Hydro for Data Centers Beats Gas From Alberta, Says Bell AI Boss
Oil and gas hub Alberta made a big pitch in 2024 to supply power for AI data centers. It didn't convince BCE Inc., which is setting up one of the first major systems in the country.
'I don't think it makes sense when we have such strong access to hydroelectricity in many provinces,' said Dan Rink, president of Bell AI Fabric, a new artificial intelligence data-center network announced Wednesday and a subsidiary of Canada's largest telecom company by revenue.
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Business Wire
19 minutes ago
- Business Wire
The AI Collective Launches Globally to Mobilize Next Generation of AI Innovators and Stewards
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The world's largest grassroots AI community today formally detailed its global rebrand as The AI Collective, its official incorporation as a non-profit organization, and the launch of three foundational initiatives to cultivate a collaborative ecosystem for the responsible stewardship of AI. Formerly The GenAI Collective, the organization boasts 70,000+ members across 25+ global chapters and partners including AWS, Meta, Anthropic, Roam, and Product Hunt. AI's future depends not just on faster models—but on rebuilding trust, fostering global collaboration, and aligning progress with human values. Share This announcement builds on initial excitement sparked by a social media reveal on Monday, June 3rd ( and coincides with flagship launch events currently underway in San Francisco, New York City, and across its global chapters ( As the race to develop artificial intelligence accelerates daily, fueled by intense competition and unprecedented investment, the essential work of aligning these powerful systems with human values and societal trust is often dangerously sidelined. The AI Collective is responding directly to this critical gap, positioning itself as the essential human counterpoint in the age of acceleration by building a global community to steward AI, informing decision-makers, and supporting mission-aligned entrepreneurs. "The ground is shifting beneath us. AI's exponential progress brings immense possibility, but also profound questions about our future, our work, and our very identity – and the institutions we rely on weren't built for this velocity," said Chappy Asel, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The AI Collective. 'Trust is the invisible thread holding society together, and right now, that thread is fraying under the strain of misaligned incentives and rapid, uncoordinated change. We believe that in an era of exponential transformation, our greatest strength lies in each other – in creating trusted, in-person spaces to make sense of this moment, ask the deeper questions, and collaboratively shape a future where AI genuinely enhances human flourishing, not just surpasses human capability,' Asel said. The AI Collective believes that without deliberate intervention focused on trust, openness, and participation, AI's trajectory risks leaving humanity behind. Recognizing that managing this requires bridging the widening gap between technological progress and societal adaptation, the organization is launching three foundational initiatives designed to rebuild trust through action and participation: Expanding Global Community & Events: Rebuilding Trust Through In-Person Connection. The AI Collective will rehumanize innovation by launching 100 chapters across six continents by end of year. Each chapter will fuse its community's unique vision with global shared values of openness and inclusivity, curating salons, hackathons, demo nights, mentorship circles, and cross‑disciplinary mashups to deepen trust and collaboration. Their network will converge at Singularity Fest this November 2025 in San Francisco for a multi‑day, decentralized celebration attracting 10,000 pioneers across domains for hands‑on labs, purpose‑driven keynotes, thematic tracks, and community‑led activations, ensuring AI's next leaps keep humanity firmly at the center. Informing Decision-Makers: Bridging the Gap Between Frontier Insight and Responsible Governance. To counter the risks of institutional blind spots and lagging policy, The AI Collective Institute, the organization's participatory research arm, connects frontier technologists directly with policymakers, industry leaders, and the public. It translates ground-truth insights from the AI ecosystem into practical guidance through open research, equipping frontline leaders to foster responsible innovation and navigate future shock effectively. Supporting Mission-Aligned Innovation: Actively Incentivizing Human-Centric AI Development. In pursuit of a values-aligned AI ecosystem driven by the community's unique trust and insight, Collective Investments acts as a dedicated founder-investor matchmaking program under the non-profit umbrella. It identifies and supports promising founders building trustworthy, beneficial AI, connecting them with values-aligned capital allocators (VCs, grants, angels) and providing crucial support to ensure the AI future being built reflects the principles of human flourishing and responsible progress. The AI Collective is celebrating this evolution with its ongoing flagship events and global chapter celebrations. The organization invites builders, thinkers, policymakers, investors, and pioneers worldwide to join the conversation and contribute to shaping a future where technology serves all of humanity. Read the organization's foundational perspective, " Trust in the Age of Acceleration," learn more and join the community at: and follow the journey @_ai_collective on social platforms. ABOUT THE AI COLLECTIVE The AI Collective (formerly The GenAI Collective) is the world's largest non-profit, grassroots community dedicated to empowering the AI ecosystem to collaboratively steer AI's future toward trust, openness, and human flourishing. Founded in 2023, the AI Collective has rapidly grown into a global force: 70,000+ members: Comprising leading founders, researchers, investors, and multidisciplinary operators from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Databricks, Cohere, and more. 200+ AI startups launched or showcased at demo nights, connecting directly with investors and clients; participating companies subsequently raised $72M+ in funding. 25+ active chapters with 200+ events hosted, located in major tech hubs globally including New York City, London, Paris, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Bengaluru and more. 40+ leading partners, including Amazon, Anthropic, Andreessen Horowitz, Meta, Github, TedAI, Product Hunt, Roam, Linux Foundation, and top academic institutions. A dedicated global team of 100+ volunteer organizers committed to building authentic, impactful community experiences. Through its focus on in-person connection, participatory research via The AI Collective Institute, and support for mission-aligned innovation via Collective Investments, the organization serves as a vital hub for sense-making, collaboration, and responsible stewardship in the age of artificial intelligence.
