Latest news with #Zuckerberg
Time of India
37 minutes ago
- Business
- Time of India
Sits atop a Burial Ground: What's making some locals unhappy with Mark Zuckerberg 'top secret' Hawaii compound
Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO , has reportedly expanded his $300 million Kauai estate by acquiring an additional 962 acres of ranch land, bringing his total holdings on the Hawaiian island to over 2,300 acres. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now According to a report in WIRED, the purchase, made through an LLC for an estimated $65 million, has intensified local concerns, particularly regarding the presence of ancestral Burial sites on the property. A key issue highlighted in the expansion, as per the report, has been the presence of burial sites at the compound. Around 2015, local islander Julian Ako contacted Zuckerberg's representatives to report that part of the compound contained the remains of his great-grandmother and her brother. After months of negotiations, Ako gained access to the site and registered the graves with Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. However, Ako's attempts to locate additional ancestral remains on the property were unsuccessful. Hawaiian officials have since confirmed, based on oral testimony, a high probability of other burial sites existing on Zuckerberg's land. The identified burial site was reportedly 'fenced off and maintained' following its discovery, according to Zuckerberg's spokesperson, Brandi Hoffine Barr. What's worrying Hawaii locals living around Mark Zuckerberg's 'secret' compound Ako told Wired that workers at Zuckerberg's compound are 'bound by regulations that require reporting of inadvertent discoveries of Iwi' — or Hawaiian ancestral bones. And since they are bound by strict nondisclosure agreements, local residents fear that any future discovery of Iwi could be concealed. 'If all of the workers have signed these nondisclosure agreements, then basically they're sworn to silence,' Ako told the publication. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 'If they uncover Iwi — or bones — it's going to be a challenge for that to ever become public knowledge, because they're putting their jobs in jeopardy.' The sprawling estate already includes two mansions with a combined floor area the size of a football field, a gym, a tennis court, guest houses, ranch buildings, saucer-shaped treehouses, a water system, and an underground storm shelter with blast-resistant doors and an escape hatch. Recent planning documents reveal plans for three additional large buildings, ranging from 7,820 to 11,152 square feet, with two featuring 16 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms in a motel-style layout, potentially accommodating over 100 people. These buildings are equipped with cameras, keypad locks, and motion detection devices, described by Hoffine Barr as short-term guest housing for family, friends, and staff. The land, previously owned by the Mary Lucas Trust Estate and used for sugar plantations and cattle grazing, is now part of Zuckerberg's Koʻolau Ranch, which focuses on cattle ranching, organic farming, and conservation efforts. Hoffine Barr noted that the majority of the land is dedicated to agriculture and endangered species protection, with prior plans for 80 luxury homes canceled after the purchase. Zuckerberg's growing presence on Kauai, which includes additional land purchases like 560 acres near Larsen's Beach and 110 acres encompassing the Kaloko Dam, has sparked mixed reactions. The report says that while his donations to local nonprofits and job creation have been welcomed, the scale of his influence and the potential disturbance of sacred burial sites continue to fuel unease among locals, who worry about the impact of billionaire land acquisitions on Kauai's cultural and natural heritage.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
Mark Zuckerberg expands $300M Hawaii compound by nearly 1,000 acres — stoking more controversy with locals: report
Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly expanded his sprawling $300 million compound in Hawaii by nearly 1,000 acres — stoking yet more controversy with locals on the idyllic Pacific island chain, according to a report. The latest expansion on the Meta CEO's massive estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai includes 962 acres of ranch land purchased earlier this year under an LLC, according to the tech news site WIRED. A person close to the sale estimated the purchase price at more than $65 million. The acquisition brings Zuckerberg's total holdings on Kauai to more than 2,300 acres. Property records place the land's market value at around $75 million. 5 Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly expanded his massive estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. MEGA Inside the existing compound, Zuckerberg has constructed two mansions with a combined floor area comparable to a football field, a gym, a tennis court, several guest houses, ranch buildings, saucer-shaped treehouses, a water system and a tunnel leading to an underground bomb shelter about the size of an NBA basketball court, outfitted with blast-resistant doors and an escape hatch. Recent planning documents released through public records show plans for three more large buildings, ranging from 7,820 to 11,152 square feet — nearly 10 times the size of the average home in Hawaii. Two of them include 16 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms between them, arranged in a motel-style layout, with a shared lanai measuring more than 1,300 square feet. Each building features cameras, keypad locks and motion detection devices. Hoffine Barr described the buildings as short-term guest housing for family, friends and staff. 