News

• Nvidia open sources its cuFile APIs and storage stack into a new GitHub organization with Google, Intel, and Meta as founding maintainers, and formally launched Storage-Next with 40-plus flash and storage vendors
• Nvidia's key unveiling is its SCADA framework, which moves the storage control path onto the GPU, allowing parallel GPUs to pull data directly from storage
• The driver is KV cache economics: inference fetches data in a few hundred bytes at a time, while SSD controllers tuned for 4KB spend the same effort on either size

Following the recent Future of Memory and Storage conference, Nvidia has argued that the next leap in AI rests as much on the storage feeding accelerated computing as on the silicon doing the computing.

The company open sourced its cuFile APIs and the storage stack beneath them, and formally launched an industry initiative called Storage-Next with more than 40 flash and storage vendors.

It also put a name to SCADA, the framework that lets GPUs pull data from drives without the CPU brokering every request.

Nvidia's approach here is not new. cuFile was introduced in 2019 as the interface component of GPUDirect Storage and has shipped since 2021; its role is to take the CPU out of the data path. Bytes move by Direct Memory Access (DMA) straight between the drive and GPU memory, with no bounce buffer in host RAM. What stayed on the CPU was the control path: host software still decided what to fetch and issued every request, with the GPU as the DMA target rather than the initiator.

That split is invisible at large transfer sizes. A one-megabyte read essentially amortizes the per-request cost. At 512 bytes, the ratio inverts, the fixed cost dominates, and the CPU saturates long before the drives do. SCADA is the piece that moves the control path onto the GPU, letting it construct and complete its own storage requests and absorb per-operation latency, just as it already absorbs memory latency by keeping hundreds of thousands of operations in flight. The two are complementary rather than successive: cuFile for bulk transfers, SCADA for high volumes of small random reads.

The problem it solves is one that enterprise SSDs exhibit, having been tuned around 4KB random reads for nearly a decade to match virtualization and databases. As a result, most controllers do the same amount of work to serve 512 bytes of data as they would a 4KB read request.

AI inference access patterns are considerably smaller than that: embeddings run a few hundred bytes, and the KV cache blocks sit well under a kilobyte. Serving them from 4K-tuned drives imposes something like eightfold read amplification, and at tens of terabytes of small objects, that amplification decides whether flash works as a memory tier at all.

The KV cache, essentially the attention state for every token already processed, grows with context length, and agentic deployments run thousands of concurrent conversations. It quickly outgrows GPU memory, and recomputing evicted entries costs more GPU time than reading them back, so the standard design spills from GPU memory to system memory and flash, and refills through high volumes of small random reads.

Serving that from flash rather than DRAM increases the context length and the concurrent user count each GPU can support, which in turn affects the per-user cost of serving a model. This also explains why Nvidia is focusing on 512-byte IOPS rather than raw bandwidth, since inference performance depends heavily on the former.

Opening up cuFile is a departure; this layer has historically lived inside CUDA, and the logic is not charity. A GPU-initiated storage interface only pays off if drive, controller and array vendors build to it, and vendors do not build to a proprietary interface owned by the company whose GPUs they are feeding.

Publishing the interface, open-sourcing the implementation, and convening 40-plus vendors to standardize the underlying hardware behavior is how Nvidia aims to make GPU-initiated storage the industry default. It also stands to benefit the most from that outcome, since it sells most of the GPUs in question.

StorageReview notes Intel's participation as a significant development; a leading supplier of the x86 silicon currently sitting in storage controllers has signed on to maintain software designed to remove that silicon from the I/O path. Google and Meta co-maintaining a layer that standardizes how accelerators reach storage, while building their own accelerators, points in the same direction.

Nvidia's take is a coherent, well-argued push at a real bottleneck, with unusually credible partners attached. Partner systems from DDN, Dell, HPE, IBM, VAST Data and WEKA are due in the second half of 2026. Kioxia's XL-Flash drives built for 512-byte access are in development under Storage-Next.

