AI
SpaceXAI to reach 1.44 million GPUs by year-end
Elon Musk's Colossus supercomputer is nearing its target of 1.44 million GPUs, powered by a new 1.2 GW plant.
YESTERDAY, STILL WORTH KNOWING
Still
Crunchy.
Hardware pushes its limits while AI reshapes software and security.
Power and Performance Limits
Nvidia's RTX 5090 Founders Edition pushes power draw to 646.7 watts when running its new DLSS 5 upscaling technology. QuasarZone testing found the 16-pin power connector becomes the hottest part of the card, hitting 91.7 degrees Celsius. This is 5.4 degrees hotter than the GPU die itself. The connector sits dangerously close to its electrical limits, leaving just 0.69 amps of headroom against the per-pin safety cap. This heat spike is a concern given the history of melting connectors on high-end graphics cards.
To address this risk, Noctua has teased a new device that looks like a Thermal Grizzly WireView Pro II. The box plugs into a GPU's 16-pin cable to monitor current on individual pins. It issues audio and visual warnings if the load is uneven, which can cause overheating. The device also features a fan to actively cool the connection under heavy use. This follows a recent incident where a standard WireView Pro melted while attached to an RTX 5090 after alarms were ignored.
AI Infrastructure and Costs
Elon Musk's SpaceXAI is nearing its goal of operating 1.44 million GPUs by the end of the year. The Colossus supercomputer is adding 660,000 units, including Nvidia GB300 chips, to reach this total. The expansion is powered by a new 1.2-gigawatt power plant. SpaceXAI is also renting out its older Colossus 1 site to Anthropic for inference tasks. Musk has said this million-GPU target is just the beginning, with plans to grow data centre capacity sevenfold by 2027.
The cost of AI infrastructure is soaring. The National Security Agency is reportedly spending billions on computing power this year. In the US healthcare sector, AI is driving up costs through billing disputes. Hospitals are accused of using AI-assisted coding to inflate claims, adding nearly $1 billion in extra costs over two years. Providers are responding with usage-based pricing models, though frontier models remain expensive. OpenAI plans to spend about $856 billion on computing power through 2030.
Software and Security Shifts
Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson has announced he has stopped writing code by hand after 25 years. He argues that manual coding no longer makes economic sense for most programmers. DHH predicts this shift will apply to every domain by the end of the year. He described the transition as the start of a new career for programmers as 'professional makers of things' steering AI intelligence. This signals a potential industry-wide acceptance of AI-assisted development.
Cloudflare has launched Turnstile Spin, a feature that lets AI coding agents set up and fix its bot protection on websites. The tool automates the two-step process of adding the widget to the frontend and wiring up the backend verification. It is designed to fit into existing AI coding workflows. Cloudflare says Turnstile processes about three billion verifications on a typical weekday. The company argues that AI coding agents lower the barrier to building applications but also increase the risk of automated abuse.
Hardware and Gaming Updates
XMG reports that DDR5 laptop memory prices have surged sixfold since July 2025. The company attributes this to broader component cost pressures, including PCBs, CPUs, and graphics cards. To offset these rising costs, XMG has raised prices for most of its gaming laptop models by approximately €100 to €200. This situation mirrors the broader memory market, where desktop RAM has also seen a significant price climb. The company warns that RAM shortages will continue through 2027.
Sunshine Games has announced that the atmospheric action adventure game Nocturnal II will launch for PC via Steam on November 10. The title is a side-scrolling Metroidvania sequel set in the city of Ytash. Embark Studios has also launched a new matchmaking test for Arc Raiders that lets players opt into a PvE version without player-versus-player combat. The move is a response to a portion of the playerbase apparently uninterested in hurting fellow players.