Your daily briefing on what's happening in AI — from groundbreaking research to industry moves, curated from the world's most trusted sources. Here are the top stories for 2026-08-09.
1. An Amazon data center could have the worst polluting power plant in the country
To power its new West Texas data center, Amazon is investing in the construction of a new power plant that could be one of the largest single producers of greenhouse gases in the US, according to the New York Times. The new gas-burning plant in Pecos County, Texas has received significant investment
Source: An Amazon data center could have the worst polluting power plant in the country
2. How to Disable Gemini in Gmail and Google Docs
New AI toolbars and prompts are showing up in Google Docs and Gmail. If you don’t want Gemini’s help in writing documents and emails, here’s how to turn that stuff off.
Source: How to Disable Gemini in Gmail and Google Docs
3. Firebird Launches CIS Region’s Largest AI Factory in Armenia
The global buildout of AI infrastructure reached a new milestone today — Firebird, an emerging AI cloud, launched the CIS region’s largest AI factory in Armenia, establishing a new AI computing hub powered by NVIDIA accelerated computing and Dell Technologies high-performance AI infrastructure. Niko
Source: Firebird Launches CIS Region’s Largest AI Factory in Armenia
4. Hugging Face hack marks start of dangerous AI cyber era and many firms 'don't even know it'
The Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas couldn't have come at a better time, with AI agent hacks stacking up from Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI.
Source: Hugging Face hack marks start of dangerous AI cyber era and many firms 'don't even know it'
5. OpenAI acquires presentation startup NextSlide
NextSlide says its team members are now working on ChatGPT.
Source: OpenAI acquires presentation startup NextSlide
6. Planned Amazon data center could become the biggest climate polluter in the U.S.
As part of a planned Texas data center, Amazon is investing in an on-site power plant that could reportedly become the largest source of climate pollution in the United States.
Source: Planned Amazon data center could become the biggest climate polluter in the U.S.
7. Exphormer: Scaling transformers for graph-structured data
Posted by Ameya Velingker, Research Scientist, Google Research, and Balaji Venkatachalam, Software Engineer, Google Graphs , in which objects and their relations are represented as nodes (or vertices) and edges (or links) between pairs of nodes, are ubiquitous in computing and machine learning (ML).
Source: Exphormer: Scaling transformers for graph-structured data
8. Mixed-input matrix multiplication performance optimizations
Posted by Manish Gupta, Staff Software Engineer, Google Research AI-driven technologies are weaving themselves into the fabric of our daily routines, with the potential to enhance our access to knowledge and boost our overall productivity. The backbone of these applications lies in large language mo
Source: Mixed-input matrix multiplication performance optimizations
9. MobileDiffusion: Rapid text-to-image generation on-device
Posted by Yang Zhao, Senior Software Engineer, and Tingbo Hou, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Core ML Text-to-image diffusion models have shown exceptional capabilities in generating high-quality images from text prompts. However, leading models feature billions of parameters and are consequently e
Source: MobileDiffusion: Rapid text-to-image generation on-device
10. The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
Today, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center
Source: The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
💬 What Do You Think?
Which of today's stories matters most for developers? Are any of these trends overhyped? Drop a comment below — I read and reply to every discussion.
📡 Today's sources: blog.research.google, blogs.nvidia.com, cnbc.com, techcrunch.com, theverge.com, wired.com
AI Daily Digest is compiled daily from first-party AI company blogs, major news agencies, and technology press. Edited and curated by a human. Last updated: 2026-08-09.