IMF: AI investment cushions oil shock, data centre protests

Samantha: Welcome to The State of Tech, The European Edition, Sunday November eight, 2026. I'm Samantha Lawrence.

Bob: And I'm Bob Russell. Today: the International Monetary Fund says AI investment is cushioning the oil shock, activists storm a Microsoft data centre site in Amsterdam, NASA hands out contracts for a base on the Moon, and America's bank supervisors decide how to judge AI. Plus two things to try yourself: NASA's Eyes, and the Content Credentials checker. Let's start with the money.

IMF chief says AI investment is propping up growth while the oil shock bites.

Samantha: Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said on Saturday in Washington that artificial intelligence is holding up parts of the world economy. Investment in AI, she said, is significantly boosting growth in some countries. That extra growth is helping to offset the damage from the oil supply disruptions caused by the conflict in the Middle East. So while energy gets more expensive and harder to source, the money flowing into AI is acting as a counterweight.

Bob: But Georgieva did not leave it at the good news. In the same breath she warned about the risks, two in particular. First, the very high valuations of technology companies. Second, the fact that markets are leaning more and more on this one source of investment. That is the double edge of her message. AI spending is softening the blow from the oil shock, but the cushion itself rests on a lot of expectations. If those expectations wobble, the support could turn into a source of stress.

Samantha: And that is notable coming from the Eye-Em-Ef. The fund is not a tech cheerleader. Its job is to watch for things that could tip the global economy over. When its managing director mentions AI in the same breath as oil supply, it shows how far this technology has moved out of the tech pages and into macroeconomics. AI is no longer just a product category. In this assessment it is one of the factors deciding whether some economies keep growing or stall.

Bob: For Europe, the picture is mixed. The fund's assessment suggests AI investment could offer European economies some resilience at a time of global instability. But Georgieva spoke about "some countries", not all of them. So the open question for Europe is how much of that investment actually lands here, in European companies, data centres and jobs. If it mostly lands elsewhere, Europe gets less of the growth support while still being exposed to the valuation risk she flagged.

Samantha: There is also a tension underneath. European governments are under pressure to cut energy use and protect climate targets, while AI infrastructure needs a lot of power. The Eye-Em-Ef frames AI as a shock absorber during an energy crunch, yet energy is exactly what AI runs on. Key takeaway: the fund sees AI as part of the safety net for the global economy, and at the same time as one of the places where the next wobble could start. Both halves of that message count.

Activists storm Microsoft's Amsterdam data centre site and demand a Europe-wide building freeze.

Bob: Environmental activists took their fight against AI data centres to eighteen countries on Friday and Saturday. The most striking action was in Amsterdam, where protesters stormed the construction site of a Microsoft AI data centre. The protests were coordinated by a coalition called Stop Dirty Data Centres, which brings together environmental groups and digital rights campaigns. Their demand is blunt: an immediate moratorium, in other words a building freeze, on large data centres across Europe.

Samantha: The arguments are about energy and water. According to the activists, the rapid expansion of AI data centres consumes unsustainable amounts of both. They say it threatens climate targets and does what they call irreparable harm to local communities and the planet. That links straight back to our first story. The same investment wave that the International Monetary Fund describes as a support for growth is, for these groups, a drain on power grids and water supplies. Two very different readings of the same buildings.

Bob: What lifts this beyond a single protest is the coordination. Eighteen countries, two days, one shared demand. Disputes over data centres are often about one site or one town's water supply. A coalition asking for a Europe-wide moratorium turns that into a continental political question. It also puts big names in the frame. A stormed Microsoft construction site in Amsterdam is the kind of image that can travel from the street into city councils and national parliaments.

Samantha: For European governments this lands in an awkward place. Many of them say they want more AI infrastructure built on European soil. At the same time they have climate targets to meet and electricity grids under pressure. The activists are asking them to choose. To be clear, a moratorium is a demand, not a policy, and nothing in the reports suggests any government has agreed to one. But the pressure on energy policy and on planning decisions for these sites is clearly building.

Samantha: Quick interruption. If you listen to The State of Tech regularly, hit that like button and subscribe, that way you'll never miss an episode. Okay, moving on.

NASA awards contracts to build its Moon Base, including a nuclear-powered rover called PROMISE.

Bob: NASA is putting money behind its plan for a permanent presence on the Moon. On Saturday the agency announced a series of awards and mission updates for what it calls its Moon Base effort. The goal is a sustained human presence at the Moon's South Pole. And the awards cover the whole chain of getting there and staying there: commercial robotic deliveries, launch services, and orbital transfer, which means moving cargo from one orbit to another on the way to the Moon.

Samantha: The eye-catching item is a rover called PROMISE, and it is nuclear-powered. A nuclear power source means a vehicle does not have to depend only on solar panels to keep running. NASA says the overall package is meant to strengthen exploration, science and infrastructure on the Moon. It also wants to speed up the development of the technology needed for future lunar missions. So this is not one mission, it is the groundwork for a whole system of missions.

Bob: The business model is the part to watch. NASA is not building all of this itself. It is collaborating with American industry partners, paying companies for deliveries and services, and the agency says that is meant to accelerate the work. It also means the Moon is turning into a market, with contracts, competition and companies that could later sell the same services to other customers. For the commercial space firms involved, these awards bring revenue and, just as important, a track record.