5 Zuckerberg's expansion reportedly includes land containing a Native Hawaiian burial site. MNStudio – Satellite images show dozens of buildings on the property that have not yet appeared in public records. Based on bedroom counts in the documents WIRED reviewed, the compound could eventually accommodate more than 100 people. The seller was the Mary Lucas Trust Estate, whose lands were previously leased to sugar plantations and later restored for cattle grazing. Zuckerberg's spokesperson Brandi Hoffine Barr confirmed the purchase to WIRED but did not comment on the size or price. 'Mark and Priscilla continue to make a home for their family and grow their ranching, farming, and conservation efforts at Koʻolau Ranch,' said Hoffine Barr. 'The vast majority of the land is dedicated to agriculture — including cattle ranching, organic ginger, macadamia nut, and turmeric farming, native plant restoration, and endangered species protection. After purchasing the ranch, they canceled the previous owner's plans for 80 luxury homes.' The couple's investment now exceeds the $311 million fiscal year 2024 operating budget for the island of Kauai. 5 The latest expansion includes 962 acres of ranchland purchased earlier this year under a Hawaiian-sounding LLC, according to a report. MEGA A local islander who fished in the area contacted Zuckerberg's representatives around 10 years ago to inform them that part of the compound housed the remains of his great-grandmother and her brother, according to the report. Julian Ako negotiated with Zuckerberg's team for months before finally being able to gain access to the burial site and register the graves with Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. According to WIRED, Ako tried unsuccessfully to locate the remains of other ancestor that may be buried on Zuckerberg's property. Hawaiian officials told WIRED that they confirmed 'the probability (based on oral testimony) of additional burial sites.' The burial site, first identified in 2015, was 'fenced off and maintained' after being discovered, Hoffine Barr told the publication. 5 Locals on the Hawaiian island of Kauai have expressed concern about Zuckerberg's aggressive purchase of land. MEGA She added that workers are 'bound by regulations that require reporting of inadvertent discoveries of iwi' — or Hawaiian ancestral bones. But because workers on the project are bound by strict nondisclosure agreements, local residents fear that any future discovery of iwi could be concealed. 'If all of the workers have signed these nondisclosure agreements, then basically they're sworn to silence,' Ako told WIRED. 'If they uncover iwi — or bones — it's going to be a challenge for that to ever become public knowledge, because they're putting their jobs in jeopardy.' Zuckerberg began buying land on Kauai in 2014, acquiring 700 acres near the town of Kilauea for roughly $100 million. The purchase included parcels where hundreds of local residents held kuleana rights — traditional Hawaiian legal entitlements whereby descendants of original Native Hawaiian landowners can claim ancestral lands. 5 Zuckerberg is said to be constructing a massive compound at an estimated cost that exceeds $300 million. shanemyersphoto – In 2016, Zuckerberg filed 'quiet title and partition' lawsuits against those residents to clarify ownership. He later dropped the suits after public backlash, but the legal process continued under kuleana descendant Carlos Andrade, who eventually won sole ownership of the land at auction. In a 2017 op-ed, Zuckerberg wrote that Andrade, who died in 2022, could 'continue his quiet title action and pass down the kuleana rights because he had lived on and cared for these lands for more than 40 years.' By spring 2021, Zuckerberg added more than 560 acres of ranchland, some of it abutting Larsen's Beach. Later that year, he purchased another 110 acres, including the Kaloko Dam, an earthen reservoir that collapsed in 2006, killing seven people. Zuckerberg's presence on the island has drawn both support and skepticism. He has donated millions to local nonprofits, including a charter school and an affordable housing organization near the compound. His projects have also created well-paying jobs. But many locals remain uneasy about the influence of billionaires on the island's future. 'If our island has any hope of remaining Hawaii, this kind of activity has got to stop,' Puali'i Rossi, a professor of Native Hawaiian studies at Kauai Community College, told WIRED. 'Eventually Hawaii isn't going to look like Hawaii anymore — it's going to be a resort community. Are we really thinking about 100 years from now, what this island is going to look like?' The Post has sought comment from Zuckerberg, Ako and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Business Insider
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Priscilla Chan's recruiting pitch? We can't pay as well as tech companies, but we've got GPUs
