Invaluable assessment from Jeff Mapes

Very cool review. Very much regret that I skipped this show.

Intel closed below $100 today ($99.17) for the first time in a month, down from a peak of $132.75 in May. Investors have grown a little more cautious over the past couple weeks and most chip stocks were down today on a worrisome outlook from Broadcom. Still, Intel was trading under $20 a year ago

Hillsboro's city council took nearly two hours of public testimony tonight on data centers -- residents were furious about tax breaks, resource consumption and a perceived lack of transparency. Rather than resume meeting tonight, the council will reconvene Tuesday for a work session on next steps.

This Boardman subdivision is named for George Bailey, from "It's a Wonderful Life." George had a lot to deal with — but not high-voltage power lines crackling overhead, or a massive data center out his front door. In this small Oregon county, Big Tech is both lifeline and fault line.

One in five of those most commonly listed employers on SNAP income verification forms in Oregon last year was a major grocer and retailer, with Safeway and its parent company Albertsons the most listed, followed by Walmart and online retail giant Amazon.

Over the past month, I spent many days on and around Ross Island, on my own and with others -- with permission from island owners. Today, read the first part: Portland’s ‘Jurassic Park,’ the island no one is allowed to visit. www.oregonlive.com/environment/...

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan on growing demand for CPUs in AI: It's gone from 1 CPU per 8 GPUs initially to 1:1 -- or sometimes AI wants more CPUs than GPUs. “Sometimes in life you need some breaks. And this is a good break for me.” (LBT is speaking at a JP Morgan investment conference this morning.)

I’ll be live at noon today on Reddit doing an AMA. Come ask any question you may have have about this year’s governor’s race, transportation or anything else related to Oregon politics/government! www.reddit.com/r/oregon/s/e...

Reliable supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple is testing "low-end/legacy iPhone, iPad, and Mac processors" using Intel's 18A-P manufacturing node. Kuo envisions Apple beginning to ramp production in Intel fabs next year, but says TSMC will retain 90% of Apple's business.

The Wildwood trailer hits so many Portland touchstones. St. Johns Bridge, cherry blossoms, Ankeny Plaza...even bike boxes. And Forest Park, of course.

That was super exciting

ZoomInfo, once among the Portland area's most promising companies, has lost 90% of its value since its 2020 IPO. The stock is down 32% this morning after ZoomInfo laid off 600 employees, and closed its R&D site in Israel, amid fresh evidence that AI is stealing its business.

This spring, officials in Hillsboro started handing out tax breaks to data centers that last into the 2050s. It's not clear if these tax breaks are legal, or how the city decided to award them. Yesterday, Hillsboro's mayor instructed the city to stop until it sorts out what happened.

Shares up 15% on this news, which would have very, very profound implications for intel.

Officials in Washington County -- and candidates for office -- object to Hillsboro awarding data center tax breaks that last into the 2050s. The state says it's not clear Hillsboro's multi-decade tax breaks are legal. They're nominally capped at 5 years.

With a moratorium on some Oregon tax breaks due to kick in next month, data centers are racing to beat the deadline. Hillsboro has fielded a flurry of 18 applications in recent months and has signed off on data center tax breaks that last 'til 2051.

Intel up *another* 14% today, to $109, after Bloomberg reported that Apple has held preliminary talks on using Intel fabs for some Apple chips.

It's the second time in the last month that Intel has hired a top exec from another chip company (last time it was Samsung.)

Market cap = $500B

Intel briefly topped $100 today (it closed at $99.61.) The stock was under $40 a little more than a month ago

Intel up another 10% today, now above $90 a share for the first time at $93.20.

"Our Constitution is not a NIMBY charter,” the majority wrote. “Our founding document does not address neighborhood grievances concerning unwanted smells and gas—no matter how unpleasant those may be."

Most Oregonians have a positive impression of Amazon and Intel across all areas of the state and political parties.

Intel shares up 24% this morning, trading above $80. The chipmaker isn't benefitting -- yet -- from its new manufacturing technology or from finding outside customers for its fabs (which it still doesn't have). Intel's boost comes from resurgent demand for a fairly conventional technology, CPUs.

