Weekly IT News Roundup: February 07, 2025

OpenAI is actively scouting locations across 16 U.S. states to build a network of massive data centers for its Stargate project7.This $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative, backed by President Trump, aims to solidify America's leadership in AI technology. OpenAI has issued a call for proposals seeking land, electrical resources, engineers, and architects, with site visits already underway in states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin7.

The Chinese startup DeepSeek has maintained its momentum, causing significant market reactions. Its latest model, DeepSeek-R1, has demonstrated advanced reasoning capabilities comparable to leading U.S. AI models but at a fraction of the cost and energy consumption5.This development has led to ongoing discussions about the future of AI infrastructure and energy efficiency in the tech industry15.

The sustainable technology sector is seeing increased activity. Climate First Bank hired a Biden-Harris Administration veteran as their new Chief Sustainability Officer, highlighting the growing importance of sustainability in the financial sector11.Additionally, there's a rising interest in energy-efficient AI models, with comparisons being made between DeepSeek and established players like OpenAI and Anthropic in terms of power consumption and chip requirements11.

The Trump administration granted TikTok a 75-day extension to find a US buyer after a Congress-approved ban, upheld by the Supreme Court, caused a platform outage on January 192.This development highlights ongoing tensions between the US government and Chinese-owned tech companies.

Google DeepMind has announced updates to its Gemini 2.0 model, including the introduction of Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite and Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental. These new versions offer improved performance and expanded capabilities, further advancing Google's position in the AI race17.