Microsoft's venture arm doubled funding for a German startup that cuts datacenter cooling costs by up to 40% using software alone. The timing: North American operators face years-long power constraints while AI demand climbs.
Opera charges $20 monthly for Neon, an AI browser with three separate bots—Chat, Do, and Make—that don't communicate. Users must pick the right tool before every task while Chrome and Edge bundle unified AI for free. The architecture gap matters.
Opera wants $20 monthly to babysit three AI bots that can't talk to each other. You pick which one handles your task, then supervise as they hallucinate comment counts or add funeral wreaths to your shopping cart. Chrome and Edge bundle unified AI free. Manual orchestration isn't automation—it's homework with a monthly subscription fee attached.
Meanwhile, Microsoft backs software that makes datacenters sweat less. German startup etalytics raised €16 million to cut cooling energy by 40% without replacing hardware. The pitch: reclaim compute capacity while waiting years for grid upgrades to crawl through utility permitting.
Stay curious,
Marcus Schuler
Neon's $20 confusion: three bots, zero handoff protocol
Opera launched Neon in September at $19.90 monthly, packaging three AI agents—Chat, Do, Make—in separate interface zones with no automatic handoff.
Users must choose which bot handles each query before starting, then supervise mid-task without context switching. The Verge documented Chat hallucinating comment counts when clicks were needed (Do's domain), and Do adding funerary wreaths to carts while ignoring user corrections.
The architectural gap matters because Chrome and Edge now bundle unified AI free, Perplexity opened Comet to all users without charge, and Dia ships a free tier. The browser war is a fight for transaction control—whoever owns the entry point captures attention, data flows, and revenue before they route through search layers. That's why OpenAI recruited Chrome veterans and why Google stuffed Gemini into its 74% market-share browser.
Neon charges premium rates for fragmentation. Delegation only scales when it works unsupervised. Manual orchestration between three tools isn't automation—it's additional management overhead.
Why this matters:
• Browser control determines data access, not just convenience—the real competition is over transaction capture and model improvement loops
• Subscription pricing requires reliability advantage over free alternatives; charging $20 for coordination work invites churn to integrated incumbents
Prompt: frog wearing a bob hair wig. In the style of a photo studio photograph from 1990s
Microsoft backs datacenter cooling AI
Microsoft's M12 led an €8 million extension to etalytics' Series A, bringing total funding to €16 million.
The Darmstadt company deploys AI to cut datacenter cooling energy 20-40% without hardware replacement—a capacity play as North American operators face years-long grid connection delays.
Etalytics targets the mechanical side: pumps, chillers, heat exchangers that typically consume 40-50% of facility infrastructure power. The platform, etaONE, uses hybrid AI—physics models plus machine learning—to optimize setpoints in real time. Customers include Equinix, Digital Realty, NTT, Volkswagen, and Merck.
The investment centers on North American expansion. Etalytics opens a Bay Area office in 2025, with pilots already running at major US datacenter operators.
From Microsoft's angle, the software addresses enterprise customer pressure on efficiency and carbon accounting while hedging Azure's own thermal management costs.
For operators, it's a bridge technology: software deployed in weeks buys compute headroom while substation upgrades crawl forward over 3-5 year timelines.
Why this matters:
Power availability now governs datacenter capacity growth; reclaiming cooling load adds compute without waiting on utilities.
Software optimization of legacy mechanical systems delivers quick wins while long-lead infrastructure projects remain bottlenecked.
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Alibaba Cloud Unveils GPU Pooling System That Cuts Nvidia Chip Requirements by 82%
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Pure Storage Co-founder Becomes Billionaire as AI Boom Drives Record Stock Surge
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China Dominates Global Rare Earth Supply Through Strategic Industry Control
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Chinese Consumers File Antitrust Complaint Against Apple Over App Store Practices
A group of 55 Chinese iPhone and iPad users filed an antitrust complaint with China's market regulator on Monday, alleging that Apple abuses its market dominance by restricting app distribution through its App Store practices. The complaint, announced by a lawyer representing the group, targets Apple's control over how applications can be distributed and installed on iOS devices in the Chinese market.
Nexperia Accuses Former CEO of Spreading "Falsehoods" About China Operations
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CoMind Raises $60M for Revolutionary Brain Monitoring Technology
London-based medical technology startup CoMind has secured $60 million in Series funding led by Plural, bringing the company's total funding to $102.5 million as it develops a non-invasive brain monitoring device using Lidar-like technology. The British startup is targeting commercial launch of its medical device in 2027, positioning itself at the forefront of next-generation neurological monitoring solutions.
🚀 AI Profiles: The Companies Defining Tomorrow
etalytics
etalytics builds AI that cuts energy waste in data centers and factories. The German startup emerged from TU Darmstadt's research labs and now saves megawatt-hours at sites where cooling bills run into millions.
The Founders Founded 2020 in Darmstadt by three engineers: Dr.-Ing. Niklas Panten (CEO), Dr.-Ing. Thomas Weber (CSO), and Björn König (CTO). The team grew out of the ETA-Fabrik—a living lab where they spent years tuning industrial energy systems. Now 60+ people strong. They picked the problem because factories and data centers leak energy through bad coordination between chillers, pumps, and HVAC systems.
The Product etaONE® connects to industrial equipment, builds digital twins, and adjusts setpoints in real time. It handles cooling, heating, ventilation, storage, and microgrids—all in one system. The platform reads OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus, BACnet. It predicts failures, spots anomalies, and closes control loops autonomously. Equinix Frankfurt: 900 MWh saved per year. Stellantis paint shop: 60% ventilation cut. It works in brutal environments—GPU-dense halls, pharma cleanrooms, automotive paint booths.
The Competition Phaidra (fresh $50M), Vigilent, EkkoSense compete on cooling AI. Siemens and Schneider bundle optimization into massive BMS upgrades. etalytics wins on vendor neutrality, system-level modeling, and measured outcomes at marquee sites.
Financing €8M Series A (Nov 2024) led by Alstin Capital. ebm-papst joined as strategic co-lead. Earlier backing from Hesse state fund BMH and Xantaro. Valuation undisclosed.
The Future ★★★★☆ AI workloads spike cooling complexity. Regulations force transparency. etalytics sells both the meter and the brain—and expands as customers move from dashboards to autonomy. The ebm-papst partnership shortens sales cycles. Competitive pressure rises, but the Frankfurt proof points open doors. If they standardize deployments and keep commissioning fast, they'll scale. 🎯
Tech translator with German roots who fled to Silicon Valley chaos. Decodes startup noise from San Francisco. Launched implicator.ai to slice through AI's daily madness—crisp, clear, with Teutonic precision and sarcasm.
E-Mail: marcus@implicator.ai
Maria Garcia
Marcus Schuler
