The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

In Brief Posted: 3:24 PM PDT · August 12, 2026 Image Credits:James Marvin Phelps (opens in a new window) Fermi, the AI nuclear power firm, has named a new CEO more than three months after firing co-founder Toby Neugebauer from the top executive post. Fermi said Wednesday it has hired Lee McIntire, an independent member of the company’s board who has held chief executive positions at CH2M Hill and TerraPower, the nuclear power startup founded by Bill Gates. Fermi America, which was co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, is developing an AI campus in Amarillo, Texas, called Project Matador that will eventually use nuclear reactors to power data centers. The announcement, along with Monday’s news that it had signed TensorWave as its first binding customer lease for its Project Matador campus, provided a welcome boost to Fermi’s stock. (The stock is up nearly 23% since Monday.) The young company took a hit in April when Neugebauer and CFO Miles Everson were pushed out of the company. At the time, the company described the executive shakeup, along with other plans including a corporate headquarters in Dallas, as Fermi 2.0. “Fermi’s next chapter is a construction and power delivery story, and we believe Lee is the ideal executive to lead Fermi through that process,” Marius Haas, Fermi’s chairman of the board, said in a statement. “The job now is to build on schedule, on budget, and safely. Lee has spent 40 years delivering exactly this kind of large, complex project. He also knows Fermi from the inside, having served on our board through our latest period of growth, and he brings a reputation for integrity that Fermi’s customers, employees, regulators, and neighbors can rely on.” Topics Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news Latest in Climate

In the fusion power world, most of the attention gets lavished on the reactors themselves, where atoms fuse to unleash enormous amounts of energy. But a fusion reactor can’t run for long without a lot of other equipment, and building a fusion reactor is expensive enough on its own. Plenty of startups are happy to let someone else handle the rest. Among the dozens of companies in the emerging fusion power supply chain, few specialists are bigger than Kyoto Fusioneering. The Japan-based company has raised $121 million in committed capital, according to FusionX. Now it has landed grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the state of Tennessee to build a prototype fuel breeding device at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Alongside the announcement, Kyoto Fusioneering exclusively told TechCrunch that it’s moving its U.S. headquarters to Oak Ridge. The startup has emerged as a key player in the fusion power industry. Over half of fusion startups have said they plan to work with external suppliers like Kyoto Fusioneering on fuel cycle technologies, according to a recent Fusion Industry Association survey. Kyoto Fusioneering’s forthcoming device, called Unity-3, is being developed with ORNL and will test a fuel cycle technology known as a breeding blanket. Breeding blankets harvest energy from the fusion reactor while also generating fresh fusion fuel. One breeding blanket design will use liquid lithium, which will absorb both heat and neutrons. As the lithium atoms in the blanket are bombarded with neutrons, they split into helium and tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that’s an important fuel for many reactor designs. The tritium is then separated from the blanket and sent to the reactor, while heat is extracted to generate power. All of this requires heat-resistant materials, bespoke pumps, and other specialized equipment, and it’s just one slice of a fusion power plant that needs to be developed before it can connect to the grid. Kyoto Fusioneering is also developing systems to heat fusion fuel into a plasma, recycle unburned fuel from the exhaust, and harvest heat to generate electricity. Unity-3 will test the performance of not just liquid lithium, but a range of other breeding blanket materials, Kyoto Fusioneering told TechCrunch. The device will help researchers and startups validate the data they’ve been generating, so far mostly through computer models. Other fusion startups, including Realta Fusion, Thea Energy, Type One Energy, and Xcimer Energy, will use data from the Unity-3 experiments to design their reactors. It’s a range of startups — and approaches to fusion power — that should help position Kyoto Fusioneering as a go-to supplier when fusion power is ready for the grid. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College. You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.dechant@techcrunch.com. View Bio