Nvidia's roadmap calls for Gen7 SSDs sustaining 100 million IOPS each, which is a target controller vendors are designing toward rather than a product anyone can buy. Storage-Next itself has been discussed publicly since GTC 2025; this week, it acquired both a membership number and a framework to build against.

• Chinese research vessel lingered above critical Pacific undersea communications infrastructure
• Taiwan's Coast Guard warned the vessel to turn away from the Pacific Light Cable Network
• Windward linked slow vessel movements with recognized intelligence-gathering behavior

A Chinese-flagged research vessel was recently observed loitering directly above an undersea cable system connecting Taiwan to the United States.

Taiwan's Coast Guard filmed the encounter and warned the 200-foot ship to alter its course away from the cable route.

The cable is the Pacific Light Cable Network, an 8,000-mile fiber-optic system linking Taiwan, the Philippines and the US.

Maritime analysis platform Windward tracked the vessel moving at slow speed directly over the cable route in the Philippine Sea.

The company described such slow-speed movement over critical undersea infrastructure as one of the clearest signals used in maritime intelligence gathering.

Windward stated plainly that cables do not move, adding that "vessels that hover over them get noticed" by trained analysts worldwide.

Though the vessel's name and identifying number were withheld, Windward said it had operated repeatedly near the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands.

Records also placed the same ship as far as the Bay of Bengal and waters off Sri Lanka in earlier years.

Analysts also noted increased Chinese research vessel activity east of Taiwan since June alongside broader maritime operations in surrounding waters.

Some analysts have expressed concerns that Beijing's military-civil fusion policy could enable information gathered by civilian research vessels to support military activities.

However, no publicly available evidence has verified that the vessel gathered intelligence or transferred information to Chinese military authorities during the reported voyage.

Chinese authorities have consistently denied that their vessels intentionally damage undersea cables, calling such accusations premature and politically motivated overall.

They accuse Taiwan and several Western governments of concluding before formal investigations into these incidents are completed.

Chinese-flagged vessels have featured in previous investigations into damaged undersea cables around Taiwan.

NATO officials and Taiwan's own Coast Guard have also linked Chinese-flagged vessels to earlier cable disruptions, including suspected sabotage in the Baltic Sea.

On its part, China claims that all its maritime activities are completely legal and respects international maritime law.

Submarine cables worldwide now carry roughly 99% of all intercontinental internet traffic, making their protection a growing global security concern.

The Pacific Light Cable Network carries added significance because Taiwan alone produces more than 90% of the world's most advanced semiconductor chips today.

This network was originally planned to connect Hong Kong before US regulators blocked that route in 2020.

American officials cited concerns at the time that the connection could directly expose sensitive US data to Chinese intelligence services.

The project was later reconfigured to link only the United States, Taiwan and the Philippines, bypassing Hong Kong entirely afterward.

Analysts believe the recent deployments may gradually normalize China's presence in waters that Taiwan has long regarded as strategically important.

Whether the vessel's activity ultimately amounted to scientific research or intelligence collection remains unresolved.

Via Newsweek

To be online is to expose yourself to numerous threats, and those aren’t limited to hackers and viruses; data brokers, free services where you pay with your information, and — depending on your situation — even your own government can be a concern too. And when your whole online life is accessible from a phone in your pocket, there’s also the real threat of a thief getting into it.

With all that in mind, I’ve always been somewhat security conscious, but I’ve also historically been a bit inconsistent about my security practices, and tended to prioritize convenience over safety. A while back, though, I started taking things more seriously.

I started listening to podcasts like Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons, digging into privacy and security subreddits, and trying out numerous new products and services to beef up my digital defenses.

But let’s look at where I started first. Before embarking on this journey, I already used both Norton as my primary desktop antivirus and Malwarebytes as an on-demand scanner. I also used a password manager (1Password) across both phone and desktop, and ensured all my passwords were strong and unique.

On my iPhone, I had Stolen Device Protection enabled, which makes it harder for thieves to access sensitive information or change my Apple account password.

And I had two-factor authentication set up for everything that would allow it — opting for one of the best authenticator apps over SMS, since the latter is vulnerable to SIM swap attacks, where hackers convince your mobile network to port your number to their device.

