OpenAI’s 2026 strategy, outlined by CFO Sarah Friar, centers on practical AI adoption across health, science, and enterprise. The company is investing heavily in infrastructure—about $1.4 trillion in commitments as of November—and aims to close the gap between AI capabilities and real‑world use. User metrics are at all‑time highs, driven by a flywheel of compute, research, products, and monetization. New initiatives include advertising, the worldwide ChatGPT Go subscription, and emerging business models such as licensing, IP agreements, and outcome‑based pricing. OpenAI also hints at hardware devices developed with designer Jony Ive. Read more →

A new BloombergNEF report projects that data centers will need nearly three times the electricity they consume today, rising to 106 gigawatts by 2035. Growth will be driven by larger facilities, higher utilization rates and the surge in AI training and inference workloads. Much of the new capacity is expected in rural regions across the PJM Interconnection and Texas’s ERCOT grid, prompting regulatory scrutiny over grid reliability and electricity pricing. Read more →