, without a doubt, remains the ARR bridge, or what can be referred to as the ‘revenue snowball’. This isn't just about presenting a static ARR figure; it’s about demonstrating how that recurring revenue has evolved over time. Investors will dissect this data from every angle – group-wide, segmented by product, customer cohort, and geography.

They want to see the trajectory, understand the drivers of growth and churn, and identify any potential vulnerabilities. Therefore, your ARR bridge needs to be more than just a spreadsheet; it needs to be a dynamic, drillable, and rigorously stress-tested tool that can withstand the intense scrutiny of due diligence.

Beyond the ARR bridge, several other key insights are paramount. Sales pipeline reporting provides a crucial forward-looking perspective. Investors want to see a healthy, well-managed pipeline with clearly defined stages, realistic conversion rates, and accurate forecasting. This demonstrates the predictability and sustainability of future revenue growth. Similarly, classic FP&A reports remain essential, offering a historical view of financial performance, profitability trends, and cost management.

However, some SaaS firms are now also looking to leverage product usage insights to a greater extent than ever before. Understanding how customers are interacting with the platform, identifying power users, and tracking feature adoption provides invaluable insights into customer stickiness, potential for upselling, and overall product value.

Looking ahead

Looking ahead, the role of data in shaping SaaS valuations will only intensify. We anticipate that the level of scrutiny and the expectation for data maturity and insightful analysis will continue to rise. Gone are the days of presenting high-level metric summaries; investors will increasingly demand granular insights and a clear understanding of the ‘why’ behind the numbers. When it comes to performance and trends; just saying profitability has grown by X% year on year is now not enough - it needs to be evidenced by granular data and solid analytics.

Investors want to know what’s working now and how your company can scale post-acquisition. By providing the context behind the metrics, it makes it easier to showcase opportunities for further growth, with potential investors being able to leverage these data “assets” to underpin their investment cases. With higher investor expectations, those who fail to do so risk undermining their valuation potential or, worse still, failing to secure the deal.

Furthermore, I believe that companies will need to start demonstrating how they are leveraging data to capitalize on the value that advanced analytics can bring. This could range from using AI-powered analytics to identify at-risk customers to employing machine learning to drive new business growth and customer expansion.

Even while there may be applications of AI tools in the SaaS space that aren’t necessarily tied to a firm’s data, most of these revenue-driving applications of advanced analytics and machine learning are only possible when the fundamentals are already firmly in place.

Building compelling value

So, how can SaaS firms proactively use data to build a compelling value story that resonates with potential acquirers? It boils down to not just making data a strategic priority but building the data policies, expertise and infrastructure you need into the fabric of your SaaS business.

Everything does not have to be in place from day one, rather you need to create a strategy that will enable you to ramp up to gathering all the critical data points you will need to answer every question an investor will ultimately ask. Doing this also lays the foundations to take advantage of the latest generative AI advances. As mentioned, AI applied to a shaky data foundation is unlikely to get you results, but applied to the right data foundations can transform the value of your business.

Luckily, the data points that PE firms and other potential investors now really value are the same insights that will make a fundamental improvement to how effectively you make decisions as your SaaS startup scales. The important thing to remember with any data project is to start with the questions you want to answer. This means understanding modern investors. Ask yourself, what metrics, beyond simple revenue figures, will tell the story of your company’s success and potential?

Aside from the core metrics already mentioned, it could be there are further opportunities to demonstrate differentiation. It could be the diversity of your customer base - both geographically and by sector. It could be that the cost of serving an additional customer and the automation of key processes can provide compelling evidence of scalability.

When you have a clear picture of where your real strength and USP exists, the next step is to develop the data collection, management and analysis systems and policies that will prove what you know to investors.

Further down the line

Further down the line it’s likely that there will also be a strong business case for investment in upskilling and retraining staff across the board

This should include everyone, including all senior teams. Even today, it still surprises me how few founders and business owners can understand and interpret their core business data, instead relying on a handful of experts. After all, it’s impossible to know what you don’t know – and a second-hand account of somebody else’s understanding, no matter how advanced it may be, could never substitute for your own personal analysis.

By building up your own expertise now, you and your senior team will be best positioned to demonstrate a compelling equity narrative that results in the highest possible valuation at the point of exit.

We've compiled a list of the best business intelligence platforms.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

Are you seeing slower speeds than what you're paying for? Here's what might be happening with your home internet.

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 242, for May 23.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 23.

"Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side," the beloved Muppet told graduates Thursday evening.

