Netflash

Networking is core to any operating system, and when it comes to Linux, it’s actually a combination of several key components. The Linux kernel handles the data plane, moving packets, and holding live device state. NetworkManager is the network configuration service, operating as the control plane, deciding what a device’s configuration should be. NetworkManager 1.58 was released this week, follo…

Some lucky customers took delivery of their own Tensor Processing Units ( TPU s), custom chips developed by Google for AI applications, in the second quarter, company executives disclosed during a call to discuss its latest financial results on Wednesday. The disclosure comes at a time when enterprises are grappling with a global shortage of high-end GPUs that is driving up costs and slowing AI d…

Linux systems using the XFS filesystem suffer from a race condition that could enable an unprivileged local user to gain full root access. The flaw affects systems with Linux kernel 4.11 or later that have enabled the XFS feature reflink, which permits the creation of copies of a file without actually copying its data. According to Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU), there was a way around the fil…

Defense research agency DARPA made its largest quantum computing award ever this week, with a $125 million agreement announced on Wednesday. The same day, the White House announced an additional $5 billion for the Genesis Mission , which focuses on AI for science but also includes technology to accelerate quantum computing and quantum sensors. “Taken together, these announcements signal that U.S.…

Revenue from IBM’s z mainframe portfolio declined 42% in the quarter ended June 30, dragging infrastructure revenue down 7% compared to the year-ago quarter. But Big Blue executives remain positive on the mainframe’s role as an important AI platform. After warning of an earnings shortfall, IBM lowered its full-year forecast. It now expects 2026 revenue to grow between 4% and 5%, rather than its p…

Google’s AI offerings span its internal and cloud offerings. Its data centers are processing seven times more AI tokens compared to last year. To keep up, Google is upgrading its data-center hardware and software technologies at a faster clip. It plans to raise $80 billion to build new data centers. (See related story: Google transforms its data center architecture for agent era ) Network World s…

Google’s data center team is racing to turn its infrastructure into a well-oiled machine for AI and the onslaught of agents . At this year’s Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai shared startling numbers: Google’s data centers processed about 3.2 quadrillion tokens a month, roughly seven times more than the 480 trillion processed in May 2025. “Multiple agents work together, and now you’ve got millions, b…

Oracle is expanding its Cloud@Customer on-premises portfolio with a managed database offering that it says will enable enterprises to run databases, applications, and AI agents in their own data centers, helping CIOs modernize mid-sized workloads while meeting data residency, regulatory, and low-latency requirements. The hybrid cloud offering, Base Database Cloud@Customer, combines existing datab…

Nvidia has introduced its next-generation Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform, positioning it as a key building block for the next wave of “gigascale” AI factories designed to connect millions of GPUs while reducing power consumption and operational costs. The networking platform is part of Nvidia’s broader Rubin architecture , which integrates six major components—including the Vera CPU, Rub…

Arista Networks is looking to simplify data protection at the edge of enterprise networks with a new security package that combines branch office security with SD-WAN connectivity in a single platform. The company announced AI-driven Edge Threat Management (ETM) for VeloCloud SD-WAN, a platform that links typically separate products and capabilities including Arista’s next-generation firewall, IP…

AMD has expanded its AI infrastructure portfolio with the launch of Helios, an open, rackscale AI infrastructure designed for frontier AI and sovereign computing. Helios is built around AMD’s next-generation Instinct GPUs, EPYC Venice processors, Pensando networking and the ROCm software stack. “Helios is AMD’s first complete AI rack system with GPUs, CPUs, and networking built together, instead …

Convenience store and gas station chain Sheetz announced it is replacing VMware across its network of more than 830 retail locations with StorMagic’s SvHCI hyperconverged infrastructure platform, marking one of the larger publicly announced migrations away from VMware. The rollout is already well underway. According to StorMagic, Sheetz has completed migrations at more than 600 stores and is aver…

Observability platforms are evolving beyond traditional monitoring as vendors add AI capabilities and cost-management features aimed at helping enterprise organizations better manage increasingly complex IT environments. Vendors are investing heavily in AI observability, autonomous investigations, cost optimization, and operational intelligence as they try to evolve their platforms into systems t…

As AI use ratchets up, demand for data center capacity is higher than it’s ever been. But New York State is telling the industry: Not so fast. New York Governor Kathy Hochul this week signed an Executive Order described as the “nation’s first moratorium” on new hyperscale data centers, massive factories that typically comprise thousands of servers devouring tens or hundreds of megawatts of power.…

Chinese tech giant Huawei is reportedly entering the DRAM manufacturing business in a bid to cash in on the insane profitability of memory sales. Three firms – Micron Technology, SK hynix, and Samsung Electronics — account for 95% of the DRAM on the market worldwide. The rest is small players, mostly in China. One of them, CXMT, is gearing to make a run for the market and try and take a little bi…