What The Fudge for May 10, 2026: Material Science, Policy as Code, and Quiet Supersonics
Exploring the shift from copper to optics, the rise of agentic infrastructure automation, and NASA's quiet supersonic milestone.
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🎙️ The Five-Minute Sprint
Welcome to the What the Fudge podcast for May 10, 2026. I’m streamlining the workflow this week with some Python and new tools, aiming to keep this digest under five minutes while covering the rapid overhaul of the AI infrastructure stack.
📍 Field Report: Material Science & The Infrastructure Arms Race
The biggest signal this week is the sheer scale of investment in AI foundations, with hardware being literally reshaped to meet computational demand.
- From Copper to Glass: There is a major shift toward co-packaged optics and networking. Corning and Nvidia have partnered to build optical glass fibers designed to replace traditional copper in AI rack systems for faster data transfer and lower energy consumption.
- Vertical Integration: Companies are racing to secure their own compute. Anthropic is projecting massive growth this year and has forged a deal with SpaceX to leverage 300 megawatts of capacity from its Colossus 1 data center.
- Silicon Photonics: Watching the emergence of silicon photonics and vertical accelerators. This includes reports that Anthropic may acquire inference accelerators from the UK startup Fractile.
🤖 Agentic Interfaces: Replacing the UI
We are moving away from simple conversational models toward autonomous “agents” that act on your behalf across digital and physical infrastructure.
- Enterprise Automation: Infrastructure OEMs like HPE and Dell are rolling out AI agents to automate workflows such as provisioning and diagnosing network issues.
- Remy and Google: Google is internally testing “Remy,” a Gemini-powered personal agent designed to be a 24/7 assistant integrated across Gmail and Drive.
- Policy as Code: As these agents proliferate, platforms like Teradata are updating to focus on policy control and the centralization of automated compliance.
🛡️ Security, Disruption, and “AI Slop”
The rapid adoption of AI is creating a “double-edged sword” regarding security and the workforce.
- The Security Crisis: Researchers found over 5,000 web applications built with AI coding tools (like Lovable or Replit) that had zero or inadequate authentication. This lack of security exposed sensitive data in nearly 40% of cases.
- Harden and Secure: On the flip side, the rise of the DevSecOps pipeline uses new models to “shift left” and actually harden security.
- The Workforce Narrative: While some companies cite AI efficiency in recent cuts, my view is that we are still seeing the correction from prior over-hiring.
🚀 Space Value Chain: Quiet Supersonics
Rounding out the week with a major milestone for the Space Value Chain (svc.fudge.org).
- NASA X-59: NASA’s experimental X-59 jet recently hit 0.98 Mach during test flights, picking up speed over two flight days. This is a critical step toward quiet supersonic travel over land, moving us toward an era of ever-quieter supersonic flight.
- Planetary Defense: Progress with the Near-Earth Object Surveyor is helping identify threats before they arrive.
That’s a wrap for May 10, 2026. Under five minutes, as promised. Be safe, be well. Take care.
Interesting Coverage for the Week
- Anthropic signs deal to use 300MW of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center capacity
- Google testing ‘Remy,’ a Gemini-powered 24/7 personal agent for services
- Researchers: 5,000+ AI-coded web apps expose sensitive data due to lack of auth
- Nvidia and Corning partner to build US factories for AI-rack optical tech
- OpenAI unveils MRC networking protocol to scale GPU cluster efficiency
- NASA’s X-59 Flight Tests Pick Up Speed with Two Flight Days
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