I still do all those things now, and would recommend most other people do too — though when it comes to the best antivirus and best password manager, there are several other options to consider as well. But I’ve also added other services and even devices to my security toolkit.

There’s a saying that “if something is free, you are the product," and that’s largely true — and can have massive privacy implications.

Did you know, for example, that Gmail and Outlook can use AI or other automated systems to scan the content of your emails? And while the companies claim they’re not read by people, in theory it’s possible for them to be, either by the company itself, or by law enforcement if they’re ever served a warrant.

But you don’t have to be committing crimes to feel uneasy about the idea of an AI essentially reading all your supposedly private communications.

And this issue isn’t limited to email — the same privacy concerns apply to most free cloud storage services, whether we’re talking photo storage things like Google Photos, or general purpose ones like Dropbox.

Some services are worse for this than others, but if they’re not end-to-end encrypted, then your files, photos, and missives can, in theory, be viewed by people other than you and any recipient. That means, even if you’re not using a free service, you might still be making privacy compromises if the company has other priorities, though free options tend to be the worst for this sort of thing.

So with that in mind, I signed up with Proton Unlimited, giving me end-to-end encrypted email through Proton Mail, and cloud storage through Proton Drive.

As a bonus, Proton Unlimited also comes with a capable VPN and password manager in Proton VPN and Proton Pass. I use the former (more on this below), but not the latter, as personally, I prefer 1Password, and also don’t love the idea of having my whole security infrastructure handled by one brand.

This hasn’t been a complete switch, as I do in fact still use my less secure emails and cloud storage for some things, but sensitive stuff like bank logins have all been switched to Proton, while things like encryption keys are backed up in Proton Drive.

Part of why I haven’t fully switched is just the hassle of moving everything across, but encryption does come with some downsides. For example, it makes the search function more limited, as even the app can’t read the content of documents or other files.

And there are upsides to keeping alternative email addresses, as I can use them for things that I don’t trust not to spam me, or for accounts I don't trust not to get hacked, while my more important logins and communications are all kept secure at another address.

Though on that front, Proton does have the handy ability to let you create unlimited hide-my-email aliases, so I don’t strictly need a whole separate account for this.

In any case, while I recommend Proton as the best secure email provider, there are other options too, like Tuta and Mailbox.org, and many of these do have free plans too, though those are usually quite limited.

My privacy journey also led me to limit what traces of myself can be found online, and the big thing there, of course, is a VPN.

Technically, I wasn’t new to VPNs, but in the past I mostly only used them to get around regional restrictions. Now, I have a VPN active most of the time. This hides my location from websites, since they don’t see my real IP. It also hides my browsing activity from my ISP, and it keeps my passwords and other private information more secure when using public Wi-Fi, so it has a lot of upsides.

The main downside, as I see it, is that some sites block VPNs, so you potentially need to disable it at times if you want to access those sites. However, they don’t always block every VPN server, so simply switching servers can solve that issue.

If you’re on a device that supports split tunnelling, then you could also enable this — allowing you, for example, to have a secondary browser that doesn’t connect via VPN for sites where it’s an issue, while everything else you do does. As noted above, I use Proton VPN, but there are other great options too in our best VPNs guide.

But VPNs are just one part of reducing your digital footprint. You can also choose to keep your social media anonymous or private — something that I was already largely doing — and you can set about removing the data that companies already have on you.

I took two approaches to this. The first was subscribing to Incogni. This is a data removal service that will send removal requests to hundreds of data brokers. These brokers likely have all sorts of data about you, linking your name with your phone number, email address, and more, which makes you an easier target for spam, scams, and identity theft.

Incogni isn’t free, but it has been independently assessed by Deloitte, so you can be confident that it’s doing what it claims to do. And while you could manually make data removal requests to all these companies, it would likely take a very long time.

Of course, while I rate Incogni, it’s not the only option — check out our best data removal services guide for other solutions.