Clicks Technology, the startup determined to bring back physical keyboards to smartphones, began shipping its now-$99 MagSafe-compatible Power Keyboard this summer, after some delays. As of last week, 75% of the pre-orders from the first batch had shipped to customers. Designed to work with a range of devices, this new, slide-out keyboard with tactile buttons can accommodate different phone sizes and can be used in either portrait or landscape mode, the company says, giving any phone a BlackBerry-like feel. The device is something of a teaser for what’s to come when Clicks ships its first smartphone, the BlackBerry-like Clicks Communicator, also featuring a physical keyboard, later this year. Like the upcoming smartphone, the idea behind the Power Keyboard is to provide an alternative to onscreen keyboards for those who miss the speed and reliability that came with typing on a small, physical keyboard. However, in its current implementation, the Power Keyboard suffers from the same fate as the company’s earlier Clicks keyboard — a smartphone case that included a physical keyboard. It can make the phone feel top-heavy and difficult to hold in portrait mode, especially if you’re using a larger smartphone as I did in tests with the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Pixel 10 XL. Still, the device itself is crafted with care, and could appeal to those who still desperately long for their BlackBerry. Image Credits:Clicks Technology Unboxing the device, we noticed the Power Keyboard was nicely packaged as a premium device would be, with peel-away cling films to prevent scratches during shipping and a full-color Quick Start guide to using the product. You may first need to charge the device’s battery via USB-C, though we found ours shipped with a charge already. To pair the device with your phone over Bluetooth, press and hold the power button and slide out the keyboard. We quickly paired the device with our Android phone. We ran into trouble once we switched over to the iPhone. Even after “forgetting” the device on Android, it still refused to pair with our iPhone. Returning to the instructions, it appears this was our mistake. The trick is to press a number key alongside the power button on the keyboard to add a second Bluetooth device. (The only way to actually “forget” a device is by removing it from its slot using the Clicks mobile app.) The keyboard attaches to your phone via MagSafe or Qi2. If your phone doesn’t support either technology, you could opt to use an adhesive ring or a phone case that adds the magnetic power profile instead. Image Credits:Clicks Technology Once connected, you can then pull the keyboard out when you need to type. Helpfully, the keyboard adjusts to different phone sizes, so it will work with standard models as well as larger “Ultra” or “Pro Max” devices. We appreciated the satisfying clicks as the keyboard locked into place on the various sliders. The keyboard offers an adjustable LED backlight, so you can type in the dark. The keys themselves have a nice, clicky feel and are well-placed, making them easy to reach. While it takes quite a bit of adjustment after years of on-screen keyboards to return to pressing buttons, the learning curve is less steep than it was on the earlier Clicks keyboard case. It’s clear that the company has been iterating on what it learned with its older device, and those lessons have been channeled into this product. In addition, while Clicks’ older keyboard case pulled power from the phone by way of its USB-C connection, the Power Keyboard instead includes a built-in 2,150 mAh battery. Image Credits:Clicks Technology The product itself has a slimmer profile than some snap-on battery packs, at 119.7 × 76.6 × 15.2mm, and doesn’t add an unreasonable amount of weight at 180 grams. Nevertheless, this is not something that would fit well in a woman’s pants pocket. The keyboard could get caught on a back pocket as well, as it could slide open if you press against the device whi

Vogue World is coming to San Francisco next year — perhaps another indication that tech billionaires have become leaders in the fashion zeitgeist. Of course, the announcement of the enormous fashion/art/music event doesn’t say that. Instead, Anna Wintour wrote that Vogue believes in celebrating cities and “San Francisco is a city like none other.” “It’s a place of diverse communities living side by side, a place that loves the arts, loves creativity, and isn’t afraid of change.” She also noted the city’s history of rebelliousness and innovation. “I love that San Francisco has always stood up for values and the things it believes in,” Wintour wrote. “Vogue World will support San Francisco’s creative minds and strengthen the entire ecosystem — and it will offer another opportunity to show San Francisco is on the rise.” There were rumors that Vogue World would head to San Francisco after Winter was seen having meetings with the city’s mayor, Daniel Lurie. Plus, in the past year, Wintour has cozied up to the most powerful names in tech, culminating in this year’s Met Gala, which saw Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez, serve as lead sponsors for the event. Google’s Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg were also spotted at the event (the latter’s first, that is). In fact, OpenAI bought a table, as did Meta and Snap (for $350,000 a pop). It’s true that TikTok, Apple, and Instagram previously sponsored the event, but the presence of the tech crowd this year was so much that the Met Gala this year was dubbed the “tech gala” in some places. Last year, Vogue put Lauren Sanchez on the cover of the magazine after her wedding to the Amazon founder. To the fashion world, this was Wintour’s stamp of approval — not just for Sanchez’s ascent into the fashion world, but that tech and its leaders were worthy of cultural recognition. Though Bezos and Sanchez reportedly live in Florida (and Amazon is, of course, headquartered in the Seattle area), there is no city more associated with tech than San Francisco. By locating Vogue World there, this is another indication of Wintour’s approval. Vogue, as a media publication, is always following the money, and as a cultural bible, is always looking for ways to stay relevant. Turning toward the worldwide headquarters of AI, good or bad, is brilliant for business (and Wintour is nothing if not brilliant). But Vogue World was previously held in New York, London, Paris, and this year, Milan. Maybe because I live in an East Coast bubble, but I’ve not heard anyone in recent years refer to San Francisco as a beacon of style to rank alongside these other cities. While the city has a reputation as the land of the free-spirited bohemian, tech and its workers have a reputation for hoodies, Patagonia vests, and expensive athletic shoes, if they even dress up that much. For instance, billionaire Alexandr Wang, who is now running Meta’s all-important Superintelligence Labs, just did an interview with Y Combinator’s Garry Tan in front of a packed stadium wearing a faded Nintendo T-shirt and what looked like a pair of Crocs. Comfy? Yes. High fashion? Decidedly no. But maybe that’s changing. Wang’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, who once always appeared in a plain gray T-shirt and jeans, has made efforts in recent years to become more fashionable. Zuck and his wife Priscilla Chan were spotted front row at a Prada show this season. The new campaign for Meta Glasses has a slew of celeb ambassadors and looks like it could be a Saint Laurent or Balenciaga ad. OpenAI and Palantir have recently released merch collabs, playing on the minimalist style of tech workers (the merch line of the latter, I would argue, looks inspired by Virgil Abloh’s Off-White). I concede that creatively there is much to be done with the understated, Northern California style. Surrounded by beautiful nature and cooler temperatures, plenty of fashion designers could be motivated by San Francisco’s tech industry. I look forward to seeing Claude-ins

