TECH NEWS

Panasonic to localise US data-centre battery production, CEO says

The Japanese group plans to mass-produce data-centre battery cells in Kansas by fiscal 2028, redirecting a large slice of its AI infrastructure investment toward storage.

The companies that built batteries for electric cars are discovering a new and hungrier customer: the data centre.

Panasonic plans to localise production of data-centre battery cells in the United States, its energy unit’s chief executive has said, building the cells at a plant in Kansas rather than shipping them in, as the Japanese group chases a market that barely existed a few years ago.

Mass production at the Kansas site is scheduled for the financial year ending March 2029, which Panasonic counts as fiscal 2028.

The plant gives the company a domestic base to supply American data-centre operators directly, a meaningful advantage at a moment when tariffs, supply-chain anxiety, and the sheer speed of AI build-out have made onshore manufacturing a competitive asset rather...

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Source: OpenAI engineers earlier this month told some colleagues they had figured out a way to more than halve the cost of inference

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https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/x-hosted-mcp-server-ai-tools-api.avif

X launches hosted MCP server so AI tools can plug into its API directly

TL;DR X now offers a hosted MCP server that lets AI tools like Claude and Cursor connect to its API directly, joining GitHub, Slack, and Stripe in the MCP wave. X has launched a hosted Model Context Protocol server that lets AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and Grok Build

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/etched-800-million-jane-street-tsmc-inference-chip.avif

Nvidia rival Etched raises $800M with backing from Jane Street and a TSMC-linked fund

TL;DR AI chip startup Etched has raised $800M backed by Jane Street and a TSMC-linked fund, with one billion dollars in sales contracts and summer shipments planned. AI chip startup Etched has raised $800 million and revealed that its backers include trading firm Jane Street and VentureTech Alliance, a

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/online-shopping.avif

AI shopping just beat search at its own game on Prime Day

Amazon built Prime Day to keep shoppers inside its own marketplace. This year, AI shopping sent its best customers in from outside: a chatbot made the recommendation. US shoppers spent a record $26.4bn across retail sites during the four-day Prime Day event, according to Adobe Analytics. The more interesting

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Source: OpenAI engineers earlier this month told some colleagues they had figured out a way to more than halve the cost of inference

X launches hosted MCP server so AI tools can plug into its API directly

Nvidia rival Etched raises $800M with backing from Jane Street and a TSMC-linked fund

AI shopping just beat search at its own game on Prime Day