Bloomberg
21 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Firms' Less ‘Catastrophic' Outlook Kept Canada Rates on Hold
Businesses believing that the worst-case tariff scenarios were less likely to become reality helped convince Bank of Canada policymakers to stay on the sidelines this month. That's according to Deputy Governor Sharon Kozicki in a speech the day after officials held their key interest rate steady at 2.75% for a second straight meeting. In her prepared remarks, Kozicki highlighted how on-the-ground discussions and surveys supplemented traditional data sets, giving policymakers a more comprehensive picture of the economy when deliberating rate decisions.
Forbes
21 minutes ago
- Forbes
Artificial Intelligence Collaboration and Indirect Regulatory Lag
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 16: Samuel Altman, CEO of OpenAI, testifies before the Senate Judiciary ... More Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law May 16, 2023 in Washington, DC. The committee held an oversight hearing to examine A.I., focusing on rules for artificial intelligence. (Photo by) Steve Jobs often downplayed his accomplishments by saying that 'creativity is just connecting things.' Regardless of whether this affects the way you understand his legacy, it is beyond the range of doubt that most innovation comes from interdisciplinary efforts. Everyone agrees that if AI is to exponentially increase collaboration across disciplines, the laws must not lag too far behind technology. The following explores how a less obvious interpretation of this phrase will help us do what Jobs explained was the logic behind his genius The Regulatory Lag What most people mean when they say that legislation and regulation have difficulty keeping pace with the rate of innovation because the innovation and its consequences are not well known until well after the product hits the market. While that is true, it only tells half of the story. Technological innovations also put more attenuated branches of the law under pressure to adjust. These are second-order, more indirect legal effects, where whole sets of laws—originally unrelated to the new technology—have to adapt to enable society to maximize the full potential of the innovation. One classic example comes from the time right after the Internet became mainstream. After digital communication and connectivity became widespread and expedited international communication and commercial relations, nations discovered that barriers to cross-border trade and investment were getting in the way. Barriers such as tariffs and outdated investment FDI partnership requirements—had to be lowered or eliminated if the Internet was to be an effective catalyst to global economic growth. Neoliberal Reforms When the internet emerged in the 1990s, much attention went to laws that directly regulated it—such as data privacy, digital speech, and cybersecurity. But some of the most important legal changes were not about the internet itself. They were about removing indirect legal barriers that stood in the way of its broader economic and social potential. Cross-border trade and investment rules, for instance, had to evolve. Tariffs on goods, restrictions on foreign ownership, and outdated service regulations had little to do with the internet as a technology, but everything to do with whether global e-commerce, remote work, and digital entrepreneurship could flourish. These indirect legal constraints were largely overlooked in early internet governance debates, yet their reform was essential to unleashing the internet's full power. Artificial Intelligence and Indirect Barriers A comparable story is starting to unfold with artificial intelligence. While much of the focus when talking about law and AI has been given to algorithmic accountability and data privacy, there is also an opportunity for a larger societal return from AI in its ability to reduce barriers between disciplines. AI is increasing the viability of interdisciplinary work because it can synthesize, translate, and apply knowledge across domains in ways that make cross-field collaboration more essential. Already we are seeing marriages of law and computer science, medicine and machine learning, environmental modeling, and language processing. AI is a general-purpose technology that rewards those who are capable of marrying insights across disciplines. In that sense, the AI era is also the era of interdisciplinary boundary-blurring opportunities triggered by AI are up against legal barriers to entry across disciplines and professions. In many professions, it requires learning a patchwork of licensure regimes and intractable definitions of domain knowledge to gain the right to practice or contribute constructively. While some of these regulations are generally intended to protect public interests, they can also hinder innovation and prevent new interdisciplinary practices from gaining traction. To achieve the full potential of AI-enabled collaboration, many of these legal barriers need to be eliminated—or at least reimagined. We are starting to see some positive movements. For example, a few states are starting to grant nurse practitioners and physician assistants greater autonomy in clinical decision-making, and that's a step toward cross-disciplinary collaboration of healthcare and AI diagnostics. For now, this is a move in the right direction. However, In some other fields, the professional rules of engagement support silos. This must change if we're going to be serious about enabling AI to help us crack complex, interdependent problems. Legislators and regulators cannot focus exclusively on the bark that protects the tree of change, they must also focus on the hidden network of roots that that quietly nourish and sustain it.