Autonomous car maker Waymo has dropped the waitlist for its robotaxi service in Dallas, opening it up to all residents and visitors. This is the latest step in the Alphabet-owned company’s bid to scale its self-driving technology across Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Waymo said Tuesday that anyone can now download the app and immediately hail one of its robotaxis in Dallas. For now, riders won’t be able to hail a ride to Dallas Love Field Airport. The company said it continues to test its self-driving vehicles at the airport and expects to serve riders there “soon.” The company has had a presence in Dallas since last year, when it began testing its technology on public streets and announced plans to launch the service there in 2026. At the time, the company said it would partner with Avis Budget Group to manage its fleet of all-electric autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. Avis handles general depot operations, including charging and maintaining the vehicles. Waymo opened the service to the public in February, but initially limited access through a waitlist. Waymo said about 150,000 riders used the Waymo app during this period. Waymo no longer has the waitlist, following a robotaxi playbook that it has used in every other market, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company’s entry into Dallas had some early hiccups. In May, Waymo paused its service in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, Texas, as well as Atlanta, due to problems with how its robotaxis handled heavy rain and flooded roads. While robotaxi services have resumed in these cities, Waymo said it may adjust or temporarily pause operations based on severe weather, flood warnings, and real-time conditions in the future. A Waymo spokesperson said riders can check the status of its service via the Waymo app. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive. You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal. View Bio

Waymo is slowly adding freeway routes back to its service area more than two months after the company stopped driving these high-speed roads over how its rovotaxis behaved near construction zones. Waymo announced Wednesday in a post on X that it would gradually add freeway routes, starting with Phoenix — the company’s first driverless ride-hailing market. More cities, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, would follow in the coming days, a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. In an emailed statement, Waymo said it was “resuming freeway operations across its entire service area, including areas with construction, after implementing software updates designed to improve performance around freeway construction zones.” Those software updates improved performance around construction zones through enhanced scene recognition and routing, according to the company. The freeway pause — and its restart — comes amid increased scrutiny into Waymo and other robotaxi operators, particularly over how these self-driving vehicles behave in certain high-traffic situations and around emergency responders. Earlier this week, Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.) proposed a bill that would direct federal regulators to establish minimum national safety standards for autonomous vehicle operators following a number of incidents in which autonomous vehicles blocked ambulances and fire trucks, drove into active crime scenes, and failed to recognize safety signals such as traffic cones and flares. Waymo started offering robotaxi rides that used freeways across San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles in November 2025, a critical expansion for the company as it sought to attract riders with shorter commute times and faster access to airports. It would later add freeway routes in Miami. The expansion proved to be popular, and when it suddenly disappeared in May, riders took to social media to ask why. At the time, Waymo told TechCrunch it wanted to improve the performance of its robotaxis in construction zones, noting that it was in the process of integrating “recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.” Weeks later, Waymo voluntarily recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 robotaxis after identifying at least 13 instances of its robotaxis driving into highway sections that were closed for construction, according to a filing submitted in June with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A Waymo spokesperson said there were no injuries or collisions reported in connection with these events. However, after reviewing the incidents, the company said it decided to temporarily restrict freeway operations. This was Waymo’s sixth recall of its robotaxis. Previous recalls included software fixes after its robotaxis drove into flooded roads and behaved illegally around school buses. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive. You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal. View Bio

