This Month's Latest Tech News in Palm Coast, FL - Sunday August 31st 2025 Edition

Weekly commentary: Palm Coast's moment - subsea cables, AI in civic life, and a maturing regional tech ecosystem - Palm Coast has quietly vaulted into global infrastructure conversations as DC BLOX moves forward with a Town Center campus and Cable Landing Station designed to support six high‑capacity subsea cables and anchor Google's transatlantic Sol system, giving Florida its first direct Europe link and, when lit, the only in‑service Florida–Europe fiber route; the campus (34 acres, Tier III design, carrier‑neutral colocation) is expected to be operational by Q1 2027 and could attract cloud, AI and cybersecurity firms that need low‑latency, resilient routes.

Local leaders see economic upside, and skilling residents for AI-driven jobs matters: programs like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15-week workplace AI bootcamp provide practical, workplace AI training that can turn connectivity into local opportunity.

Read the DC BLOX overview for full specs and timeline at the DC BLOX Palm Coast Cable Landing Station overview page.

Bootcamp	Length	Early bird cost
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582

“This is a landmark moment for Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County, and it's a clear signal that we are a community of the future, investing in our economic development and vitality. The Sol subsea cable is more than just infrastructure; it's a gateway to unprecedented global connectivity that will attract further high-caliber industries that our residents deserve. We are not just putting Palm Coast and our community on the map; we are building a direct route to the world's digital economy, ensuring a prosperous and dynamic future for our community.” - Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri

1) DC BLOX selects Palm Coast for subsea cable landing station and data center campus - DC BLOX has picked the Palm Coast Town Center for a flagship Cable Landing Station (CLS) and colocation campus on a 34‑acre site that's designed to support up to six high‑capacity subsea cables and anchor Google's Sol transatlantic system; the facility, pitched as carrier‑neutral with Tier III resiliency and roughly 10 MW of power capacity, is expected to be operational by Q1 2027 and aims to give the region a distinct Southeast gateway to Europe and beyond, including a terrestrial route to Google's South Carolina cloud region.

Read the City of Palm Coast announcement for community context and local impacts and see DC BLOX's Palm Coast overview for technical specs and capacity details.

Site	Acres	Cable capacity	Operational target	Anchor tenant
Palm Coast Town Center	34 acres	Supports up to 6 subsea cables	Q1 2027	Google (Sol)

“This is a landmark moment for Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County, and it's a clear signal that we are a community of the future, investing in our economic development and vitality. The Sol subsea cable is more than just infrastructure; it's a gateway to unprecedented global connectivity that will attract further high‑caliber industries that our residents deserve. We are not just putting Palm Coast and our community on the map; we are building a direct route to the world's digital economy, ensuring a prosperous and dynamic future for our community.” - Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri

2) Google's 'Sol' transatlantic subsea cable to land in Palm Coast - Google has named Palm Coast the U.S. anchor for its new Sol system, a transatlantic route that will run from Florida through Bermuda and the Azores to Spain and create a dedicated terrestrial link into Google's South Carolina cloud region; partners DC BLOX and Google are building a low‑impact Cable Landing Station and adjacent colocation campus to house multiple cables and turn the city into a global connectivity hub (see the DC BLOX Palm Coast CLS announcement and Google Sol subsea cable technical write-up for technical context).

Sol is being positioned to boost capacity and resilience for Google Cloud and AI services worldwide - with reports noting the system will be the only in‑service Florida–Europe fiber route and may include as many as 16 fiber‑optic pairs - a literal new fiber bridge that could reroute latency and investment straight through Palm Coast's backyard.

Route	U.S. landing	Partners	Notable facts
Palm Coast → Bermuda → Azores → Spain	Palm Coast Town Center	Google, DC BLOX (US); Telxius (Spain)	Terrestrial link to SC cloud region; only in‑service FL–Europe fiber route when complete

“This is a landmark moment for Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County, and it's a clear signal that we are a community of the future, investing in our economic development and vitality. The Sol subsea cable is more than just infrastructure; it's a gateway to unprecedented global connectivity that will attract further high‑caliber industries that our residents deserve. We are not just putting Palm Coast and our community on the map; we are building a direct route to the world's digital economy, ensuring a prosperous and dynamic future for our community.” - Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri

DC BLOX's hyperscale strategy: building capacity for multiple cables and cloud customers - DC BLOX is stacking campus-scale power and subsea connectivity to court hyperscalers and cloud customers, pairing a Palm Coast Cable Landing Station designed to support up to six high‑capacity subsea cables with large‑scale data center builds that can deliver the megawatts hyperscale AI workloads require; see the Data Centre Magazine: DC BLOX Palm Coast subsea campus report for campus features and the company's hyperscale thesis.

At the same time, recent financing that closed a $1.15 billion green loan to accelerate a 120MW Atlanta campus (with plans to add another 80MW) underscores how DC BLOX is funding heavy compute alongside shore‑side fiber - a practical playbook that turns shoreline fiber landings into literal on‑ramps for cloud, AI and global data flows.

The result: distributed campus footprints, regional fiber backbones and edge sites that together offer hyperscalers both capacity and geographic diversity.

