Techmeme
December 16, 2025, 10:20 AM

Top News

Robbie Whelan / Wall Street Journal:
CoreWeave lost $33B in market value in six weeks amid construction delays at its Denton, Texas AI data center, criticism from short seller Jim Chanos, and more  —  The data-center provider's terrible six-week slide picked up speed when a famous short seller piled concerns on top of delays
Counterpoint Research:
New York Times:
Sources: the US has paused its Tech Prosperity Deal with the UK, signed in September, over frustrations about UK online safety rules and digital services taxes  —  The U.S. government has paused a tech-focused trade pledge with Britain over broader disagreements about Britain's digital regulations and food safety rules.
Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW:
The Trump administration launches the US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 staffers from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize the government  —  After pushing hundreds of thousands of government employees to leave their posts and dismantling many government technology units …
New York Times:
Elizabeth Warren and two Democratic senators write to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and more to investigate AI data centers' role in rising electricity costs  —  Three Democrats are seeking information from tech firms about the growing energy use of data centers and the utility bills of individuals and other businesses.
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Tesla's shares closed at a 2025 high on December 15, after the company confirmed it is testing its driverless vehicles in Austin without a human safety operator  —  Nearly six months after launching a limited Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas with safety drivers in the car …
Rest of World:
Analysis: of the 8,808 global data centers in October 2025, ~7,000 are in areas outside the optimal 18C to 27C temperature range; 600 are in areas above 27C  —  In 21 countries, all data centers are located in climates that are too hot.  —  On paper, Singapore is a terrible location for a data center.
Ryan Lawler / Axios:
Sequence, which builds AI agents to automate B2B companies' revenue operations, raised a $20M Series A led by 645 Ventures, bringing its total funding to ~$40M  —  Sequence, which builds AI agents to automate revenue operations for B2B companies, raised $20 million in Series A funding, CEO Riya Grover tells Axios exclusively.
More: Sifted
Gregory Schmidt / New York Times:
VW plans to end vehicle production at its Dresden plant, which opened in 2001, and convert it into a research hub focused on AI, robotics, and chip design  —  The auto giant stopped making cars at the plant in Dresden, which opened in 2001, as it faces weaker demand and steep U.S. tariffs.
Forums: r/neoliberal
Emily Mason / Bloomberg:
Visa says it will allow US banks to settle transactions using Circle's USDC stablecoin over Solana, the US' first full deployment of a stablecoin settlement  —  Visa Inc. is opening its US network to stablecoin settlement, expanding crypto-linked products and services enabled …

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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Plan To Merge Chat And Agents — With Greg Brockman
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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More News

Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal:
TechCrunch:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Cloudflare:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Reshmi Basu / Bloomberg:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: