Snowflake Commits $6B to AWS, Betting on Graviton Chips

AWS and NVIDIA have published a technical guide for training robot policies using NVIDIA Isaac Lab simulation on Amazon SageMaker AI, demonstrating how to scale reinforcement learning workloads across distributed compute infrastructure. The approach addresses a core challenge in robotics: training complex behaviors like humanoid locomotion in simulation before real-world deployment. Two compute options, SageMaker HyperPod and SageMaker Training Jobs, are presented for different phases of robot policy development, with full code available in a public GitHub repository.

Euwyn Poon, former founder of e-scooter company Spin, has raised $5 million to launch Orbital, a startup planning to build 10,000 space-based data centers. Poon previously scaled Spin to 250,000 scooters before exiting that venture. The funding signals investor interest in orbital infrastructure as a new computing frontier, though the technical and regulatory challenges remain substantial.

Seattle City Council will vote June 9th on a one-year moratorium on new data centers, just two months after companies proposed five large-scale facilities in the city. Amazon employees have joined other supporters in testifying for the moratorium, citing concerns about water consumption, electricity prices, and noise. The vote reflects growing tension between tech infrastructure expansion and local environmental and operational impacts.

TSMC's capacity constraints are prompting major AI chip designers, including Google and Nvidia, to explore Intel as a backup manufacturer for advanced processors. The shift reflects growing demand for AI chip production that outpaces TSMC's current manufacturing capacity. Intel stands to benefit from diversification of supply chains among leading AI companies.