(Image credit: Riley Sims)

Some 50,000 people have been isolated by the flooding in New South Wales, after days of heavy rain. Four bodies have been retrieved from floodwaters since Wednesday.

(Image credit: AP)

Six people, including music talent agent Dave Shapiro, were on board a private jet that crashed into a San Diego neighborhood on Thursday.

(Image credit: William Liang)

Some of Harvard's sports teams could be wiped out by a Trump administration decision that would make the school with the nation's largest athletic program ineligible for international student visas.

(Image credit: Jessica Hill)

The academy in Emmitsburg, Md., is often described as the national war college for firefighting. It offers training that ranges from leadership to how to conduct fire, arson and blast investigations.

(Image credit: Justin T. Gellerson for NPR)

This is a wacky, wild superhero game at its core -- and superheroes aren't perfectly balanced.

Enterprises find themselves at a pivotal moment in communication technology, facing a difficult decision: embrace modern technology or protect their investments in existing systems. This has created a divide between all-new cloud solutions and approaches that work with the infrastructure organizations already have in place. Avaya's new Infinity platform solves this dilemma by offering a way to do both.

Bridging Technological Divides

The enterprise communication technology landscape has fragmented into distinct camps. On one side stand cloud-native solutions promising flexibility and innovation but requiring complete system replacement. On the other hand, traditional vendors offer incremental improvements to on-premise systems without fundamentally reimagining their architecture.

Our approach with Avaya Infinity platform targets the substantial middle ground with a hybrid solution for enterprises seeking modernization without abandoning functional infrastructure investments. This hybrid model acknowledges a fundamental reality: most large organizations operate complex technology ecosystems built over decades, making complete replacements impractical regardless of the benefits.

Differentiated Architecture

What differentiates Avaya Infinity platform is its architectural approach. It’s a secure platform that ensures compliance, deployment flexibility, and top-tier performance — a single code base across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments. Rather than forcing customers into two distinct choices, Avaya Infinity platform offers:

• Modern, Secure, Ready-to-Use Architecture: The unified platform with a single code base delivers the flexibility, security, and control that large enterprises expect. This approach ensures data privacy, regulatory compliance, and unmatched scalability. The modular design enables organizations to activate specific capabilities without implementing the entire platform—essential for phased adoption strategies.
• Layered, Intelligent Orchestration: AI capabilities function as an enhancement layer across both cloud and on-premises components, end-to-end, allowing intelligence to flow throughout the platform regardless of where components physically reside. It unifies AI, native applications, and disparate systems, whether they’re from Avaya, our partners, or enterprises’ existing own infrastructures. This empowers enterprises with a seamless, single-source approach to business agility and desired outcomes.
• Data-Driven Customization: Enterprises can customize experiences for their customers, contact center agents, and employees by leveraging rich data insights. With intelligent engagement tools, this platform enables hyper personalization at every touchpoint, driving satisfaction and loyalty.

This architecture addresses the realities enterprises face in the contact center. The vast majority of organizations simply cannot afford operational disruption during technological transformation, yet they’re also unable to ignore competitive pressure to implement AI-powered experiences.

The Strategic Benefits

Avaya Infinity platform offers a hybrid solution that enables organizations to:

• Extend the value of existing investments while incrementally introducing new capabilities
• Deploy AI capabilities selectively based on specific business needs and readiness
• Scale cloud adoption at a pace aligned with organizational change capacity
• Maintain operational stability throughout transformation processes

For those managing customer experience strategies, this approach transforms the contact center into a connection center ─ connecting channels (voice and digital), connecting insights (data and behavior), connecting technologies (unifying AI, applications and disparate systems), and connecting workflows (delivering hyper personalized experiences). When customer interactions generate not just service outcomes but actionable intelligence, every conversation becomes a source of competitive advantage.

Balancing Innovation and Stability

The enterprise technology landscape has historically swung between innovation cycles and stability periods. Today's environment is unique in demanding both simultaneously—rapid innovation in customer experience alongside operational stability in core systems.

Avaya Infinity platform embraces this hybrid reality offer a compelling vision: transformation without operational upheaval. Its architecture is enabled by existing investments while enabling future capabilities, indicating that for most enterprises, technology evolution occurs on a continuum rather than through discrete revolutions.

The Path Forward

Avaya Infinity platform supports sustainable transformation strategies using on-premise investments while systematically introducing AI-powered innovations. It delivers what enterprises need today and expect tomorrow.

Watch this video to learn more about Avaya Infinity platform and contact an Avaya expert to request a demo here.