AI doesn’t run on code alone — it requires massive amounts of power, and that demand is increasingly becoming a critical bottleneck. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, the Smart Systems Stage will be where energy, infrastructure, and technology collide, covering everything from fusion breakthroughs to the grid strain AI is putting on the entire economy. From October 13-15 in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, join leaders from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Helion, Inertia, Bloom Energy, and more as they dig into what it actually takes to power the next decade of innovation. We’re tackling everything from commercial fusion’s path, to the grid and why utilities and startups are racing to modernize aging infrastructure, to how data center operators are scrambling to secure the electricity that AI’s growth depends on. We’re also closing in on the end of our current pricing window, so this is your chance to save on all of our tickets for founders, investors, and more — grab your ticket here before our current discounts are gone! As for the agenda at hand, let’s explore the Smart Systems Stage lineup so far: Bringing Fusion to the Grid Leaders from Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion break down the breakthroughs driving commercial fusion forward, the challenges still ahead, and what it will take to get fusion power onto the grid at scale. With David Kirtley, CEO, Helion, and Brandon Sorbom, Chief Science Officer, Commonwealth Fusion Systems How Twilio’s Founder Is Tackling the Power Problem Inertia CEO Jeff Lawson joins for a candid fireside chat on his path from founding Twilio to leading one of the best-funded fusion power startups in the world — and how scaling Twilio is shaping his approach to talent, timelines, and the hard engineering questions ahead. With Jeff Lawson, CEO, Inertia Rewiring the Grid for the Electric Age Electricity demand is growing faster than the infrastructure built to support it. This panel explores what it takes to modernize the power system, where investment is flowing, and how utilities, startups, and technology providers are building a more resilient, flexible grid. With Drew Baglino, Founder & CEO, Heron Power; Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and Co-founder, WeaveGrid; and more speakers to be announced AI’s Power Problem As compute demand skyrockets, data center operators and energy companies are racing to secure power and expand infrastructure before it becomes the bottleneck that slows AI’s next wave. Hear how leaders across both industries are tackling it. With Sara Spangelo, President & Co-Founder, Ambrosia Energy; Bill Thayer, SVP, Head of Datacenter Solutions, Bloom Energy; and more speakers to be announced Whether you’re building the next energy breakthrough, rethinking grid infrastructure, or just trying to understand what’s really constraining AI’s growth, the Smart Systems Stage is built for founders and operators who need the full picture — not just a headline and an LLM summary. Plus, joining us at Disrupt 2026 means you can get access to every other stage, all of the networking, every side event, and the rest of our full speaker lineup. It’s a three-day deep dive in the heart of the startup community you’ll never forget, so register today! When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

In Brief Posted: 1:43 PM PDT · July 24, 2026 Image Credits:Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times / Getty Images Waymo is reportedly looking for a way out of its deal with Uber, which has made the Alphabet-owned company’s robotaxis available on the ride-hailing giant’s network in Austin and Atlanta, according to the Financial Times. Waymo already told Uber that it intends to offer robotaxis on its own app in those markets starting in January 2028 and alongside the existing offering, the ride-hail giant told TechCrunch on Friday. Uber said the contract with Waymo that covers Austin and Atlanta ends in May 2028. The two companies already split in Phoenix earlier this year, as TechCrunch first reported. Waymo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. This all follows months of rising tensions between Waymo and Uber. Earlier this year, Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli posted a video of what he thought was unsafe and “scary” behavior of a Waymo robotaxi. In May, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi lightly criticized the behavior of Waymo’s robotaxis in school zones and emergency situations during an earnings call, though without naming the company. Waymo, meanwhile, has wound up opposite Uber in a number of fresh policy fights over robotaxi regulations. Topics Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news Latest in Transportation

Waymo said it’s making “temporary adjustments” to its robotaxi service in San Francisco amidst a power outage that appears to have affected around 7,000 PG&E customers in the city. According to a screenshot posted on social media, Waymo is telling SF customers that service is “temporarily paused” and that “freeway routes are unavailable.” When TechCrunch reached out to the Alphabet-owned company for comment, a spokesperson said in a statement, “We are making temporary adjustments to our service while we monitor local conditions. We know riders depend on us, and we will return to normal operations as soon as possible.” This isn’t the first time power outages have caused issues for Waymo. A number of Waymo vehicles stalled on city streets during a blackout in December, and a similar incident paralyzed traffic during a Golden Gate Bridge fireworks show on the Fourth of July. As a result, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has called for tougher state regulations to “adequately address how autonomous vehicles operate during major incidents, planned or not.”