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New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the nation's first statewide moratorium on large data centers, blocking new environmental permits for facilities over fifty megawatts for up to one year. The move gives regulators time to study energy and infrastructure impacts as AI-driven demand for computing power continues to surge across the country.
Meanwhile, the UK government's outsourcing giant Capita is once again at the center of a public sector technology failure. Its contract managing the Civil Service Pension Scheme has gone badly wrong, leaving one point seven million members unpaid following a troubled launch. Operating profit is now expected to fall by between twenty five million and forty million pounds in two thousand twenty six, and investors responded swiftly, sending shares down nine percent in a single week.
And in a story about who gets to own the past, a Sotheby's auction of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton is reigniting a long-running tension between private collectors and the scientific community. Museums are increasingly being outbid by wealthy buyers, and when fossils disappear into private hands, researchers lose irreplaceable access to specimens that could reshape our understanding of prehistoric life.
Three very different stories, one common thread — decisions made today shape what's possible tomorrow. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
