The rapidly expanding indoor farming industry endured some growing pains in the back half of 2022.

A pullback in venture funding and elevated energy costs have led to a rash of layoffs, delayed or canceled farm construction, and, in rare cases, shuttered businesses.

• The industry recorded $434 million in funding in Q3 2022, per Pitchbook data, down 17% year over year and a 44% decline from Q2.
• And a combination of inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused electricity prices in both the US and Europe to skyrocket to record levels. These rising costs put significant pressure on indoor farms, which often have lights going 24/7 as a way to substitute the sun’s energy.

Bottom line: “In response to a more challenging funding environment, many companies have made a clear reprioritization of business strategy away from growth at all costs and to profitability,” Alex Frederick, senior analyst of emerging technology at Pitchbook, wrote in the company’s Q3 2022 Agtech Report. Click here to keep reading about the vertical farming industry’s challenges.—JM

Heatwave-induced disruptions at data centers for a UK hospital group lasted for weeks thanks to its reliance on “371 legacy IT systems,” according to a board review of the matter.

Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) was one of multiple organizations impacted by a summer 2022 heatwave that fried data centers across the London region—and its recovery took two months to complete.

• As temperatures soared, cooling systems servicing the two data centers that ran clinical and community IT systems for GSTT hospitals and clinics in London failed on July 19.

As a result...Electronic patient records became inaccessible, forcing staff to switch to paperwork and causing delays that affected clinical systems involving everything from lab work to surgeries. The Guardian reported that the hospitals were forced to divert ambulances and critically ill patients to other institutions. Read the full story from IT Brew.—TM

The future of transportation may not only be electric but also small. And we’re not talking Mini Cooper here.

We’re talking micromobility: In last week’s reader poll, we asked all of you to tell us if you own any sort of micromobility vehicle (e.g., an e-scooter or e-bike). The results are in, 2,700+ responses later:

• About two-thirds (66%) of respondents said they don’t own a micromobility vehicle.
• Just 15% of respondents said they currently own a vehicle like that, while the remaining 19% said they’re thinking about buying one.

Zoom out: According to YouGov research published last fall, just 7% of Americans said they rode an e-bike at least once per month.

But the vehicles might be zipping up the adoption curve, with the Light Electric Vehicle Association claiming last year that e-bike sales were outpacing electric and hybrid vehicle sales combined.

• Last week, it was reported that Rivian is working on an e-bike product, and Toyota is reportedly testing one also.

This week’s poll: Do you think lawmakers should regulate generative AI technologies like ChatGPT or DALL-E?

Yes
No
IDK

Stat: Robot orders hit a record high in North America last year, with 44,100 orders for robots placed across the US, Canada, and Mexico, per the Association for Advancing Automation. That’s an 11% jump from 2021.

Quote: “They were sucking so much oxygen out of the air because of their significant budgets…Now, they’re not hiring and they’re firing—so it just means we’re getting a much larger pool of potential candidates that we can call upon.”—Scott Wine, CEO of CNH Industrial, on hiring tech talent in a world of Silicon Valley layoffs

Read: Are digital ads getting worse?

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Catch up on the top Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Meet the exec behind Walmart’s answer to AWS
• Grammarly’s plans for the generative AI boom
• Why even John Deere is getting into the space race