Google Cloud races to catch up in the AI deployment wars with Accenture deal
9:20 AM PDT · September 8, 2026
Google Cloud and Accenture are working together on a joint unit dedicated to sending engineers into enterprises to help them better adopt Google’s AI tools and services.
The new unit, dubbed Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group, is Google’s latest foray into the increasingly competitive world of “forward-deployed engineers,” or FDEs. Rivals in the AI race, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Amazon, have all recently launched separate business units in a bet that implementing AI models can become its own trillion-dollar business.
It’s the kind of bet AI companies and hyperscalers increasingly need to make. Hyperscalers are committing hundreds of billions of dollars a year to GPUs, data centers, and power capacity even as the revenue directly attributable to AI remains a fraction of that investment.
Google Cloud generated $24.8 billion in the second quarter, a big chunk of which was driven by enterprise AI. But the commitments behind that growth are enormous. Google Cloud’s parent company Alphabet reportedly accumulated $811 billion in purchase commitments and contractual obligations as of June 30.
This return on investment is not yet materializing in the way companies and investors need it to, so everything hinges on whether or not AI companies can create enough demand for their services. But that demand is not guaranteed, as enterprises themselves are struggling to see a true return on investment on their AI spending.
It’s conventionally held that enterprises have simply lacked the expertise to intelligently integrate AI tools and services into their workflows in a way that not only saves them money, but helps them make more of it in the long run. That’s where the FDEs come in as a steady, guiding hand that, ideally, possesses the perfect mental cocktail of business acumen and agentic AI prowess needed to change everything.
As part of its deal with Accenture, Google will train up to 1,000 of the consultancy firm’s FDEs to work with enterprises and build custom AI applications on the Gemini Enterprise platform.
According to August data from Ramp, Google accounts for roughly 6% of enterprise AI spending among U.S. businesses, compared to Anthropic’s 43.5% and OpenAI’s 39.7%. Google’s new unit with Accenture, which The Wall Street Journal first reported, is the latest of its aggressive expansions of its FDE model this year as it attempts to resolve enterprise deployment bottlenecks and catch up to rivals.
Earlier this year, Google Cloud launched a $750 million partner ecosystem commitment that embedded Google’s own FDEs across multiple consultancies, including Capgemini, Cognizant and Deloitte. The tech giant also struck a multi-year partnership with CVC Capital Partners to deploy FDEs directly into the investment firm’s portfolio companies.
Google isn’t the only giant at risk of being outpaced by newer firms. Companies that are dedicated specifically to embedding engineers into businesses to build bespoke AI workflows — like Ode with Anthropic, or OpenAI’s The Deployment Co. — threaten big consultancy firms like Accenture as well. For the professional services giant, the Google tie-up adds to its own wave of FDEs programs this year, which include a similar Microsoft FDE practice in March, an FDE initiative with ServiceNow in May, and a joint program with SAP in June.
Google’s revived nuclear power plant gets $1.9B loan from US government
8:25 AM PDT · September 8, 2026
Last October, Google said it would bring an Iowa nuclear power plant back from the dead. Now, the facility’s owner, NextEra Energy, has received a $1.9 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to finance the refurbishment.
The sizable loan is the second of its kind, suggesting that the Trump administration views revived nuclear power as a key source of electricity for tech companies seeking to power their AI data centers. Last year, the Department of Energy extended a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island.
James Danly, Deputy Secretary of Energy, said that the Iowa power plant’s restart in 2029 will “drive down electricity costs,” though he did not explain how. Just 50 megawatts will be set aside for the local power cooperative, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said during an earnings call last year. That capacity would cover 18% of Iowa’s demand growth since 2021, the year before ChatGPT was released.
Google is reportedly looking to build up to six data centers near the Duane Arnold Energy Center, which hasn’t operated since 2020 when an intense rainstorm damaged the power plant. Rather than repair it, NextEra decided to mothball it. At the time, cheap natural gas was flooding the market, making nuclear power economically unappealing.
A lot has changed in the last six years, though. After decades of little growth in demand, the sudden rise of AI coupled with broader electrification of the economy meant that utilities and power providers were suddenly scrambling to find new generating sources of electricity. New data centers are expected to nearly triple the sector’s electricity demand by 2035.