German industrial giant Siemens is selling off most of the old Mentor Graphics campus in Wilsonville, consolidating into a single building and closing the on-site daycare. Parents are scrambling because they were given little more than three months to find alternatives for their kids.

Another signal Intel may (finally) be getting close on its foundry efforts.

Huge data centers are changing the landscape of some Oregon communities. In The Dalles, residents are wondering if Google is also changing their weather.

Portland had an astonishing number of traffic deaths in 1937. Looks like close to 70, mostly pedestrians. Rough math suggests traffic fatalities per capita were about 4x higher in 1937 than last year.

With Intel shares above $60 for the first time since April 2021, Wall Street appears to be betting that the chipmaker's opportunities now outweigh its considerable risks.

It's telling, perhaps, that the News-Review posted news of its closure on Facebook but not on the Roseburg newspaper's own website. www.oregonlive.com/business/202...

Richard Mays, mayor of The Dalles, says it was “probably” a mistake to sue The Oregonian to hide Google’s water use. “I was part of the team fighting The Oregonian in settling that, and now that decision is haunting us,” the mayor told the Port of The Dalles commission last month.

Google’s Oregon data centers drank a lot more water in The Dalles last year – they now use 40% of all the city’s water, and climbing. City leaders and conservationists disagree about the implications of Google’s enormous thirst. But they agree the company’s secrecy continues sowing distrust.

Amazon will pay $20.5M to settle a lawsuit over its role in the nitrate pollution crisis in Morrow County.

Other minority owners revealed, and one name jumps out: Jennifer Gates, Bill Gates eldest daughter. Blazers maintain a link through ownership to Microsoft.

Oregon communities are allocating land for 9,100 acres of new data centers — including the state's first "exascale" project, an Amazon site near Boardman that could be the size of 1,000 football fields and use up to 1,300 gallons of water per minute. www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

Amazon paid a small rural Oregon firm owned by local officials more than $100m while seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in data center tax breaks from some of those same public officials. www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

"leaders have only secured $5.5 billion for the bridge replacement, leaving lawmakers from both Oregon and Washington wondering where they will find the money to complete the project, which is now not expected to be finished for TWO DECADES." via @carlosfuentes.bsky.social

Oregon lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a one-year moratorium on data centers’ eligibility for one major property tax break this week, the first time the state has taken any step to rein in the industry's extraordinary incentives. www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

Agility Robotics says it'll now call itself...Agility. The Salem-based company now describes itself as providing "commercially deployed humanoids." (Previously, it said, "Agility's humanoid robots are deployed today in manufacturing, distribution, and logistics.")

The Oregon Legislature is moving toward imposing a 1-year moratorium on major new tax breaks for data centers. This is a big, surprising reversal. Gov. Kotek had been pushing to expand data center inventives. www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

Camas-based nLight Corp., whose lasers can shoot down attack drones, is up 17% in early trading this morning to an all-time high, $65.82/share.

As Oregon's data center tax breaks have grown they've become more expensive to manage. Counties want help covering those costs. They're not getting it, so they're opposing Gov. Kotek's economic development bill (which further expands data centers' tax breaks.) www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

Gov. Kotek says data centers’ impact on Oregon is “not sustainable” at the current growth rate, citing impacts on water, energy and community resources. But she's pushing ahead to expand tax breaks through a program that primarily benefits data centers. www.oregonlive.com/silicon-fore...

Many states are considering reining in tax breaks for data centers, citing rising energy costs and environmental impacts. Gov. Tina Kotek's economic development bill would take Oregon in the other direction, substantially boosting the state's data center giveaways.

This is the kind of quirky, insightful, distinctly Oregon bit of whimsy that only @editorswindler.bsky.social can deliver.

“I wasn’t going out like that.” After winning his third 3-Point Contest, Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard says he’s “representing strength” as he fights back from Achilles injury: www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2026...

The government is pouring billions into leading-edge chip factories. But without advanced R&D in the U.S., too, those plants would rely entirely on overseas tech — “stuck in time” in case of a disaster in Asia. Intel’s Oregon researchers could be the solution, if they can deliver.

a) Everyone has known for a long time that the NBA was going to demand Moda renovations b) The city/state/county had no one to deal with while the ownership was in flux c) Now that there's a (almost) a new owner, someone (the league? the new owner?) apparently wants immediate action.