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While consumer tools like ChatGPT dominate headlines, IT leaders face an even tougher challenge: keeping pace with an explosion of data demands while making the right infrastructure bets to support enterprisescale AI. Strategy is key; and theres no better way to implement the right AI strategy than hearing directly from the pros who have successfully made artificial intelligence work for them and their teams, and ultimately their clients. In this virtual discussion, Hari Gopalkrishnan, head of consumer, business, and wealth management technology, Bank of America, shares how to incorporate security, compliance, and resilience into your corporations AI infrastructure.
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E-Commerce
More than $14 billion in clean energy investments in the U.S. have been canceled or delayed this year, according to an analysis released Thursday, as President Donald Trump’s pending megabill has raised fears over the future of domestic battery, electric vehicle and solar and wind energy development. Many companies are concerned that investments will be in jeopardy amid House Republicans’ passage of a tax bill that would gut clean energy credits, nonpartisan group E2 said in its analysis of projects that it and consultancy Atlas Public Policy tracked. The groups estimate the losses since January have also cost 10,000 new clean energy jobs. The tax credits, bolstered in the landmark climate bill passed under former President Joe Biden in 2022, are crucial for boosting renewable technologies key to the clean energy transition. E2 estimates that $132 billion in plans have been announced since the so-called Inflation Reduction Act passed, not counting the cancellations. Last week’s House bill effectively renders moot many of the laws incentives. Advocacy groups decried the potential impact that could have on the industry after the multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package passed. The Houses plan coupled with the administrations focus on stomping out clean energy and returning us to a country powered by coal and gas guzzlers is causing businesses to cancel plans, delay their plans and take their money and jobs to other countries instead, E2 executive director Bob Keefe said. The Senate is now reviewing the bill with an informal July 4 deadline to get it to the president’s desk. What has been canceled Some of the most recent cancellations include the Kore Power battery factory in Arizona and BorgWarners closure of two EV manufacturing sites in Michigan. Bosch suspended a $200 million investment in a hydrogen fuel cell factory in South Carolina, citing changes within the market over the past year in a statement to The Associated Press. Tariffs, inflationary pressures, nascent company struggles and low adoption rates for some technologies may also have been reasons for these companies plans changing. For instance, the battery storage and electric vehicle sectors have seen the most impact in 2025, with the latter especially having had had a difficult past few years. Several projects spurred by the IRA were also canceled prior to 2025. Of the projects canceled this year, most more than $12 billion worth came in Republican-led states and congressional districts, the analysis said. Red districts have benefited more than blue ones from an influx of clean energy development and jobs, experts say. Georgia and Tennessee are particularly at risk because they are highly invested in EV and battery production, said Marilyn Brown, an energy policy professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved in the analysis. If all of a sudden these tax credits are removed, Im not sure how these ongoing projects are going to continue, said Fengqi You, an engineering professor at Cornell University who also was not involved. A handful of Republican lawmakers have urged the continuation of energy tax credits, with some saying in an April letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. that a repeal could disrupt the American people and weaken the county’s position as a global energy leader. The US and the global stage The Trump administration has sought to dismantle much of Biden’s environmental and climate-related policy what he calls the Democrats green new scam withdrawing again from the Paris climate agreement, rolling back countless landmark pollution regulations and environmental initiatives, reconsidering scientific findings supporting climate action, blocking renewable energy sources and more in an effort to bolster a fossil fuel-led American energy dominance agenda. Meanwhile other countries are proceeding with green investments. The European Parliament is committing to the European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a policy meant to prevent carbon leakage, or companies moving production to countries where climate policies are less strict. And the International Maritime Organization is moving toward a global carbon tax on shipping. In a sign that not all hope is lost for the future of renewables in the U.S., April alone saw nearly $500 million in new development, with Japanese manufacturing company Hitachi’s energy arm building out transmission and electrification operations in Virginia and materials and technology company Corning investing in solar manufacturing in Michigan. Still, $4.5 billion in development was canceled or delayed last month, according to E2’s tally. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Alexa St. John and Isabella O’Malley, Associated Press Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
The Supreme Court backed a multibillion-dollar oil railroad expansion in Utah Thursday in a ruling that scales back a key environmental law for projects around the country. The 8-0 decision comes after an appeal to the high court from backers of the project, which is aimed at quadrupling oil production in the remote area of sandstone and sagebrush. Environmental groups said the decision would have sweeping impacts on National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The Trump administration has already said it’s speeding up that process after the president vowed to boost U.S. oil and gas development. The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile (142-kilometer) expansion that would connect oil and gas producers to the broader rail network and allow them to access larger markets. Supporters have argued that streamlining environmental reviews would speed up development. The justices reversed a lower court decision and restored a critical approval from federal regulators on the Surface Transportation Board. The project could still face additional legal and regulatory hurdles. Environmental groups and a Colorado county had argued that regulators must consider a broad range of potential impacts when they consider new development, such as increased wildfire risk, the effect of additional crude oil production from the area, and increased refining in Gulf states. The justices, though, found that regulators were right to consider the direct effects of the project, rather than the wider upstream and downstream impact. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that courts should defer to regulators on where to draw the line on what factors to take into account. Four other conservative justices joined his opinion. Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock,” he wrote of the policy act reviews. The goal of the law is to inform agency decision-making, not to paralyze it. The courts conservative majority court has taken steps to curtail the power of federal regulators in other cases, including striking down the decades-old Chevron doctrine that made it easier for the federal government to set a wide range of regulations. Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the outcome, but with a narrower legal reasoning. In a decision joined by her two liberal colleagues, she said the court could have simply cleared the way for the railway approval by finding the board didn’t need to take into account any harm caused by the oil that might eventually be carried on the railway. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case after facing calls to step aside over ties to Philip Anschutz, a Colorado billionaire whose ownership of oil wells in the area means he could benefit if the project goes through. Gorsuch, as a lawyer in private practice, had represented Anschutz. The ruling comes after President Donald Trumps vow to boost U.S. oil and gas drilling and move away from former President Joe Bidens focus on climate change. The administration announced last month that its speeding up environmental reviews of projects required under the same law at the center of the Utah case, compressing a process that typically takes a year or more into just weeks. The court’s decision gives agencies a green light to ignore the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their decisions and avoid confronting them, said Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice. Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said opponents would continue to fight the Utah project. This disastrous decision to undermine our nations bedrock environmental law means our air and water will be more polluted, the climate and extinction crises will intensify, and people will be less healthy,” she said. The projects public partner applauded the ruling. It represents a turning point for rural Utahbringing safer, sustainable, more efficient transportation options, and opening new doors for investment and economic stability,” said Keith Heaton, director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition. By Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed to this story.
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E-Commerce
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