Daily Tech & GNSS News Digest - February 2, 2026

Infrastructure resilience takes center stage this week as TikTok recovers from a winter storm-induced Oracle outage, while Big Tech’s AI ambitions push hyperscaler spending projections past $470 billion for 2026. In navigation, Baltic nations issue a major warning on GNSS jamming as researchers demonstrate breakthrough GPS-independent positioning using Starlink satellites.

Tech News

TikTok Recovers After Week-Long Oracle Data Center Outage

TikTok restored U.S. services Sunday after Winter Storm Fern knocked out an Oracle data center, causing a week of disruptions for the platform’s 220 million American users. The outage impacted content posting, video discovery, likes, view counts, and search functionality—a stark reminder that “always-on” consumer platforms remain vulnerable to physical infrastructure failures.

The incident is particularly notable given Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s 2022 boast that Oracle Cloud “doesn’t go down.” TikTok began migrating U.S. data to Oracle data centers—including a Texas facility—in 2022 as part of national security arrangements that culminated in January’s finalization of the TikTok USDS joint venture, with a U.S. investor consortium taking 80% ownership from ByteDance.

Hyperscalers to Spend $470 Billion on AI Infrastructure

The four major hyperscalers—Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon—are expected to boost combined capital expenditures to over $470 billion in 2026, up from approximately $350 billion in 2025, according to FactSet estimates. The spending surge comes as Gartner projects AI infrastructure investment could reach nearly $1.4 trillion this year, a 41% increase from 2025.

Oracle announced plans to raise $45-50 billion specifically to expand cloud infrastructure capacity, framing the move as a response to contracted demand from enterprise customers requiring AI-ready compute and storage. AMD, reporting earnings this week, expects data center revenue of $4.97 billion for Q4, with its new MI450 chip deal with OpenAI projected to generate $100 billion in cumulative revenue over coming years.

Apple’s Gemini-Powered Siri Set for February Beta

Apple is preparing to unveil the first Gemini-powered Siri features as early as this month with iOS 26.4 beta, deepening the company’s billion-dollar-per-year partnership with Google. CEO Tim Cook confirmed during Apple’s Q1 earnings call that Gemini was selected because “Google’s AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models.”

Privacy remains central to the approach—Apple will run models both on-device and through its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure. The partnership follows Apple’s $2 billion acquisition of Q.AI, an Israeli audio AI startup, marking the company’s second-largest acquisition ever after Beats. Apple’s existing ChatGPT integration remains unchanged for now.

Additional Headlines

SpaceX Million-Satellite Plan: SpaceX applied to launch one million additional satellites, positioning Starlink as “orbital compute infrastructure” for AI while raising regulatory questions about space congestion.
Stanford Quantum Breakthrough: Researchers developed miniature optical cavities enabling efficient light collection from atoms, addressing a key bottleneck for scaling quantum computing systems.
Deepfake Job Applicants: An AI security company reported receiving applications from deepfake candidates, exposing hiring pipelines as vulnerable attack surfaces for synthetic identity infiltration.
UK Warns on “Made in Europe”: The UK government is lobbying the EU against restricting British firms from supply chains under the bloc’s “Made in Europe” initiative, fearing disruption to car, tech, and green sectors.

GNSS News

Baltic Nations Declare Zero Tolerance for GNSS Jamming

Fourteen coastal nations—including the UK, France, Germany, and Nordic states—issued a joint declaration warning they will no longer tolerate Russia’s systematic disruption of GNSS signals in the Baltic and North Seas. The open letter uses mandatory language (“require,” “shall,” “must”) signaling genuine enforcement intent.

The signatories possess significant leverage: all Russian maritime traffic to Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg must transit waters largely within these nations’ Exclusive Economic Zones. Beyond GNSS jamming, the declaration addresses AIS spoofing, “shadow fleet” vessels evading sanctions, and ships flying flags of convenience without proper documentation.

The letter calls for developing “alternative terrestrial radionavigation systems” to reduce GNSS dependence, with several Nordic nations already deploying terrestrial timing systems and eLoran networks. The announcement coincided with the UK Royal Institute of Navigation releasing a report highlighting how GNSS interference threatens maritime safety.

Starlink Demonstrates GPS-Free Positioning at 8-Meter Accuracy

Ohio State University’s ASPIN Laboratory has achieved breakthrough GPS-independent navigation using Starlink satellites, demonstrating 8.41-meter positioning accuracy for ground vehicles and 8.15-meter accuracy for drones—down from 150-meter and 47-meter errors respectively without the system.

The technology relies on cognitive software-defined receivers that reverse-engineer Starlink’s signals to extract Doppler shift and carrier phase measurements. A key innovation is real-time “online ephemeris error compensation” that corrects for satellite orbit uncertainty. Tests included an 82,000-foot high-altitude balloon achieving 12.28-meter accuracy and Arctic maritime navigation near Greenland reaching 123-meter accuracy—versus 846 meters using altimeter alone.

With Starlink surpassing 10,000 satellites in October 2025, the constellation offers global coverage with inherent redundancy for GPS-denied environments including urban canyons, tunnels, and polar regions. The research represents proof-of-concept rather than production systems, but establishes LEO constellations as viable alternative PNT sources.

Key Takeaways

Infrastructure Fragility Exposed: TikTok’s week-long outage from a single data center failure highlights concentration risks as platforms scale, even for well-funded cloud providers like Oracle.
AI Spending Accelerates: From hyperscalers’ $470B capex plans to Oracle’s $50B expansion to Apple’s $2B acquisition, 2026 is shaping up as the year AI infrastructure investment hits escape velocity.
GNSS Resilience Goes Geopolitical: Baltic nations’ zero-tolerance declaration on jamming and Starlink’s GPS-free navigation demo reflect growing urgency to develop positioning systems that can withstand both natural and adversarial threats.