Shuttered nuclear power plants are becoming one of the tech industry’s favorite choices to quickly provide clean, firm power.
Microsoft signed a deal with Constellation Energy two years ago to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that last operated in 2019. The reactor is scheduled to restart in 2028 and generate 835 megawatts.
Another facility in Illinois, Constellation Energy’s Clinton Clean Energy Center, was in danger of closing down before its parent found a new customer in Meta, which is buying all of the clean energy attributes from the 1.1 gigawatt power plant. The arrangement will see Clinton sending its electrons to the local grid, while Meta will use the certificates to offset emissions it is producing elsewhere. The tech giant’s Hyperion AI data center, for example, will need 10 natural gas power plants to operate. If completed, the data center will consume more electricity than all of South Dakota.
Duane Arnold is smaller, but in the process of refurbishment, NextEra will squeeze an additional 14 megawatts from the facility, bringing the total to 615 megawatts.
Altogether, the three power plants represent the lowest hanging fruit in the U.S. There might be one or two more, according to a report from UtilityDive, though those candidates, including San Onofre in California, have been shuttered for longer and would require more work to bring back online.
Chrome is now shipping updates every 2 weeks as AI changes the security landscape
8:04 AM PDT · September 8, 2026
Chrome has officially switched from a four- to a two-week release schedule, as Google promised earlier this year, with Tuesday’s launch of Chrome 153 on desktop, iOS, and Android.
The shift to faster releases is tied to Chrome’s evolving security strategy in the AI era, the company explained. As automated AI tools and community bug reports have pushed up the volume of patches and updates, Google says that a shorter release cycle makes it easier to manage security fixes.
This is also critical because faster-moving threats, some of which can also be attributed to AI, can be better addressed by shrinking the window between landing a fix in the public codebase and getting that fix to end users, the company notes.
A shorter release schedule would help keep the “N-day” patch gap — the gap between when a security vulnerability is known and when it gets patched — as small as possible.
Faster releases have another benefit, too: they can help Chrome ship features faster. This is also key in the AI era, as AI-assisted software development has enabled a host of new browser competitors to emerge.
While OpenAI’s web browser, ChatGPT Atlas, has been shut down, there are still plenty of other alternative browsers looking to carve out a piece of Chrome’s market for themselves, including Brave, Dia, Opera Neon, Perplexity’s Comet, DuckDuckGo’s browser, and more.
Plus, Google is experimenting with adding more AI features to Chrome and then rapidly iterating on those additions, which also demands faster updates.
The move to a two-week release schedule benefits the broader web, as well. Because of Chrome’s position as the most-used browser globally, such changes can help set the standard for the industry. Mozilla, Microsoft and Brave have already begun adopting a faster, two-week schedule, following Chrome’s lead.
This is not the first time Chrome has adjusted its release schedule to enable faster patch management. The company first moved to a four-week release cycle in 2021, down from six weeks, after establishing its principles of “ release early, release often” over a decade prior.
Mistral raises €3B as sovereign AI becomes big business
7:17 AM PDT · September 8, 2026
French AI lab Mistral AI on Tuesday said it has raised €3 billion (about $3.58 billion) at a post-money valuation of more than €21 billion (about $24.39 billion), confirming earlier rumors.
This Series D round, which Mistral said is “the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company,” was led by Samsung Electronics, with EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund and existing investor PSG Equity joining as co-leads.
Mistral said it will use the funding to scale its compute capacity, build infrastructure, accelerate commercial growth and expand its international footprint. The money could also help clarify its positioning — the company says its goal is not to build a European ChatGPT, and though its models haven’t gone mainstream, it still envisions itself as an AI lab.
The funding will help Mistral pursue a subtle shift in strategy that aims to further address concerns in Europe and elsewhere about being too dependent on the United States for tech, especially with the intensifying politics around AI regulation and products Stateside.
In addition to a push to build 1 GW of compute capacity in Europe by 2030, Mistral in August unveiled tools that let its customers choose which regions their AI queries are processed in. It’s also started hosting third-party, open-weight AI models (Chinese ones, too) to bolster its positioning as an AI services provider that wants its customers to control what AI models they use and how they use them.