The final step I’ve taken for reducing my digital footprint is removing my face from facial recognition search engines like PimEyes and FaceCheck.ID. This I did do manually, though, by following their respective opt-out processes, which basically involve uploading a clear photo of your own face and asking for that face to be removed. You can find the exact process on the PimEyes opt-out page and the FaceCheck opt-out page.

I mentioned above that I previously favored an app — specifically Authy in my case — over SMS for two-factor authentication, but as part of my privacy upgrade, I went a step further and invested in some YubiKey security keys.

These are hardware keys that are basically tiny USB sticks that you put into your phone or computer to perform two-factor authentication, and you can also get NFC versions with no plugging required.

Unlike apps or SMS, which are vulnerable to phishing attempts or hacks, YubiKeys (and similar devices from other brands) need to be in your physical possession to use. So they’re safe from online threats. Of course, someone could physically steal your YubiKey, but they’d still need your account passwords as well.

So if you want the strongest possible two-factor authentication, I’d recommend investing in one of the best security keys.

However, this is actually the security upgrade that I’ve found myself using least, as I simply find it less convenient than app-based two-factor authentication. So what I’ve settled on is using a security key for my most important accounts, but sticking with an app for everything else.

Ultimately, my experience with YubiKeys sums up my approach to security and privacy — I still value convenience a lot. By doing things like using app-based two-factor authentication for emails and cloud storage that lacks end-to-end encryption, I’m still probably being a bit inconsistent about my privacy practices.

But I certainly feel more secure than I did before I went on this journey, and I have beefier security in place for the accounts and data that matter most.

You’ll have to figure out what the right balance is for you personally, but the tools above should help you make some security and privacy upgrades.

• Samsung advances floating data center project with first Texas engineering agreement
• Floating facilities promise 50MW capacity while reducing traditional construction timelines significantly
• Texas grid review creates fresh uncertainty for expanding data center developments statewide

Samsung Heavy Industries and Dallas-based Mousterian Corporation have signed an engineering contract covering their first floating data center project planned for deployment in Texas.

The deal advances their partnership into the engineering phase, with both companies jointly responsible for the project's basic design, detailed engineering, and production planning.

Each proposed floating facility is expected to provide 50 MW of critical IT capacity while operating on water instead of occupying conventional land-based development sites.

The pilot site is expected to sit next to an existing combined-cycle gas turbine power plant located in Houston, according to reporting on the plan.

Mousterian believes the shipyard construction approach could shorten delivery schedules compared with conventional land-based developments.

"Because the facility is built in a shipyard, fabrication advances in parallel with sitework rather than after it, a schedule and scale that conventional delivery methods cannot match," said Min Suh, chief executive of Mousterian.

Samsung Heavy Industries brings five decades of offshore and maritime engineering experience into the venture, according to its chief executive.

"Together with Mousterian, we intend to deliver floating datacenters with the same rigor, quality, and schedule certainty that define our maritime track record," said Sung-an Choi, chief executive of Samsung Heavy Industries.

Mousterian says its cooling approach avoids drawing on potable water supplies entirely and sends no discharge back into surrounding waterways.

Removing air-cooled chillers and fans from the design is also expected to considerably cut down on noise pollution near the site.

The American Bureau of Shipping is expected to classify these waterborne facilities once formal engineering work moves further.

The proposed location beside an existing gas-fired power plant may not shield the project from broader regulatory challenges affecting new data center developments.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has paused approvals for new Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid connections while state authorities review pending applications.

ERCOT is reviewing requests covering more than 474 GW of proposed new connections, a figure Abbott says is over five times peak state demand.

Data centers alone account for roughly 90% of those pending connection requests currently sitting before regulators.

State regulators are now asking project developers whether they plan to generate their own power or depend fully on the shared grid.

Officials also want detailed water consumption estimates from each project before any new connection request receives approval going forward.

Any project that fails to meet these new disclosure requirements will simply be denied a grid connection outright.

Floating infrastructure could sidestep competition for scarce buildable land near major cities, while offering built-in access to water for cooling.

Whether Texas regulators treat water-borne facilities differently from land-based ones under the new audit rules remains unclear for now.

Via The Register