Compute power is a big draw for top talent, but not just in the world of AI. Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg's wife and the cofounder of the couple's philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, spoke about the appeal of massive GPU clusters for biology researchers during a recent episode of Ashlee Vance's "Core Memory" podcast. "The other thing researchers really care about is access to GPUs," she said. "You're not going to make the most of someone if you don't actually have the GPUs for them to work from." Chan said, "We have that at CZI," adding that the organization has roughly 1,000 GPUs in its cluster, with plans to keep growing. In short, Chan said the pitch is: "Come work with us because we're going to have the computing power to support the research that you want to do." Another important factor is compensation, which she said is "obviously important," though she added that "we cannot compete with tech companies on this." CZI has in recent years narrowed its mission to focus on its "next phase" with a "bolder, clearer identity as a science-first philanthropy." The change marks a strategic shift, as the organization previously also supported education and other causes. "While CZI remains committed to our work in education and our local communities, we recognize that science is where our biggest investments and bets have been and will be made moving forward," Chan, a pediatrician by training, wrote in a memo to staff last year. Zuckerberg made a similar point about the importance of GPUs in recruiting on a recent episode of The Information's TITV show. Meta is spending billions to build an AI division it calls Superintelligence Labs. "Historically, when I was recruiting people to different parts of the company, people are like, 'Okay, what's my scope going to be?'" the Meta CEO said. "Here, people say, 'I want the fewest number of people reporting to me and the most GPUs.'" Meta, of course, has significantly more GPUs than CZI. Zuckerberg has said the company will have 1.3 million GPUs for AI by the end of 2025. "Having basically the most compute per researcher is definitely a strategic advantage, not just for doing the work but for attracting the best people," he said.
Atlantic
4 days ago
- Business
- Atlantic
Meta Swears This Time Is Different
Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to win the AI race. Eons before ChatGPT and AlphaGo, when OpenAI did not exist and Google had not yet purchased DeepMind, there was FAIR: Facebook AI Research. In 2013, Facebook tapped one of the 'godfathers' of AI, the legendary computer scientist Yann LeCun, to lead its new division. That year, Zuckerberg personally traveled to one of the world's most prestigious AI conferences to announce FAIR and recruit top scientists to the lab. FAIR has since made a number of significant contributions to AI research, including in the field of computer vision. Although the division was not focused on advancing Facebook's social-networking products per se, the premise seemed to be that new AI tools could eventually support the company's core businesses, perhaps by improving content moderation or image captioning. But for years, Facebook didn't develop AI as a stand-alone, consumer-facing product. Now, in the era of ChatGPT, the company lags behind. Facebook, now called Meta, trails not just OpenAI and Google but also newer firms such as Anthropic, xAI, and DeepSeek—all of which have launched advanced generative-AI models and chatbots over the past few years. In response, Zuckerberg's company quickly launched its own flagship model, Llama, but it has struggled relative to its competitors. In April, Meta proudly rolled out a Llama 4 model that Zuckerberg called a 'beast' —but after an experimental version of the model scored second in the world on a widely used benchmarking test, the version released to the public ranked only 32nd. In the past year, every other top AI lab has released new 'reasoning' models that, thanks to a new training paradigm, are generally much better than previous chatbots at advanced math and coding problems; Meta has yet to deliver its own. So, a dozen years after building FAIR, Meta is effectively starting over. Last month, Zuckerberg went on a new recruiting spree. He hired Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old ex-head of the start-up Scale, as chief AI officer to lead yet another division—dubbed Meta Superintelligence Labs, or MSL—and has reportedly been personally asking top AI researchers to join. The goal of this redo, Zuckerberg wrote in an internal memo to employees, is 'to build towards our vision: personal superintelligence for everyone.' Meta is reportedly attempting to lure top researchers by offering upwards of $100 million in compensation. (The company has contested this reporting; for comparison, LeBron James was paid less than $50 million last year.) More than a dozen researchers from rival companies, mainly OpenAI, have joined Meta's new AI lab so far. Zuckerberg also announced that Meta plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build new data centers to support its pursuit of superintelligence. FAIR will still exist but within the new superintelligence team, meaning Meta has both a chief AI 'scientist' (LeCun) and a chief AI 'officer' (Wang). At the same time, MSL is cloistered off from the rest of Meta in an office space near Zuckerberg himself, according to The New York Times. When I reached out to Meta to ask about its 'superintelligence' overhaul, a spokesperson pointed me to Meta's most recent earnings call, in which Zuckerberg described 'how AI is transforming everything we do' and said that he is 'focused on building full general intelligence.' I also asked about comments made by an outgoing AI researcher at Meta: 'You'll be hard pressed to find someone that really believes in our AI mission,' the researcher wrote in an internal memo, reported in The Information, adding that 'to most, it's not even clear what our mission is.' The spokesperson