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Code Metal, a Boston-based startup that uses AI to write code and translate it into other programming languages, just closed a $125 million Series B funding round from new and existing investors. The news comes just a few months after the startup raised $36 million in series A financing led by Accel.

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For three days in February, porn star Alix Lynx flew to Miami for her first exclusive creator gathering where she was in full grind mode: shooting Reels and talking strategy with other creators. “It was kind of like SoHo House for OnlyFans girls,” she says of the experience, which is called The Circle and drew more than a dozen sex workers, including Remy LaCroix and Forrest Smith.

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Data centers are being built at a frantic pace all over the world, driven by the AI boom. These facilities consume staggering amounts of electricity. By 2028, AI servers alone may use as much energy as 22 percent of US households. Of course that demand will raise energy prices for everyone, and we’ll need more power plants, which means more global warming.

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When Anthropic last year became the first major AI company cleared by the US government for classified use—including military applications—the news didn’t make a major splash. But this week a second development hit like a cannonball: The Pentagon is reconsidering its relationship with the company, including a $200 million contract, ostensibly because the safety-conscious AI firm objects to participating in certain deadly operations. The so-called Department of War might even designate Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” a scarlet letter usually reserved for companies that do business with countries scrutinized by federal agencies, like China, which means the Pentagon would not do business with firms using Anthropic’s AI in their defense work. In a statement to WIRED, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed that Anthropic was in the hot seat. “Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people,” he said. This is a message to other companies as well: OpenAI, xAI and Google, which currently have Department of Defense contracts for unclassified work, are jumping through the requisite hoops to get their own high clearances.

wired