⤴⤵ Up Wing/Down Wing #53

A curated selection of pro-progress and anti-progress news items from the week that was

In case you missed it ...

📉 🔙 Another terrible degrowth argument (Tuesday)

🐼 😲 Bracing for China Shock 2.0 (Wednesday)

✨🤖 3 ways that AI could kill us all (Thursday)

🏫⤴ Why every student should study the history of progress (Flashback Friday) (Friday)

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⤴ Up Wing Things

✨ Tech and energy giants launch major AI infrastructure push. At the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, President Trump highlighted over $90 billion in new private investments aimed at strengthening US leadership in artificial intelligence. Companies including Google, Blackstone, and CoreWeave announced major infrastructure projects, such as new data centers and upgraded hydroelectric facilities, with many developments centered in Pennsylvania. Officials framed the initiatives as key to boosting innovation, securing domestic energy supply, and maintaining an edge over China in AI development. The approach emphasizes pairing data centers with reliable energy sources like natural gas, which backers say can improve efficiency and drive regional economic growth. (NYT)

🚀 Space age real estate leads new investment frontier. As space exploration accelerates, real estate is venturing beyond Earth, with data centers and infrastructure development on the moon and in orbit becoming the next big investment frontier. Firms like Hines and Ethos are pioneering this space-support real estate, acquiring industrial properties near launch hubs and advancing lunar construction technologies, including 3D printing with moon materials. These space-based data centers offer benefits like unlimited solar power and cooling. While terrestrial warehouse demand softens, specialized space-related infrastructure in key markets like Florida and Texas shows strong growth potential and could shape the future of real estate investment. (CNBC)

🌎 Android phones form an earthquake warning network. Google’s Android Earthquake Alert (AEA) system turns smartphones into a global seismic network, using built-in sensors to detect tremors and send early warnings — sometimes seconds or even a minute before shaking starts:

Smartphones come with accelerometers, small devices that enable them to sense changes in motion. This is how they manage to do tricks like figuring out how many steps you're walking. If your phone is sitting quietly on a table, however, the accelerometer shouldn't be registering much significant motion. But anything from you walking across the room to a truck going by outside can cause vibrations that your phone's accelerometer can pick up. As can the often less subtle vibrations of earthquakes.

Since launching in 2020, AEA has expanded to 98 countries, issuing around 60 alerts monthly to millions. Google's recent Science paper details improvements in accuracy, modeling, and false alarm prevention. AEA is proving to be an innovative, privacy-conscious tool for public safety — built right into phones people already own. (Ars)

🏭 Pittsburgh’s steel roots are meeting a tech-driven future. A $2 billion project aims to transform a former steel mill site in Aliquippa into a natural gas power plant and data centers to support artificial intelligence. During two recent visits, President Trump highlighted both this initiative and an additional $2 billion investment to preserve steel jobs. The Aliquippa project is part of a broader effort to position the region as a leader in AI, supported by local universities, energy resources, and bipartisan backing. While environmental concerns remain, leaders are hopeful these developments will bring new life and opportunities to long-idled industrial sites. (WSJ)