“The demand for global communications infrastructure continues to grow as hyperscalers expand into new international markets and invest in subsea cables to meet the growing requirements for cloud computing, AI and global data exchange.” - Chris Gatch, Chief Revenue Officer at DC BLOX

4) Palm Beach launches

Ask Poli

AI chatbot and revamps public meetings portal - The resort town (under 10,000 residents) rolled out

Ask Poli

, an AI-powered assistant built in partnership with Polimorphic to bring natural‑language search to town pages and make agendas, minutes and local rules easier to find, and it simultaneously relaunched a redesigned public meetings portal to help residents stay informed and engaged; read the town announcement and coverage from the Palm Beach Daily News coverage of Palm Beach Ask Poli launch.

Officials present the move as a transparency and service upgrade, but experts warn chatbots can surface inaccurate answers - especially for people with disabilities - so policy guardrails and accessibility checks will matter; the vendor behind Ask Poli, Polimorphic, has also been recognized nationally for civic AI work, underscoring how small towns are now adopting tools once reserved for larger governments (Polimorphic announcement about the Ask Poli AI chatbot).

For a community this size, a 24/7 virtual front desk could be the difference between a missed agenda and timely civic participation.

5) BEACON AI weather & emergency alert system deployment in Palm Beach County and regional rollout - Florida's new BEACON (Broadcast Emergency Alerts and Communications Operations Network) mixes AI, broadcast resiliency and multilingual voice synthesis to deliver continuous, official emergency messaging across radio, streaming and a mobile app, and it's now moving beyond Gainesville toward Palm Beach County markets; see the University of Florida's detailed overview and local coverage for rollout timing and features.

Designed with the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Futuri Media, BEACON fills the gap between one‑off alerts and sustained post‑event information - useful when networks fail, because “if your power is out, all you need is a crank or battery‑powered radio and you're connected.” The system already runs in Gainesville, powers the Beacon 24/7 app, and is slated to launch on additional South Florida stations and markets including West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Naples and Fort Lauderdale in the coming months, giving residents a redundant, always‑on channel for evacuation instructions, shelter updates and translated safety bulletins.

Feature	Channels	Current rollout
AI‑driven continuous alerts, multilingual voice	Local radio, mobile app (Beacon 24/7), streaming	Live in Gainesville; launching in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Naples, Fort Lauderdale

“If your power is out, all you need is a crank or battery‑powered radio and you're connected.” - Randy Wright, UF Division of Media Properties

6) Ingressotek brings Evolv eXpedite AI bag screening to Palm Beach events - Ingressotek is rolling out Evolv eXpedite, an AI‑driven X‑ray bag screening system available via exclusive short‑term rental, to help Palm Beach venues move people faster and safer through entry points; guests simply place bags on a high‑speed conveyer (roughly 0.75 m/sec, about a brisk walking pace) and keep walking while eXpedite's AI instantly flags concealed threats, cutting human interpretation delays and reducing false alarms - an ideal fit for festivals, arenas and civic gatherings that need low‑friction security.

Event organizers can access the system without a long‑term purchase and tap Ingressotek's operations and training expertise to integrate the lanes into existing CONOPs - see Ingressotek Evolv eXpedite rental details and purchase/rental offerings for specs and booking.

Feature	Value
Conveyor speed	≈0.75 m/sec (walk‑through pace)
Throughput	Up to 1,800 people per lane (high efficiency)
Availability	Exclusive short‑term rental via Ingressotek

“For the first time since we introduced security screening there was NO line when the ceremony began. This was a big win for us.” - Loyola Marymount University (testimonial on Ingressotek site)

7) Mount Sinai Medical Center deploys Artisight AI-driven virtual nursing - Mount Sinai has added Artisight's Smart Hospital Platform to bring “always‑available” virtual nursing and ambient intelligence into patient rooms, pairing computer vision, voice and sensor data to automate routine tasks, ease documentation and enable video‑based clinician consults; Artisight's tech has been credited with measurable wins elsewhere (Guthrie Clinic reports a 40% reduction in falls with injury) and promises to free frontline time - studies and vendor data show outcomes like 94% nurse satisfaction and thousands of nursing hours saved annually - while preserving privacy through real‑time processing that doesn't store raw video.

The move fits broader momentum after Artisight's recent funding boost to scale deployments and OR documentation features that write events directly into EHRs, making virtual nursing both a patient‑safety and operational playbook (see Artisight's platform overview and coverage of its $40M investment for context).

Metric	Impact
Nursing satisfaction	94%
Reduction in nursing overtime	26%
Reduction in nursing turnover	45%

“Our nurse satisfaction is through the roof!” - Terri Couts, SVP and Chief Digital Officer, Guthrie Clinic

8) Miami‑Dade expands classroom AI: Google chatbots for 105,000+ high‑school students - Miami‑Dade County Public Schools, the nation's third‑largest district, is rolling out Google's Gemini chatbots to more than 105,000 high‑schoolers while training educators and building guardrails: the school board approved a plan directing a committee to write “comprehensive” ethical guidelines with a tiered framework that specifies where AI is banned, limited or encouraged and that outlines disciplinary consequences and family resources (the committee will report back on Oct.

