Research & Development news

• Texas was the new epicenter of the AI data center buildout. That might be kaput.

  04-11-2026 19:50 via MIT Technology Review
  
  Texas is the fastest-growing data center market in the US and ground zero for Big Tech’s largest AI buildouts. But the blue wave that swept the Lone Star State may jeopardize that position.Democrat James Talarico won the US Senate seat against Ken Paxton. Gina Hinojosa won the race for governor against the Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott. At the state level, Democrats will take control of the Texas House for the first time in 24 years. Talarico and Hinojosa made data centers a central issue
  
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• Roundtables: Inside the Quest for Cognitive Immortality

  04-11-2026 19:21 via MIT Technology Review
  
  Tuesday, November 17, 2026In an effort to reach an elusive continuity of the self, some far-thinking technologists are working on ways to keep your brain going—even beyond death. Join science editor Mary Beth Griggs and senior editor for biomedicine Antonio Regalado for a conversation exploring possible paths to keep your mind going, including gradual brain replacement and uploading our memories to the cloud.Going live at 17:00 GMT / 12pm EST / 9am PST
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• What’s next for US energy policy after the midterm elections?

  04-11-2026 18:08 via MIT Technology Review
  
  I’ve been locked in to my various screens since results from midterm elections started to roll in last night. And it didn’t take long to see the beginning of the blue wave: Democrats took control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate, a dramatic swing from Donald Trump’s victory two years ago.  While the results are striking, we probably won’t be seeing some of the big climate and energy policy shifts that have come in recent years as Congress and the presidency have
  
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• The Download: blended meat, restored sight, and the agentic web

  04-11-2026 14:10 via MIT Technology Review
  
  This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.These startups hope “blended” food will cut our appetite for red meat In the fall of 2025, Jeff Dodge served hungry students steaming marinara sauce and meatballs. The students loved them: 92% of those who tried them wanted them on the menu. Few could guess that mushrooms had been mixed into the meat.Dodge was testing a new product called 50/Cut from t
  
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• Securing the agentic enterprise with data lineage

  04-11-2026 14:00 via MIT Technology Review
  
  A sales representative asks an AI agent for customer pricing, and the agent pulls data from multiple sources: restricted pricing systems, internal communications, and archived quotes. The output looks accurate to the agent, so a second agent uses the data to draft the proposal for the sales rep. No human checks either handoff. When it’s discovered that the proposal includes unapproved, confidential, and sensitive information, no one can trace where the problematic data entered the workflow or
  
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