Recent extreme weather, like the hurricanes that devastated large parts of the US Southeast this fall, has underscored the fragility of infrastructure in the face of increasingly severe storms.

Hurricane Milton, for example, left millions of customers in Florida without power. The storm’s force was unique, but widespread outages following extreme weather are all too common.

As the climate crisis ensures these scenarios will continue to play out, and as electricity demand grows in response to new data centers and the electrification of sectors like transportation, there’s growing attention on the need to make the electric grid more reliable.

RS Technologies is one of the companies trying to make this happen. The Ontario-based company—whose name stands for “Resilient Structures”—aims to do so by supplying composite materials-based utility poles that it claims last longer, require less maintenance, are more resistant to corrosion, and are better at withstanding extreme weather than conventional wooden utility poles.

“We’ve never had a weather-caused pole failure—ever,” CEO John Higgins told Tech Brew. “That doesn’t mean that big trees don’t fall on our poles and poles break. But as it relates to wind, ice, and so on, our poles don’t fail.”

Keep reading here.—JG

Faced with a power crunch brought on by ever-growing data centers, tech giants are looking for a nuclear option.

Google and Amazon both announced last week that they’ve cut deals involving the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) to eventually power data centers. In Google’s case, the company agreed to buy power from small reactors slated to be developed by Kairos Power. Amazon said days later it would invest in small reactor startup X-energy and work with two utilities on development plans in Washington and Virginia.

The news is the latest sign of Big Tech’s embrace of nuclear power as the rush to build the data centers needed for generative AI has companies getting creative with energy sources. Last month, Microsoft signed a purchase agreement that will reopen the notorious Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, and Amazon and Google both inked other nuclear energy deals this year.

While tech companies have also poured money into renewable energy sources like wind and solar, nuclear has the advantage of providing around-the-clock energy with no carbon emissions, a boon for always-on data centers. But it faces more regulatory hurdles, questions of commercial viability, and potential public pushback.

The SMRs in question have yet to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meaning that it will likely be years before Google or Amazon’s announcements last week amount to anything concrete, according to Peter Kelly-Detwiler, co-founder of consulting firm NorthBridge Energy Partners.

“Once they do cross that [regulatory] hurdle, then the next question is, ‘Well, how quickly can you build a factory?’ And that’s going to take a while. And then once you build the factory, it’s…a question of scaling,” Kelly-Detwiler said. “The race for nuclear—the earliest that probably gets done is between 2028 and 2030.”

Keep reading here.—PK

It’s that time again: another AI survey. Only this one is a twist on the familiar favorite, showing that the much-hyped technology has caught the attention of internal auditors.

AI has officially cracked the top five priorities of audit committees in this year’s Audit Priorities Survey from professional services firm Jefferson Wells.

The survey of 250 US audit executives, conducted in May and June, found that audit committees’ top four priorities remained unchanged from last year: data privacy and cybersecurity, emerging risks, strategic risk, and regulatory compliance.

But generative AI made the top five for the first time this year, “indicating a growing interest in the risks and adoption of this technology.” GenAI is an even greater priority for private and smaller (less than $100 million) companies, taking third place.

Attention is one thing; action is another. And the survey shows that organizations are lacking on the AI front.

Keep reading on CFO Brew.—AZ

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

How do you sleep at night? Tech, of course, can keep us awake ’til all hours—who among us has not fallen victim to the doomscroll?—but what about tech that helps us get to sleep?

The Verge gives high marks to the Ozlo Sleepbuds, an upgraded version of the tech behind the discontinued Bose Sleepbuds. We’re fans of under-pillow speakers that pipe the sound straight through to your ears (without disturbing your partner). Of late, we’ve been listening to a former BBC broadcaster read segments of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation via the Calm app and honestly can’t recommend it enough.

The vibes are off: Part of the reason you may be having trouble sleeping is that something’s afoot with the vibes. Historically, myriad factors can go into maladjusted vibes, but this fall, there seems to be a clear culprit: AI.

Vox detailed the seemingly benign autumnal scenes—think pumpkins, crunchy leaves, warm beverages, sweaters, etc.—that were in fact AI-generated and…not quite right. So, if you’ve noticed something’s peculiar on Pinterest and you can’t quite put your finger on it, know that it’s probably not Mercury in retrograde (this time).