1). District pilots and teacher training - more than 1,000 educators have already taken part - pair practical classroom uses like AI‑generated lesson scaffolds and “Quiz me” Gems with a focus on career readiness, because officials say students who know how to use AI will have an edge.

Read the local coverage at WLRN local coverage of Miami‑Dade AI rollout, the New York Times feature on classroom AI deployment, and see Google's Gemini in Classroom launch and teacher tools for the suite of teacher tools and upcoming student‑facing experiences.

Metric	Detail
High‑school students	105,000+ (Gemini chatbot deployment)
Educators trained	1,000+
Primary AI tool	Google Gemini / Gemini in Classroom
Committee report	Oct. 1 (guidelines & tiered framework)

“An AI tool is no longer the future, it is now.” - Miami‑Dade Superintendent Jose Dotres

9) Florida Bar and legal sector grapple with AI ethics, competence and rules - Florida's legal regulators have moved from warning to rule‑making: Advisory Opinion 24‑1 makes clear lawyers may use generative AI but must protect client confidentiality, supervise AI as they would nonlawyer assistants, verify outputs for accuracy, and secure informed consent when a third‑party model would see confidential material; read the Bar's guidance in Opinion 24‑1 and the Bar's recent briefing on expanding guardrails for context.

Judges and appellate panels have flagged a striking risk - filings that included citations to non‑existent cases - prompting rule amendments and a proposed statutory definition of “Generative Artificial Intelligence” for evidentiary settings, while the Board's technology committees are drafting comments to competence, confidentiality and advertising rules to keep pace with models that can “hallucinate” and produce deep fakes.

Practical takeaways for Florida firms: document an AI use policy, train staff on verification checklists, disclose material AI use to clients, and treat AI costs and billing transparently so efficiency gains don't become ethical liabilities; for the official Bar resources see Opinion 24‑1 and the Bar's coverage of its AI work.

“The committee recognizes the rapid development of AI and pledges to value the technology's promise and concerns equally,” - Karl Klein, Board Technology Committee Chair

10) Media roundup: Palm Coast's growing profile as a subsea & data center hub - Coverage this month turned Palm Coast into a headline-catching node in the global internet story: the City's newsroom framed DC BLOX's Town Center build as a “transformative economic development” with Google's Sol cable as first fiber, regional outlets highlighted a 34‑acre campus and projections of high‑capacity cable landings, and business press pegged the project at roughly a $100M+ investment that could anchor cloud, AI and cybersecurity traffic to northeast Florida.

Reports variously list capacity between six and eight subsea cables and stress a standout detail: Sol would be the only in‑service Florida→Europe fiber route when complete, a literal new transatlantic bridge that could reroute latency and investment through Palm Coast.

Local officials tout diversified tax revenue and modest skilled jobs, while watchdog coverage urges clarity on easements, subsidies and timelines - important context as the city courts long‑term digital growth.

Read the city announcement and DC BLOX release for primary details and local business coverage for financing context.

Site	Size	Reported cable capacity	Anchor / cost
Palm Coast Town Center	34 acres	Reported: 6–8 subsea cables	Google Sol (anchor); ~$100M+ reported

“This is a landmark moment for Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County, and it's a clear signal that we are a community of the future, investing in our economic development and vitality. The Sol subsea cable is more than just infrastructure; it's a gateway to unprecedented global connectivity that will attract further high‑caliber industries that our residents deserve. We are not just putting Palm Coast and our community on the map; we are building a direct route to the world's digital economy, ensuring a prosperous and dynamic future for our community.” - Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri

Conclusion: What Palm Coast should watch next - timelines, workforce, governance and community benefits - With DC BLOX's Palm Coast Cable Landing Station slated to be operational by Q1 2027, the immediate checklist is simple but consequential: track precise construction milestones and easement/timeline disclosures, press for clear workforce plans that turn “modest” onsite staffing into broader local opportunity, and insist on transparent community terms for taxes, subsidies and long‑term benefits; the project - anchored by Google's Sol transatlantic system - could become Florida's only in‑service Florida→Europe fiber route when lit, so local leaders should pair infrastructure promises with training pipelines (practical programs like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work 15‑week bootcamp can help reskill residents) and contractual guardrails that protect public value.

For technical and site details, see DC BLOX's Palm Coast overview and the City of Palm Coast announcement, and watch whether the promised carrier‑neutral, Tier III campus and terrestrial links deliver the redundancy and local jobs officials forecast.

Item	Detail
Operational target	Q1 2027
Site	Palm Coast Town Center (reported 34 acres)
Subsea cables supported	6 (anchor: Google Sol)
Design / power	Tier III design; minimum ~10 MW capacity

“This is a landmark moment for Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, and Flagler County, and it's a clear signal that we are a community of the future, investing in our economic development and vitality. The Sol subsea cable is more than just infrastructure; it's a gateway to unprecedented global connectivity that will attract further high‑caliber industries that our residents deserve. We are not just putting Palm Coast and our community on the map; we are building a direct route to the world's digital economy, ensuring a prosperous and dynamic future for our community.” - Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri