The Big Story
SoftBank, the multinational conglomerate holding company, has announced plans to invest up to €75 billion in building French data centers, with the goal of developing and operating up to 5 gigawatts of additional data center capacity. This massive investment will undoubtedly have a significant impact on France's digital landscape, solidifying its position as a major player in the global tech industry.
The ambitious project aims to create thousands of new jobs, drive economic growth, and strengthen France's competitiveness in the field of technology. The decision is seen as a strategic move by SoftBank to expand its presence in Europe, which has been increasingly important for the company in recent years.
According to TechCrunch, SoftBank's CEO, Masayoshi Son, has emphasized the importance of this investment in a statement, saying that "France is a key market for us, and we're committed to supporting its growth and development." The massive investment will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for the country's digital infrastructure, making it an essential story for anyone following global tech trends.
What Shipped
Trajectory Releases a Concurrent Multi-LoRA Training Stack for Continual Learning, Reporting a 2.81× Experiment-Throughput Gain: Trajectory, working with UC Berkeley Sky Lab and Anyscale, built a concurrent multi-LoRA training stack for continual learning. It maps each RL experiment to a dedicated LoRA adapter on an always-hot cluster, allowing multiple experiments to be run concurrently. This innovation enables researchers to process large amounts of data more efficiently and speed up the development of new models.
wolfSSL Releases WolfCOSE: A Zero-Alloc C Embedded COSE Stack - wolfSSL has announced the release of WolfCOSE, a zero-alloc C embedded COSE stack. COSE (Cryptographic Object Security) is a widely-used protocol for encrypting and decrypting data securely. This new tool allows developers to integrate secure communication protocols into their applications without worrying about memory management or performance overhead.
From the Labs
Trajectory Releases a Concurrent Multi-LoRA Training Stack for Continual Learning: Trajectory, working with UC Berkeley Sky Lab and Anyscale, built a concurrent multi-LoRA training stack for continual learning. It maps each RL experiment to a dedicated LoRA adapter on an always-hot cluster, allowing multiple experiments to be run concurrently. This innovation enables researchers to process large amounts of data more efficiently and speed up the development of new models.
Benchmark-Based Comparison of Best Text-to-Speech TTS Models in 2026: A recent guide has ranked the leading commercial and open-weight TTS models, comparing quality, latency, cost, language coverage, and licensing. This helps engineers match a model to their specific needs and applications.
Other Notable News
Meta is reportedly developing an AI pendant, according to a recent report from TechCrunch. This move by Meta seems to be part of its big bets on AI-powered hardware. The exact details and release date are still unknown.
Github Copilot's new token-based billing system has sparked consternation among developers, with many calling it "what a joke". According to TechCrunch, the golden age of Microsoft's Github Copilot appears to be at an end.
OpenRouter has raised $113M in a Series B funding round, as reported by OpenRouter. This significant investment will undoubtedly support the company's continued growth and innovation.
Zig ELF Linker Improvements Devlog, published on ZigLang, provides an update on recent improvements to the Zig ELF linker. This development aims to enhance the functionality and usability of the tool.
Ahoy, DECmate II: The Little PDP-8 That Could, a blog post by OldVCR, takes a nostalgic look at the DECmate II, a small but influential computer from the 1970s.
The Take
The tech world has seen some significant developments this week, with major players like SoftBank and Meta making headlines in the data center and AI hardware spaces, respectively.
SoftBank's commitment to building French data centers is a testament to the growing importance of European infrastructure for global technology companies. With an investment of up to €75 billion, SoftBank is clearly serious about its plans to develop and operate up to 5 gigawatts of additional data center capacity – a move that will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for the region's tech ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Meta's reported development of an AI pendant signals a significant shift towards hardware-based AI solutions. As AI becomes increasingly integral to our daily lives, it's essential that companies like Meta are investing in innovative ways to bring these technologies to market – and this new product looks set to be a major player in that space.
But amidst all the excitement around big-name tech players, it's also worth noting some of the more nuanced developments taking place beneath the surface. The release of Trajectory's concurrent multi-LoRA training stack for continual learning, for example, has significant implications for the AI community – and could potentially lead to major breakthroughs in areas like reinforcement learning.
It's clear that this week's news has set the stage for some truly exciting developments on the horizon. As we look ahead to what the future may hold, it's crucial that we remain vigilant about the ways in which these technologies will shape our world – and work towards ensuring that they are developed and deployed in a responsible, equitable manner.
Source: SoftBank says it will invest up to €75 billion to build French data centers