“Utility-scale battery storage capacity in the United States increased significantly during the last three years, with an annual average growth rate of 70%. By the end of 2025, the U.S. power system had operational battery storage capacity of 43.6 gigawatts (GW). During the first six months of 2026, operators added another 8.3 GW of battery storage capacity, reaching nearly 52 GW of nameplate battery storage capacity, based on our latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.

Operators anticipate bringing an additional 54 GW of battery storage capacity online over the next two and half years, according to plans they report to us. Plans for additional capacity coming online in the second half of this year total 14 GW. Operators currently plan to add 26 GW in 2027 and 14 GW in 2028.”

From US Energy Information Administration.

“We want to empower scientists and mathematicians with tools that accelerate discovery. That is why we recently announced ChatGPT for Academic Researchers⁠, an initiative providing 100,000 scientists and mathematicians with free access to our best ChatGPT models. We also continue to evaluate our models on open research problems during development.

In May, we shared an AI-generated disproof⁠ of the Erdős unit-distance conjecture, discovered while evaluating an unreleased model. This work has already inspired further developments in mathematics and theoretical computer science. Today, we are sharing a selection of ten results, each of which resolves or makes substantial progress on a long-standing open problem. These problems span high-dimensional geometry, coding theory, arithmetic circuit complexity, group theory, operator algebras, quantum complexity, lattice cryptography and extremal combinatorics. All of these problems are of substantial interest to their respective mathematical communities, and several are of broad interest across mathematics as a whole.”

From OpenAI.

“Most commercial electrolyzers need carefully conditioned power from expensive battery-meditated backup systems. Ours runs directly off the sun. Clouds pass, the day turns to night, and we maintain purity from a stack whose Bill of Materials cost is well below $100/kW. Terraform’s single-minded focus on capex reduction has allowed us to convert sunlight to hydrogen in an unprecedented demo at a cost below $2/kg. If that wasn’t enough, we have a crystal clear plan of steady execution to push that cost below $1/kg in the coming years.”

From Casey Handmer.

“With wildfires burning north-west of Athens, Greece is testing whether a new fleet of thermal satellites can give firefighters earlier warning and a clearer view of the blazes that are becoming harder to contain in a warming climate.

The Hellenic Fire System, a constellation of four compact, low-flying thermal satellites, transmitted its first images to Earth in June. The system is due to become fully functional in September, with firefighters still being trained to use it.

But it is already providing data to authorities, including about devastating fires that ripped across popular Greek island resorts and the region of Attica near Athens in recent weeks.”

From Financial Times.