Latest / HotTea: The AI Morning Briefing / Lisa Cook says AI spending is pushing prices higher
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- Sections 00:00 What we're covering today 00:32 1. Lisa Cook says AI spending is pushing prices higher 01:23 2. OpenAI and unions push data center rules in seven states 02:17 3. Researchers want governments to measure how much research AI does 03:12 4. Nvidia adds a separate hardware watchdog for AI agents 04:01 5. OpenAI and Anthropic will skip the October 1 Australian Senate hearing 04:47 Visit Hot Tea Disclosure Narration uses an AI-generated voice. Transcript Welcome to Hot Tea for Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Today, the cost of building A I enters the inflation debate. We'll also look at proposed data center rules and a plan to measure how much research A I can do. Then we'll turn to a hardware watchdog for A I agents. In Australia, two companies plan to miss a Senate hearing, while OpenAI plans to attend a separate joint committee hearing. This briefing uses an A I-generated voice. Lisa Cook says A I spending is pushing prices higher. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said on September 28 that A I investment is adding to inflation. Speaking in Oakland, she pointed to higher chip and software prices, along with rising demand for construction workers and energy. Electricity and water costs had each risen around 5 percent over the past year, she said. Cook said A I may be one cause, but it isn't the only one. This was her own view, not a new Federal Reserve decision, and she didn't estimate how much A I has contributed to current inflation. The question now is whether higher chip and software costs spread to other prices. It's also worth watching whether A I productivity gains lower prices or raise wages. OpenAI and unions push data center rules in seven states. The American Infrastructure Alliance launched on September 28. Its members include construction unions, OpenAI, Blackstone, QTS and other infrastructure companies. The group will start in Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana and South Carolina. The coalition says developers should pay for the energy and infrastructure their projects need. It also wants binding commitments on water use and local oversight. Axios reports that the group hopes state rules will prevent construction moratoriums. The proposals serve companies that build or finance data centers, as well as unions whose members construct them. The announcement doesn't measure any change in household utility bills. The details will matter. Proposed state rules need to spell out who pays, how water use is reported and what happens when operators break their commitments. Researchers want governments to measure how much research A I does. A September 28 working paper argues that A I could turn years of research into months if it automates enough of the work. The authors include Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and researchers affiliated with frontier A I companies. They want governments to measure how much research A I performs and find ways to slow dangerous acceleration. Their concern is that more capable A I researchers could build stronger successors, then repeat the cycle. The authors call the evidence preliminary and say much remains uncertain. They report failures, cheating and gaps between benchmark scores and useful work. Some authors have company ties, but the paper isn't an official company position. Any useful measure would need to separate A I-assisted coding from full research projects completed with little human supervision. the chipmaker adds a separate hardware watchdog for A I agents. Nvidia announced its Open Agent Safety Platform on September 28. It includes Sentry, a reference design that runs on BlueField-4 processors. Nvidia says Sentry uses a separate control system to monitor A I agents and quarantine them in milliseconds. The hardware controls add another layer to the OpenShell software controls covered in yesterday's edition. Nvidia says Anthropic and SpaceXAI are participating. Those are still company claims. The release doesn't show whether the full system can stop independent attackers. And a reference design doesn't prove that every partner has deployed every advertised feature. Independent tests now need to try to bypass Sentry. The useful results will include missed detections and quarantine times on deployed hardware. OpenAI and Anthropic will skip the October 1 Australian Senate hearing. Reuters reported on September 28 that both companies will miss the Senate A I hearing on October 1. Committee chair Sarah Hanson-Young had called for Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to appear. OpenAI told Reuters that strategy chief Jason Kwon would attend a separate joint committee hearing in Sydney on October 6. These aren't the same hearing. OpenAI plans to appear on October 6, but that testimony hasn't happened yet. An invitation alone doesn't mean either company will attend the Senate hearing or answer the committee's questions. The witness lists and transcripts will show who attends each hearing, and which questions go unanswered. That is the signal before the noise. This briefing was produced from Hot Tea's verified daily edition. For the complete briefing and every source link, visit Hot Tea dot A I.