Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become ubiquitous, and the competition between companies to develop AI tools is driving the technology’s expansion. On Tuesday, April 29, tech company Meta launched its standalone AI app Meta AI, almost two years after first launching the AI chatbot in the company’s existing products Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp in September 2023.
Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said that the AI assistant app is designed to learn the user’s personality. “We’re starting off really basic, with just a little bit of context about your interests,” he said in the announcement video posted on Instagram. “But over time, you’re going be able to let Meta AI know a whole lot about you and the people you care about from across our apps, if you want.”
Meta AI features a Discovery tab that allows users to share AI-generated work and a Ready to Talk function that enables real-time conversations with the chatbot. Users can switch between the default AI voice and the voices of celebrities Dame Judi Dench, Keegan-Michael Key, John Cena, Kristen Bell, and Awkwafina.
The new AI app competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and newer AI chatbots like Google’s Gemini and X’s Grok. On Tuesday, OpenAI also announced ChatGPT’s new shopping feature, which seeks to facilitate users’ shopping searches online. “We’re experimenting with making shopping simpler and faster to find, compare, and buy products in ChatGPT,” the AI company said on X. E-commerce company Amazon also unveiled its own AI shopping assistant, Alexa+, in February 2025.
ChatGPT is currently the most widely used AI tool with 200 million weekly users globally. By comparison, Meta AI recorded 700 million monthly users as of January 2025.
AI-Ready Data Center in the Philippines
With that comes an increased demand for more energy-intensive data centers — a demand the Philippines is eager to meet, perhaps to devastating effects on the environment. On April 23, data center service provider VITRO Inc. launched the country’s first “AI-ready” hyperscale data center in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. Like other hyperscale data centers, VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) will serve as a facility to process large amounts of data, specifically for generative AI used for search queries, chatbots, and making AI art. VITRO Inc. is a subsidiary of telecommunications company PLDT.
At the inauguration, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said the data center is “proof that the Philippines is future-ready for the digital realm.
“The inauguration of VSR signals the country’s readiness to attract the world’s largest technology companies and showcase our regional competitiveness in the digital space,” Marcos said in his speech.
Since the generative AI boom in 2021, environmental advocates have worried about the impact of generative AI on the planet. AI data centers are particularly energy-intensive, typically hosting 5,000 servers and are temperature-controlled through cooling units.
According to a 2024 impact paper titled “The Climate and Sustainability Implications of Generative AI” by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the growing demand for data centers “runs counter to the massive efficiency gains that are needed to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in energy-related sectors.” In North America, power requirements of data centers increased from 2,688 megawatts at the end of 2022 to 5,341 megawatts at the end of 2023. Electricity consumption in data centers is expected to increase to 1,050 terawatts by 2026.
MIT Computing and Climate Impact Fellow Noman Bashir, lead author of the impact paper, told MIT News, “The demand for new data centers cannot be met in a sustainable way. The pace at which companies are building new data centers means the bulk of the electricity to power them must come from fossil fuel-based power plants.”
VSR is expected to be as energy-intensive. In its launch, PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said the PLDT Group plans to expand the data center’s energy capacity to 500 megawatts within three years. Marcos assured that the country’s energy infrastructure can support VSR and other data centers.
