Finland orders Google to stop work on two AI data centers over alleged deforestation

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Tom’s Hardware • Jowi Morales • October 8, 2026

The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Agency has ordered Google subsidiary Tuike Finland Oy to halt construction on two data centers in Muhos and Kajaani until environmental impact assessments are finished. The investigation alleges that over 740 acres of forest were cleared for the project without proper authorization. A Google spokesperson admitted the company fell short of its own high standards but stated it acted in good faith under the Forestry Act. They noted they conducted nature surveys and have already begun landscaping plans, including tree planting across 130 hectares at the Muhos site.

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Department of War dishes out $1.5 billion loan commitment to boost semiconductor supply chain

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Tom’s Hardware • Etiido Uko • October 8, 2026

The U.S. Department of War announced on Oct. 7 that Wolfspeed Inc. has received a conditional 30-year loan commitment for $1.5 billion through its Office of Strategic Capital. This financing aims to help the company upgrade its gallium nitride epitaxy capabilities and develop radiation hardening features for silicon carbide and future gallium nitride products. The funds are intended to support applications in defense, aerospace, artificial intelligence, and critical infrastructure.

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The Atari 800XL returns with a ‘faithful’ but modern Retro Games Ltd redesign

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Tom’s Hardware • Mark Tyson • October 8, 2026

Pre-orders for THE 800XL began today from Retro Games Ltd, a modernized recreation of the classic 8-bit home computer popular in the early 1980s. The device features era-appropriate elements like built-in Atari BASIC and a working cartridge slot, alongside modern additions such as a mechanical keyboard, HDMI connectivity, and four USB ports for controllers and storage. Namer Merli, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Plaion, stated that the design captures "an entire way of experiencing technology," emphasizing real keys, cartridges, and discovery through programming and games.

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U.S. suspends green card path for H-1B workers at Microsoft and Adobe — labor certification program blocked due to alleged fraud

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Tom’s Hardware • Bruno Ferreira • October 8, 2026

Vice President JD Vance announced on Thursday that Microsoft and Adobe are blocked from the PERM labor certification program due to alleged fraud. This suspension prevents new or pending applications for these companies’ H-1B workers seeking green cards. The administration also suspended programs for IT firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling stated that both Microsoft and Adobe faced multiple active federal investigations as the reason for the action.

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GlobalFoundries to produce silicon interposers for TSMC’s CoWoS in the US — Five-year agreement valued at $2 billion

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Tom’s Hardware • Anton Shilov • October 8, 2026

GlobalFoundries and TSMC have signed a five-year manufacturing agreement valued at $2 billion. Under this deal, GlobalFoundries will produce silicon interposers for TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging technology in the United States. These interposers are custom pieces of silicon that connect logic chiplets to high-bandwidth memory stacks, enabling complex multi-die processors for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Volume production is scheduled to ramp up in the first half of 2028 at GlobalFoundries’ facility in Malta, New York.

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AMD attempted to crush the ‘Megahertz myth’ with its Performance Rating system on this day 25 years ago

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Tom’s Hardware • Mark Tyson • October 9, 2026

Twenty-five years ago today, AMD launched its Athlon XP processor family based on the Palomino core. These chips ran at lower raw clock speeds than Intel’s Pentium 4 rivals but delivered comparable or better application and gaming performance. To address this marketing imbalance, AMD introduced a Performance Rating (PR) system alongside the slogan "Performance matters more than MHz." This campaign aimed to challenge the industry standard that equated higher megahertz with superior performance.

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Arc Raiders publisher developing AI anti-cheat stack in escalating war with cheaters

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Tom’s Hardware • Jowi Morales • October 9, 2026

Arc Raiders publisher Embark Studios is developing its own artificial intelligence models to detect cheating as it faces an escalating arms race with cheaters. While the company previously kept details scarce to hinder cheat developers, it has now released information about its new measures. Aleks, the executive producer, confirmed that Embark uses kernel-level protection from Denuvo and detection services from Anybrain’s AI. Additionally, the studio is building in-house models based on machine learning and other data to identify suspicious behavior before taking action.

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Kioxia unveils E1.L SSDs for hyperscalers with up to 122.88TB capacity

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Tom’s Hardware • Anton Shilov • October 9, 2026

Kioxia introduced its LD4-series solid-state drives (SSDs) in an E1.L form factor with capacities up to 122.88 TB on Friday, designed for hyperscale data centers. The manufacturer states these drives use proven BiCS8 3D QLC NAND technology and target read-intensive workloads such as AI data repositories and object storage. While Kioxia lists PCIe 5.0 compliance, the drives operate at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds of up to 16 GT/s per lane, providing a theoretical maximum bandwidth of approximately 7.88 GB/s in each direction.

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Save $200 on the 2026 M5 MacBook Air right now, undoing Apple’s June price hike with prices starting from $1,099

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Tom’s Hardware • Stewart Bendle • October 9, 2026

Apple raised prices for its entire MacBook and iPad lineup in June, with the MacBook Air increasing by $200. However, Amazon is currently selling the 2026 MacBook Air with the M5 chip at these reduced rates during Prime Day sales. The base model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is priced at $1,099, while the 16GB/1TB configuration costs $1,399 and the 24GB/1TB version is $1,599. These discounts are not available directly from Apple, which has kept its prices higher than what Amazon offers right now.

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Grab this 32-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor from ASRock for the super low price of $596

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Tom’s Hardware • Stewart Bendle • October 9, 2026

Newegg currently offers the ASRock PGO32UFS Phantom Gaming Monitor at $596, down from its previous list price of $899. This represents a saving of $303 on this 32-inch 4K OLED display. While prices for RAM and storage have risen recently, gaming monitor prices are actually declining. The monitor features dual-mode refresh rates and resolution switching to support both high-performance gaming and competitive esports titles.

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