Daily Digest

Thursday, 17 September 2026

This dated roundup collects the most interesting AI and technology developments found for Thursday, 17 September 2026.

5 min read Published from the latest available digest

Policy & Ethics

‘Godfather of AI’ says tech regulation is nearing Covid-style pivot moment

Safety crisis makes it more likely that governments will be spurred into action, says Yoshua Bengio Concerns over AI safety are reaching a point where governments realise they must act to protect the public, similarly to in the Covid pandemic, according to one of the “godfathers” of the technology. Yoshua Bengio said recent events, including a “swarm” of OpenAI agents hacking a startup and tech insider warnings of an existential threat , were cutting through – making government action more likely. Continue reading...

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‘If you’re building Frankenstein, stop’: JD Vance dismisses calls for AI regulation

US vice-president’s comments come as former Anthropic researcher revisits recent claim AI could destroy humanity The US vice-president has dismissed calls for global regulation of AI safety risks, telling companies creating the most advanced models: “If you’re building Frankenstein, stop.” In remarks addressed towards Dario Amodei, the co-founder of Anthropic who has called on Washington DC to coordinate control of AI systems , including with China, JD Vance said: “If you’re gonna create Frankenstein, don’t come to the government and say we need regulation.” Continue reading...

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House speaker calls early recess before midterms amid AI regulation frenzy

Mike Johnson cancels votes on Thursday, meaning House members will avoid voting on impeaching Pete Hegseth US politics live – latest updates The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson , announced on Wednesday that he would again cancel votes scheduled for Thursday, sending lawmakers home one day early ahead of the midterm election recess. The latest change to the legislative schedule means House members will avoid voting on Republican Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth , and comes amid a frenzied attempt to propose legislation on artificial...

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Research & Products

Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres

Government announces before vote on moratorium that any projects above 50MW must submit assessments in planning process Large-scale datacentres will face mandatory environmental assessments before they can go ahead, the Scottish government has announced, amid growing public concern about the impact of the AI boom. Ahead of a vote on a moratorium on new hyperscale datacentres in Holyrood on Wednesday, the Scottish government has tightened rules for new projects by requiring any above 50MW to submit environmental impact assessments, but stopped short of agreeing to an outright halt....

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Industry

Anthropic lands deal in $31bn datacentre in western Queensland, David Crisafulli says

Premier describes deal as ‘major win’ that will deliver more jobs for the state and put more energy into its grid Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude , has done a deal to lease the site of its first Australian datacentre in western Queensland. The $31.9bn datacentre will be the largest of its kind in Australia, according to planning documents. Continue reading...

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Tags: hardware, announcement

Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA Launch Alliance to Advance Flexible AI Data Centers

AI factories are the infrastructure of the intelligence era. Scaling them responsibly will depend as much on innovation across the grid as inside the data center. Today, Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA announced the launch of the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a first-of-its-kind coalition advancing data centers that can dynamically manage their electricity use […]

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This digest was automatically generated • 5 min read