The company on Tuesday pegged its frontier research as “the foundation underpinning its infrastructure, products and sovereignty,” which may be an indirect response to naysayers who interpreted the company’s decision to host Chinese models as a sign that it was turning into an inference provider.
Mistral’s mention of its global ambitions also likely is an effort to dispel a common misunderstanding that the company’s remit is contained within France. The lab now operates in 20 countries, and its go-to-market strategy is more focused on helping governments and corporations leverage AI and preserve a sense of control, unlike other frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic which sell their AI models more broadly.
This strategy has built high hopes for Mistral as a French tech champion, as Samsung’s entry into Mistral’s cap table has the blessing of France’s authorities. In a post on X, French president Macron said the round reflected France and South Korea’s goal of “building a third way in AI.”
The fact that Mistral’s funding round warranted such a statement is a reminder of the geopolitical undertones that have surrounded the AI company, mostly to its benefit. Amid growing demand for sovereign AI infrastructure, not being an American company has reportedly boosted Mistral’s revenue.
On the other hand, the capital required to compete with the leading U.S. labs isn’t available in France alone. But with Dutch chipmaker ASML as a major partner and investor, and now Samsung, Mistral seems to have found a third way — similar to Germany’s Aleph Alpha’s merger with Canada’s Cohere.
Mistral still works with U.S. players, particularly Microsoft, through a strategic partnership the two companies significantly expanded in July. The new Series D was also backed by American investors: existing backers such as a16z, Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures invested, as did new backers Advent and BlackRock.
Still, with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also joining as a new backer and many other existing European backers doubling down, the AI lab’s cap table remains resolutely international. And that might be enough for the customers Mistral is targeting.
Nuclear startup Bluecore Energy raises $50M seed round, just two months after launch
7:10 AM PDT · September 8, 2026
Bluecore Energy announced Tuesday an oversubscribed $50 million seed round — just months after raising a $10 million pre-seed and coming out of stealth.
As TechCrunch previously reported, the company, founded earlier this year by Kofi Asante, builds small nuclear reactors (SMRs) on floating barges, rather than fixed locations, to generate clean energy for ports and nearby infrastructure. This means that energy can be transported to wherever it is needed, an idea Asante hopes can bring clean power to those who need it most.
“The Navy is doing this as we speak, for the last 70 years, and has never had an accident,” Asante said about the use of portable technology in a new interview with TechCrunch. “We just made it smaller, so you can actually move things around in a way that doesn’t take years” — or a new set of infrastructure — ”but days.”
Asante wasn’t planning on fundraising this year, but calls kept coming after their pre-seed launch. Many of their pre-seed investors, including Slauson & Co., Harlem Capital, and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, doubled down on this new round, with new capital coming from investors like Collab Capital, Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Ventures, and angel investors from Tesla, Uber, Amazon, and Google. Silverton Partners led this new seed round, and it took eight weeks to close.
“I just kept having to figure out a way to make more room” — on the cap table, Asante said. “I wasn’t anticipating us raising that level of capital in that period of time, but really fortunate that we have so many investors and partners who are excited.”
When it emerged from stealth in July, it became the first nuclear company headquartered at a major port: the Port of Long Beach. It has since launched two floating barges and has struck a partnership with the Department of Transportation Maritime Division, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the U.S. Coast Guard. Bluecore Energy is now undergoing review with the NRC and the Coast Guard on its product design, which, if successful, will lead to certification of its floating nuclear power plant.
“We have been talking to them both since the inception of the company and design, but officially started the formal engagement in August,” Asante said.
The fresh capital will fund continued product development, regulatory work, nuclear fuel purchases, and hiring. Asante anticipates the biggest challenge to be the supply chain, securing hardware to build the right portable electricity infrastructure at a pace that can match consumer demand. He said that Bluecore Energy has seen inbound interest from “multiple ports, AI data centers and communities that need clean energy and water.”
“Our team comes from SpaceX, Rivian, and Toyota, so we are applying similar strategies to be able to secure critical parts,” he said. “We already have barges and a reactor and are now about to order nuclear fuel to go to our partner at a national nuclear lab.”
It all goes back to the core mission, Asante said, “to democratize access to clean energy.”
“My philosophy is that access to clean energy and also clean water should be a human right,” he said.
