Several futuristic space experiments involving orbital data centers and high-tech energy transfers launched into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday afternoon.
Driving the news: Among the 130 payloads aboard the Transporter-18 "rideshare" mission:
Protostar, a satellite from startup Star Catcher meant to transmit energy to another satellite — to bear out the idea of an orbital power grid.
Reason-1, a satellite from startup Cowboy Space designed to collect solar energy in space and beam it to Earth.
What they're saying: Cowboy Space founder and CEO Baiju Bhatt tells Axios that the idea is to provide power in places without an existing power grid — a kind of Starlink for energy — while also working toward orbital data centers.
There are also potential military applications, Bhatt adds — powering high-endurance surveillance drones, for example.
Reality check: It's early days for all of these concepts, which have long existed on drawing boards and in sci-fi novels but have yet to be borne out.
The bottom line: It's a boom time for intriguing commercial efforts in Earth orbit, though SpaceX's plan to wind down its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has left the space industry scrambling for launch alternatives.
The relentless rise in long-term interest rates is starting to have effects on more parts of the economy, Kansas City Fed president Jeff Schmid told Axios Thursday.
"You're starting to see some friction in some of the long-market users of credit," he said, pointing to multifamily housing and commercial lending.
"Even on the mortgage rate side, it's starting to affect home prices, which is how the price of credit works relative to valuation," Schmid said at a conference on investing in rural America hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in Asheville, N.C.
The big picture: Schmid spoke alongside Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin and Boston Fed president Susan Collins, who weighed in on the forces driving the rise in borrowing costs.
"I think you're seeing this trillion-dollar AI buildout, and I think it's not surprising that rates go up if you've got a lot more demand out there," Barkin added.
Collins said AI investment is also helping drive the solid economic growth that has persisted despite higher borrowing costs.
"I think it does have broader effects, not just in particular sectors," Collins said. But it "remains to be seen" whether investment will continue at its current pace, she added.
The intrigue: Schmid likened the Fed's challenge of separating strong demand from supply-driven inflation to a seven-layer dip — one of his favorite foods.
"The beauty of a seven-layer dip is you have equal amounts of beans and sour cream," Schmid said. Right now, with AI and data centers, "there's too much beans in that dip," he added.
Just 33 days before the midterm elections, corporate communicators should be asking a simple question: Where could our business become the political story?
Companies and leaders don't have to make overtly political statements to get caught in the crossfire.
Why it matters: Business decisions about prices, AI, jobs or investment can become lightning rods for voter anger over soaring costs and the political establishment.
Axios spoke on the phone with Vinod Khosla, the legendary venture capitalist, entrepreneur and newly minted NFL owner.
What follows is a transcript of the conversation, which preceded the Factory/Cognition dustup, lightly edited for clarity and brevity:
🏈 Seattle Seahawks
Khosla last month paid a record $9.6 billion to buy the NFL club from Paul Allen's estate, after having spent several years as a minority owner of the San Francisco 49ers.
Most of the benefits of the AI boom, for humans at least, have filtered into the stock market — but that leaves a lot of folks out.
Why it matters: Record wealth from stock market gains is helping drive strong consumer spending and economic growth overall, but it's a fragile situation: What goes up can come down, after all.
Plus, there are plenty of Americans who have little or no exposure to the market — especially lower-income households — and they're currently struggling to deal with falling real wages, rising gas prices and stubbornly high inflation.
President Trump and the AI industry have co-signed one of the biggest economic and technological wagers of all time.
If it goes right: A new age of abundance — explosive productivity, staggering wealth and a generational leap in American power.
If it goes wrong: A catastrophic bust that destroys capital and jobs and, in the words of several involved, threatens widespread human harm.
Why it matters: Neither Trump nor the AI titans have plausible deniability. Their fortunes have become so tightly bound that success will be shared — and failure impossible to disown.
The great AI rebranding is on, led by President Trump and tech titans like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who are embracing an alternative term: "super intelligence," or SI.
Why it matters: Leaders in D.C. and Silicon Valley are worried the public backlash against AI and data centers will hamper the development of this staggeringly powerful and existentially dangerous technology. The new label is part of a broader effort to shift the narrative.
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) are planning to introduce AI liability legislation asbipartisan efforts to regulate the technology persist on Capitol Hill.
Why it matters: While President Trump has made his administration's position abundantly clear — the industry should self-regulate — a growing number of congressional Republicans insist new laws are needed on the books.
