Plus: Meta was willing to build a censorship system in order to operate in China
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
The cheapest way to supercharge America’s power grid
—Brian Deese is an innovation fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as director of the White House National Economic Council from 2021 to 2023. Rob Gramlich is founder and president of Grid Strategies and was economic advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the George W. Bush administration.
US electricity consumption is rising faster than it has in decades. Accommodating that growth will require building wind turbines, solar farms, and other power plants faster than we ever have before—and expanding the network of wires needed to connect those facilities to the grid.
But one major problem is that it’s expensive and slow to secure permits for new transmission lines and build them across the country. Fortunately, there are some shortcuts that could expand the capacity of the existing system without requiring completely new infrastructure: a suite of hardware and software tools known as advanced transmission technologies (ATTs), which can increase both the capacity and the efficiency of the power sector.
ATTs have the potential to radically reduce timelines for grid upgrades, avoid tricky permitting issues, and yield billions in annual savings for US consumers. So why are we not seeing an explosion in ATT investment and deployment in the US? Read the full story.
Interested in learning more about this topic? Read more of our stories:
+ What’s driving electricity demand? It isn’t just AI and data centers.
+ That said, AI’s search for energy is growing more urgent.
+ Why this developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids.
+ Here are four ways AI is making the power grid faster and more resilient.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 China claims to have created the world’s first fully autonomous AI agent
The agent, called Manus, can allegedly operate fully free of human intervention. (Forbes)
+ But it’s not clear if the hype can be justified at this stage. (TechCrunch)
+ Two former DeepMind researchers are chasing superintelligence. (Bloomberg $)
+ Four Chinese AI startups to watch beyond DeepSeek. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Meta went to extreme lengths to win China’s approval
Including developing a censorship system to comply with the CCP. (WP $)
+ However, its attempts to curry favor with the party did not bear fruit. (Gizmodo)
3 Anonymous Chinese investors are quietly funding Elon Musk’s ventures
They’re happy to invest tens of millions—so long as their identities remain under wraps. (FT $)
+ Despite the influx of cash, SpaceX isn’t having a great year. (NYT $)
+ Starlink is reaping the benefits of its founder’s proximity to the White House. (NBC News)
4 Ukraine doesn’t have minable rare earths
And even if it did, it would take at least 15 years to reach them. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ The country is preparing to hold negotiations with the US this week. (Economist $)
5 Farewell, the Athena lunar lander
It landed sideways in a crater and has been officially written off. (The Register)
+ Intuitive Machines, the company behind it, is contracted for another two landings. (AP News)
+ Firefly Aerospace, another private firm, had better luck. (Economist $)
6 The American public really doesn’t like DOGE
And Donald Trump is starting to pay attention. (The Atlantic $)
+ Musk represents the problem he is claiming he wants to solve. (Wired $)
+ The Trump administration is threatening scientific progress. (New Yorker $)
+ Anti-Musk protestors are targeting Tesla stores and infrastructure. (WP $)
7 Wikipedia is struggling to document the war in the Middle East
Certain editors have been forbidden from working on related pages. (Bloomberg $)
8 How to store the world’s data
Hard discs seem the obvious choice—for now. (WSJ $)
+ Music labels are going after the Internet Archive for copyright infringement. (Ars Technica)
+ The race to save our online lives from a digital dark age. (MIT Technology Review)
9 YouTube bros are peddling Taliban tourism
Inside the depressing rise of videos purporting to show “another side to Afghanistan.” (Insider $)
10 Amazon and Google’s AI calls Mein Kampf “a true work of art”
That’s what happens when you search for positive reviews of the Nazi manifesto. (404 Media)
+ Want AI that flags hateful content? Build it. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“The US won the internet and the US should win crypto.”
—Tyler Winklevoss, who runs crypto exchange Gemini with his twin brother Cameron, could not be happier with the outcome of Donald Trump’s crypto summit, according to a post on X.
The big story
How this Turing Award–winning researcher became a legendary academic advisor
Every academic field has its superstars. But a rare few achieve superstardom not just by demonstrating individual excellence but also by consistently producing future superstars.
Computer science has its own such figure: Manuel Blum, who won the 1995 Turing Award—the Nobel Prize of computer science. He is the inventor of the captcha—a test designed to distinguish humans from bots online.
Three of Blum’s students have also won Turing Awards, and many have received other high honors in theoretical computer science. More than 20 hold professorships at top computer science departments. So what’s the formula to his success? Read the full story.
—Sheon Han
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Looking for some books to make you laugh out loud? Look no further.
+ What can’t White Lotus star Walton Goggins live without? An orange pen and 22-year old sand, apparently.
+ When it’s time to take a break, here’s how to recharge properly.
+ $40 for “magic” yogurt? What the hell, sure.
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Rhiannon Williams