Western Digital Gives Solid Outlook, Hikes Dividend on AI Demand
THE SO WHAT
Western Digital’s raised outlook and dividend on AI-driven storage demand underlines that the picks-and-shovels of data—HDDs and SSDs—are direct beneficiaries of model training and inference. Infra buyers should expect storage pricing and lead times to stay tight and design architectures that are more storage-efficient, not just GPU-efficient.
READ THE SOURCE
MORE FROM THE WIRE
Here's how to protect your information from the PHP flaw, according to cybersecurity pros
A single PHP vulnerability with consumer impact is a reminder that your AI and app roadmap still sits on a very old, very porous web stack. Treat this as a prompt to inventory legacy PHP exposure and tighten basic hygiene before you add more AI-driven attack surface.
Kevin O'Leary's data center company pushes back on the 'bragawatt' label
O’Leary Digital defending its AI data center roadmap against Bernstein’s skepticism shows how opaque these mega-campus plans still are — much of the work is under NDA, but the capital markets are already voting. If you’re raising for AI infra, assume you’ll need hard evidence on power, permits, and anchor tenants, not just multi-gigawatt slides.
Deep & Emerging TechUS Life Insurers’ Exposure to AI Jumped 24% from January to June
A 24% jump in US life insurers’ AI exposure in six months means long-duration capital is now materially tied to AI equity and credit risk. If you’re running an AI or infra company, recognize that your investor base increasingly includes regulated balance sheets — disclosure quality and downside scenarios matter more.
Deep & Emerging TechMicrosoft helped shut down an “App Store” for criminals linked to over a billion malicious messages
Cybercrime is now productized enough to warrant its own "app stores"—that lowers the skill floor for attackers and increases volume risk for everyone. Treat commodity phishing and fraud as a constant background hazard and put more budget into detection, identity, and user-hardening rather than assuming obscurity protects you.