told me, in response to the memo, 'We're excited about our recent changes, new hires in leadership and research, and continued work to create an ideal environment for revolutionary research.' Meta's superintelligence group may well succeed. Small, well-funded teams have done so before: After a group of former OpenAI researchers peeled off to form Anthropic a few years ago, they quickly emerged as a top AI lab. Elon Musk's xAI was even later to the race, but its Grok chatbot is now one of the most technically impressive AI products around (egregious racism and anti-Semitism notwithstanding). And regardless of how far Meta has fallen behind in the AI race, the company has proved its ability to endure: Meta's stock reached an all-time high earlier this year, and it made more than $17 billion in profit from January through the end of March. Billions of people around the world use its social apps. The company's approach is also different from that of its rivals, which frequently describe generative AI in ideological, quasi-religious terms. Executives at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind are all prone to writing long blog posts or giving long interviews about the future they hope to usher in, and they harbor long-standing philosophical disagreements with one another. Zuckerberg, by comparison, does not appear interested in using AI to transform the world. In his most recent earnings call, he focused on five areas AI is influencing at Meta: advertising, social-media content, online commerce, the Meta AI assistant, and devices, notably smart glasses. The grandest future he described to investors was trapped in today's digital services and conventions: 'We're all going to have an AI that we talk to throughout the day—while we're browsing content on our phones, and eventually as we're going through our days with glasses—and I think this will be one of the most important and valuable services that has ever been created.' Zuckerberg also said that AI-based updates to content recommendations on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have increased the amount of time that users spend on each platform. In this framework, superintelligence may just be a way to keep people hooked on Meta's legacy social-media apps and devices. Initially, it seemed that Meta would take a different path. When the company first entered the generative-AI race, a few months after the launch of ChatGPT, the firm bet big on 'open source' AI software, making its Llama model free for nearly anyone to access, modify, and use. Meta touted this strategy as a way to turn its AI models into an industry standard that would enable widespread innovation and eventually improve Meta's AI offerings. Because open-source software is popular among developers, Zuckerberg claimed, this strategy would help attract top AI talent. Whatever industry standards Zuckerberg was hoping to set, none have come to fruition. In January, the Chinese company DeepSeek released an AI model that was more capable than Llama despite having been developed with far fewer resources. Catching up to OpenAI may now require Meta to leave behind the company's original, bold, and legitimately distinguishing bet on 'open' AI. According to the Times, Meta has internally discussed the possibility of stopping work on its most powerful open-source model ('Behemoth') in favor of a closed model akin to those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. In his memo to employees, Zuckerberg said that Meta will continue developing Llama while also exploring 'research on our next generation of models to get to the frontier in the next year or so.' The Meta spokesperson pointed me to a 2024 interview in which Zuckerberg explicitly said that although the firm is generally 'pro open source,' he is not committed to releasing all future Meta models in this way. While Zuckerberg figures out the path forward, he will also have to contend with the basic reality that generative AI may alienate some of his users. The company rolled back an early experiment with AI characters after human users found that the bots could easily go off the rails (one such bot, a self-proclaimed 'Black queer momma of 2' that talked about cooking fried chicken and celebrating Kwanzaa, tied itself in knots when a Washington Post columnist asked about its programming); the firm's stand-alone AI app released earlier this year also led many users to unwittingly share ostensibly private conversations to the entire platform. AI-generated media has overwhelmed Facebook and Instagram, turning these platforms into oceans of low-quality, meaningless content known as 'AI slop.' Still, with an estimated 3.4 billion daily users across its platforms, it may be impossible for Meta to fail. Zuckerberg might appear to be burning hundreds of millions of dollars on salaries and much more than that on new hardware, but it's all part of a playbook that has worked before. When Instagram and WhatsApp emerged as potential rivals, he bought them. When TikTok became dominant, Meta added a short-form-video feed to Instagram; when Elon Musk turned Twitter into a white-supremacist hub, Meta launched Threads as an alternative. Quality and innovation have not been the firm's central proposition for many, many years. Before the AI industry obsessed over scaling up its chatbots, scale was Meta's greatest and perhaps only strength: It dominated the market by spending anything to, well, dominate the market.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announces AI data center expansion. Are any centers coming to Tennessee?
