The Obtain: OpenAI’s lobbying, and making ammonia beneath the Earth’s floor

OpenAI spent $1.76 million on authorities lobbying in 2024 and $510,000 within the final three months of the yr alone, in response to a brand new disclosure filed on Tuesday—a major leap from 2023, when the corporate spent simply $260,000 on Capitol Hill.

The disclosure is a transparent sign of the corporate’s arrival as a political participant, as its first yr of great lobbying ends and Republican management of Washington begins. Whereas OpenAI’s lobbying spending continues to be dwarfed by larger tech gamers, the uptick comes because it and different AI corporations are serving to redraw the form of AI coverage. Learn the complete story.

—James O’Donnell

A brand new firm plans to make use of Earth as a chemical reactor

Neglect large metal tanks—some scientists need to make chemical substances with the assistance of rocks deep beneath Earth’s floor.

New analysis exhibits that ammonia, a chemical essential for fertilizer, will be produced from rocks at temperatures and pressures which can be frequent within the subsurface. The analysis was printed yesterday in Joule, and MIT Expertise Evaluate can solely report {that a} new firm, referred to as Addis Vitality, has been based to commercialize the method.

Ammonia is utilized in most fertilizers and is a crucial a part of our fashionable meals system. It’s additionally being thought of to be used as a inexperienced gas in industries like transoceanic transport. The issue is that present processes used to make ammonia require a whole lot of vitality and produce enormous quantities of the greenhouse gases that trigger local weather change. Learn the complete story.

—Casey Crownhart