Thursday, September 4, marked the deadline for states and territories to submit their final proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, selecting their preliminary grant winners, to the Trump administration's National Telecommunications and Information Administration for approval. As of that deadline, 36 states submitted their proposals, with an additional 20 states and territories receiving extensions, according to the NTIA. "In the plans submitted today, states are already projecting savings of at least $13 billion for American taxpayers—driven by a rise in participation by the private sector, increased matching commitments by subgrantees, and a surge of innovative technology solutions to deliver high-speed connectivity," wrote the NTIA in a press release. But does that $13 billion or so in "savings," paired with several added months of delay, truly represent the "benefit of the bargain" for the American people? "I would just note that if you're thinking about buying a brand new Mercedes, and you instead buy a junkie, 40-year-old Chevy, you can claim you saved a lot of money. I'm not sure that's the way it's going to work out," says Blair Levin, policy analyst with New Street Research. 

Gigapower is prepping for the next step in its open access growth plan. Since AT&T and BlackRock’s joint venture kicked off in May 2023, AT&T has been Gigapower’s first—and only—tenant. But that’s about to change, said Gigapower Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Seidenfaden. Without naming any names, he said, “we are currently engaging with multiple internet service providers to be part of our network in some way. It is likely that we will have another ISP that will be offering service on the network within the next 30 days.” Meaning Gigapower is inching closer to running a bona fide open access fiber network, where various providers can ride on a single, shared infrastructure. The update comes after Gigapower announced it completed network construction across six states: Florida, New Mexico, northeastern Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and southeastern Minnesota.

When it comes to improving the health and well-being of all people in Western North Carolina, expanding access to broadband is a necessary part of the work. Having reliable internet and the skills to use it are critical for every aspect of our lives—from accessing health care and landing a job to paying bills and learning new skills. Reliable internet is even more crucial in rural areas, connecting residents to vital services and helping people build businesses that serve their local community and beyond. Dogwood Health Trust launched a Digital Opportunities Initiative in early 2025 to help make the internet available, affordable, and useful for everyone in WNC. Ten collaboratives comprised of more than 50 organizations of all shapes and sizes are working to break down barriers like cost, access to devices, and digital literacy. Collaboration is key. This work cannot be done alone. The initiative is built on community partnerships that engage residents, share information, and create homegrown solutions to bring internet service and skills across WNC. This focus on collaboration is building lasting partnerships and community leadership for not only broadband but other opportunities for improving people’s lives. 

President Trump is hyper-focused on winning the AI race, and rightly so. The champion will be a country that ushers in an era of unmatched productivity and economic growth and leads global advances in national security. For the Trump Administration, winning on AI is “a national security imperative.” And it’s a bipartisan goal. “No technology offers more promise to our modern world than artificial intelligence,” according to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). They are both right. So how do we win a global AI tech race?  We start by looking right in our own backyard and making sure each American community has rock-solid connectivity. Connectivity is the lifeblood of our data-driven world—data that makes AI possible. As Congress looks to advance policies to address the energy and permitting needs of data centers, we need an equal focus on the permitting issues to unleash the full potential of wireless connectivity—and therefore the full potential of our AI future.

Tech giants' astronomical spending on AI infrastructure comes with a colossal hedge: In a crucial way, it's not really spending on AI at all. Most of the hundreds of billions of dollars in AI-related capital investment today is going into computing power, hardware, and buildings—assets that will retain real value even if AI itself never pays off. Of course everyone in the AI race—Microsoft, Google, their giant rivals and their startup challengers—views AI as the industry's next big platform and believes it will keep getting more useful and lucrative. But if or when the current investing frenzy subsides, or even if there's a big AI bust, a company that built a giant data center for AI still has a giant data center. That's why no one in Silicon Valley is terribly worried about the risk of overbuilding.

Julie Sweet, CEO of consulting giant Accenture, has a rare line of sight into the AI ambitions and worries of the world's biggest companies. Her unvarnished view, backed by new data and CEO conversations: AI use at most big companies is slower and harder than hoped. CEOs are beyond obsessed with AI, she said. But implementing it to immediately save money or boost productivity is frustratingly difficult. Sweet argues it'll take a few years to move beyond the slow, hard phase for most companies. A big reason: Only by changing the mindset of leaders—and the complex processes inside companies—can you truly unlock explosive growth. Sweet's hands-on experience matches recent studies by MIT, McKinsey and others, showing that successful AI use for large organizations remains elusive—the "productivity paradox." The viral MIT paper found 95 percent of the 52 organizations studied "are getting zero return" on their investment in generative AI.