On July 14, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build several large-scale AI data centers focused on superintelligence. According to Reuters, this move deepens his drive to develop the technology, which he has aggressively pursued by competing for top engineering talent. Meta's first multi-gigawatt data center, named Prometheus, is set to launch in 2026, while another facility, Hyperion, is designed to eventually scale up to 5 gigawatts over the next several years. "We're building multiple more titan clusters as well," said Zuckerberg in a Facebook post. "Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan." Hyperion will be located in Louisiana, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch, while Prometheus will be located in New Albany, Ohio. At the time of publication, Meta had not responded to The Tennessean's request for comment on whether AI data centers will be coming to Tennessee. "Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher," added Zuckerberg. "I'm looking forward to working with the top researchers to advance the frontier!" Here's what to know about data centers in Tennessee. More: Nashville Council takes next step toward using AI in water management What is an AI data center? An AI data center is a specialized facility designed to support the heavy computing needs of artificial intelligence applications, such as training and deploying machine learning models. While it shares basic components with traditional data centers, like servers, storage, and networking, AI data centers are built to handle much more demanding workloads. According to the key difference between AI data centers and traditional data centers, lies in the hardware and infrastructure. Traditional centers typically use central processing units (CPUs), which are not powerful enough for AI tasks. AI centers, on the other hand, rely on high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), which require more space, power and advanced systems to support them. These facilities are equipped with high-speed computing, secure networking, and large-scale storage, along with robust power and cooling systems. Because AI workloads generate a lot of heat and consume large amounts of electricity, AI data centers use advanced cooling strategies, said IBM. One common method is liquid cooling, which uses water instead of air to absorb and remove heat more efficiently. This helps manage the high temperatures produced by densely packed GPUs. Another method, hot and cold aisle containment, organizes server racks to improve airflow and prevent hot and cold air from mixing. Are Meta AI data centers coming to Tennessee? While Meta has not confirmed whether it will bring AI data centers to Tennessee, the recent boom in artificial intelligence has sparked increased data center investment in Nashville. As previously reported by the Tennessean, RadiusDC, a Denver-based data center company with operations in Miami, is expanding into Nashville with a new 100,000-square-foot facility in the Trinity/Haynes area. Once completed, it will be the largest data center within the city limits, according to the company. The site, called 'Nashville I,' will offer 12 megawatts of power and serve as a colocation facility, providing rentable space for tech companies to house their servers. It's being built on a 12-acre site along Brick Church Pike, where RadiusDC recently purchased 7.5 acres for over $5 million. The project is backed by New York-based Blue Owl Capital and is expected to open in 2026. Meanwhile, Meta's $1 billion data center campus in Gallatin became fully operational late last year, with plans to expand capacity in the future. This growth aligns with broader trends, as major tech companies continue to invest in the Nashville area and the Tennessee Valley Authority works to increase statewide power capacity to meet rising demand. The Volunteer State has become an appealing destination for data center developers and tech companies like Meta that seek greater control over their infrastructure. This is due in part to the availability of affordable industrial land and a reliable, cost-effective energy supply, supported by proactive state and local efforts to expand power capacity. Elon Musk's xAI expands in Memphis with Colossus 2 supercomputer On July 15, Brent Mayo of Elon Musk's xAI shared new information about the company's second Memphis facility, Colossus 2. The first Memphis xAI location was announced in June 2024. While Mayo did not specify how the new supercomputer will be powered, energy sourcing remains a major concern for the community, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported, especially after the first site on Paul R. Lowry Road used gas turbines, sparking renewed debate over air quality in South Memphis. Mayo stated that xAI is working with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Memphis Light, Gas and Water to determine the best energy solution for the new Tulane Road site. He also confirmed that equipment currently stored in Mississippi is being relocated from the original site to the new campus. In May, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced that gas turbines would not be used at the Tulane Road facility. Shortly after, Elon Musk posted a photo on X showing 168 Tesla Megapacks being delivered to the site, calling it the first 'gigawatt AI training supercluster.' While Mayo didn't confirm the exact energy needs, he did say the company plans to use 'a lot' of Tesla Megapacks. The Colossus 2 project is expected to create 200 to 400 permanent jobs, with over 1,000 jobs currently supported through construction. Contributing: Molly Davis and Commerical Appeal reporter Neil Strebig Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for the Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@ or follow her on X at @_leyvadiana This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Are Meta AI data centers coming to Tennessee? What to know
