Five Things Tech: Big Spender, Google, Silicon Photonics, Rogue Streaming Boxes, Small Loyalty
Everything you should read about Tech right now.
Heya and welcome back to Five Things Tech!
This week’s reads reveal an industry being reshaped by sheer capital force: Big Tech will spend $650 billion this year building data centers, a shift so dramatic that Meta now spends more on construction than engineer salaries for the first time ever. They’re competing for cement trucks and electricians, not just Nvidia chips, transforming from digital-first companies into massive infrastructure players practically overnight. Meanwhile Google has emerged as the surprise winner of the AI race, with Gemini 3 on top and 750 million monthly active users giving them unmatched distribution advantage while Microsoft, Amazon, and even Nvidia lose ground. The innovation isn’t just in models though: silicon photonics promises to replace electrical interconnects with light-speed connections, potentially solving AI’s energy crisis before it consumes more electricity than entire nations.
But while Big Tech builds data center empires and captures generational wealth for top AI researchers (Meta reportedly offering packages worth hundreds of millions), the rest of the tech economy shows cracks. Loyalty is dead in Silicon Valley as employees bounce between companies chasing money rather than mission, and consumers are abandoning expensive streaming subscriptions for illegal rogue boxes from Chinese manufacturers because nobody wants to pay for seven services just to watch their team play. Europe’s focus on digital sovereignty means we’re building less, spending less, and falling further behind in the infrastructure race that actually matters. The question isn’t whether AI will transform computing - it’s whether European companies will have the physical infrastructure to compete when the transformation arrives.
Enjoy Five Things Tech!
Big Tech to Spend $650 Billion This Year as AI Race Intensifies
The outlays are transforming companies that just a few years ago had a relatively small physical footprint, even as their digital services found their way to billions of people. For much of their existence, Meta and Google parent Alphabet counted their plush corporate campuses and office space as a significant portion of their real-world assets. Most of their spending went toward salaries and stock grants for the engineers and salespeople who worked there.
No longer. Last year, Meta spent more on capital projects than research and development — mostly engineers’ salaries — for the first time in six years. The Facebook and Instagram parent at the end of last year owned $176 billion in property and equipment, about five times the tally at the end of 2019.
As the numbers push higher, what is still unclear is whether the companies will all be able to execute on their lofty ambitions. Since the data center build-out has escalated, they’re already competing for finite crews of electricians, cement trucks and Nvidia Corp. chips rolling out of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. factories. “There are and will be bottlenecks,” Luria said.
Big Tech is now Big Construction, building data centers all across the US. Europe will fall behind as we focus more on digital sovereignty and also spend a lot less.
Google Leans Hard Into Its AI-Winner Status
Google has both the political and financial capital to lay such a bet. The company’s Gemini 3 model has put it on top of the heap of performance for AI models, while the unmatched distribution of its search engine and products like Gmail have quickly driven adoption. Google said Wednesday it has more than 750 million monthly active users just on its Gemini App, which only represents a portion of Gemini’s actual users.
The strong reception of Gemini, along with Google’s victory over the federal government’s efforts to break up the company, have cheered investors when sentiment on technology and AI is faltering. Alphabet’s stock price has jumped around 20% in the past three months. Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Broadcom have all lost ground during that time.
It’s really impressive how Google rebounded after the ChatGPT threat and is now pacing away from the pack.
Silicon Photonics: The Lightspeed Revolution That Will Transform AI Computing
The artificial intelligence boom has created an energy crisis that threatens to consume more electricity than entire nations. As data centres race to keep pace with AI’s insatiable appetite for computational power, technology leaders like Lam are shaping a fundamental shift that could redefine how we think about high-performance computing. One solution lies in replacing the electrical interconnects that have powered computing for decades with something far more efficient: light.
It’s insane how innovation in chip design tech works.
Fed up with increasing subscription prices, viewers embrace rogue streaming boxes.
SuperBox and its main competitor, vSeeBox, are gaining in popularity as consumers get fed up with what TV has become: Pay TV bundles are incredibly expensive, streaming services are costlier every year, and you need to sign up for multiple services just to catch your favorite sports team every time they play. The hardware itself is generic and legal, but you won’t find these devices at mainstream stores like Walmart and Best Buy because everyone knows the point is accessing illegal streaming services that offer every single channel, show, and movie you can think of. But there are hundreds of resellers like Jason all across the United States who aren’t bothered by the legal technicalities of these devices. They’re all part of a massive, informal economy that connects hard-to-pin-down Chinese device makers and rogue streaming service operators with American consumers looking to take cord-cutting to the next level.
Maybe we should all watch less TV? I’m happy with German public broadcast tv and whatever my wife selects on Netflix, AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime Video…
Loyalty Is Dead in Silicon Valley
Early founders and researchers at the buzziest AI startups are bouncing around to different companies for a range of reasons. A big incentive for many, of course, is money. Last year Meta was reportedly offering top AI researchers compensation packages in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, offering them not just access to cutting-edge computing resources but also … generational wealth.
But it’s not all about getting rich. Broader cultural shifts that rocked the tech industry in recent years have made some workers worried about committing to one company or institution for too long, says Sayash Kapoor, a computer science researcher at Princeton University and a senior fellow at Mozilla. Employers used to safely assume that workers would stay at least until the four-year mark when their stock options were typically scheduled to vest. In the high-minded era of the 2000s and 2010s, plenty of early cofounders and employees also sincerely believed in the stated missions of their companies and wanted to be there to help achieve them.
I never ever thought that money would be a motivator in Silicon Valley…
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
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— Nico