Samantha: For Europe, the key word in this announcement is American. These awards go to US industry, as part of a US initiative. European space agencies and companies may find collaboration opportunities later as NASA expands its lunar operations, but nothing in this announcement spells that out. So the practical question for European space firms is where in this chain, from launch to delivery to work on the surface, there will be room for a partner from outside the United States.

US bank supervisors are told to treat AI as part of existing risk, not a category of its own.

Bob: In the United States, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the main supervisors of American banks, has told its examiners how to deal with artificial intelligence. The guidance came out this week, and its central instruction may sound counterintuitive. Examiners should not treat AI as a separate risk category. Instead, AI should be folded into the existing frameworks that banks already use to manage risk.

Samantha: The logic is that an AI system inside a bank falls under the same risk checks the bank already runs, rather than getting a new checklist of its own. The Oh-See-See also describes its AI framework as a living document. It expects the approach to change as the technology develops and as supervisors understand it better. That fits a sector where AI adoption is moving fast and where banks keep finding new places to use it.

Bob: The living document label signals that the supervisor expects to keep adjusting. For banks, that has two sides. Flexibility means rules can follow the technology instead of lagging behind it. But it also means less certainty, because the framework they are judged against can shift. And because AI is not a separate category, the questions examiners ask will look familiar: is it controlled, is it documented, who is responsible. The novelty is in the technology, not in the checklist.

Samantha: For Europe, this is an interesting contrast. The European Union chose a different route with its AI Act, a dedicated law specifically for artificial intelligence. The American guidance does the opposite at the supervisory level: no special AI box, just existing risk management. European banking regulators who are still developing their own frameworks for AI in finance may look at this guidance as one possible model, even if the legal starting point here is different.

Bob: For customers, the effect is indirect. Banks use AI in work that eventually touches ordinary people, and how supervisors look at that shapes how careful banks are with it. Key takeaway: in the US, AI in banking is being treated as one more risk to manage well, not as a separate threat. Whether European supervisors lean the same way, or stick closer to the logic of a dedicated AI law, could influence how fast European banks bring AI into daily operations.

NASA's Eyes lets anyone fly to the Moon and follow real spacecraft from a browser.

Samantha: To close out, two things you can actually use today. The first fits neatly with that Moon story. It's called NASA's Eyes, a free collection of 3D visualisations made by NASA. You open it in a web browser and fly around the solar system: zoom in on the Earth, the Moon and the planets, and follow spacecraft along their paths. The positions are based on NASA's own mission data, so you are looking at a model of where things actually are, not an artist's impression.

Bob: There are several versions under the same name. One covers the solar system, another the Earth and the satellites watching it, and another the planets found around other stars. You can move a time control forwards and backwards to see where a spacecraft was, or where it is heading. After a news story full of terms like orbital transfer and the lunar South Pole, that is a quick way to see what those places look like in three dimensions.

Samantha: The practical side: it's free, and the browser version needs no installation. It opens on desktop computers, and also on phones and tablets, although a bigger screen makes it much easier to steer. The interface is in English. One limitation to know: the 3D graphics ask a fair bit of your device, so an older laptop may stutter. Give it ten minutes, start with the Moon, and see how much of the surface you can explore.

Bob: Keep expectations realistic, though. It shows existing missions and NASA's own data, so the contracts announced this week will not necessarily show up there. It is also a visualisation, not a live telescope view. But as a way to explore, it works on several levels: a short break, a homework helper for kids, or a quick way to get the scale of space right before the next launch story. Search for NASA's Eyes and pick the version you want.

The free Content Credentials checker shows whether a photo carries a label about its origin.

Samantha: The second thing to try is about trust in images. It's a free website from the Content Credentials initiative, usually called the Content Credentials checker. You drag a photo onto the page, and it checks whether the file carries a content credential. That is a kind of digital label recording how the image was made and edited. If the camera or software involved added such a label, the checker shows it, including whether AI tools played a part.

Bob: The labels are based on an open standard developed by an industry coalition, and some cameras, editing programs and AI image generators can attach them. With AI-generated pictures circulating widely, a quick look at where an image claims to come from is useful. It takes seconds. Open the checker in your browser on a computer or phone, drop in a picture from a news site or from your own phone, and see what the file reports about itself.

Samantha: Now the important limitation. Most images online carry no label at all. Taking a screenshot, or uploading to some social platforms, can strip the label away. So a missing label tells you nothing either way: not that the picture is fake, and not that it is real. And when there is a label, it shows what the software recorded, not an independent verdict on truth. It is a piece of evidence, not a lie detector.

Bob: So the sensible way to use it is as one check among several. Combine it with the basics: who first posted the image, does it appear on trusted news sites, does the context add up. Where a label is present, it can save a lot of guesswork. Where it is absent, you are simply back to those basics. Search for Content Credentials verify, open the page, and test it this afternoon with a few photos you already have.

Samantha: Today we covered: the International Monetary Fund on AI as an economic cushion, data centre protests across Europe, NASA's Moon Base contracts, new AI guidance for US bank examiners, and two things to try yourself: NASA's Eyes and the Content Credentials checker.

Bob: Want to know more or react? Visit stateoftech.eu or email us at info@doorzetters.net.

Bob: State of Tech, the tech world in 15 minutes.