Hardware
Proactive AI Assistance for Phones: Inside Magic Cue, Google’s new AI assistant for Pixel 10
Google’s latest smartphone sports an AI assistant that anticipates the user’s needs and presents helpful information without prompting.
Hardware
Business
OpenAI Turns to Oracle for Compute: A new $30 billion, 4.5 gigawatt data center offshoot of the Stargate Project
OpenAI is working with Oracle to build its next chunk of processing power, a $30 billion outgrowth of the partners’ $500 billion Stargate project and a sign of OpenAI’s ongoing thirst for computation.
Business
China Reconsiders U.S. AI Processors: Nvidia and AMD must reassure China their high-end GPUs don't pose security risk
Nvidia and AMD, having obtained the U.S. government’s permission to resume selling AI processors in China, received a cool welcome there.
Hardware
Meta’s Smart Glasses Come Into Focus: Meta reveals further details of Aria Gen 2 smart glasses for multisensory AI research
Meta revealed new details about its latest Aria eyeglasses, which aim to give AI models a streaming, multisensory, human perspective.
Business
Amazon’s Constellation of Compute: Amazon plans to spend tens of billions on AI infrastructure with Project Rainier
Amazon revealed new details of its plan to build a constellation of massive data centers and connect them into an “ultracluster.” Customer Number One: Anthropic.
Machine Learning Research
Low Precision, High Performance: Researchers at Microsoft and Tsinghua researchers propose 1.58-bit AI model that rivals full-precision competitors
Reducing the number of bits used to represent each parameter in a neural network from, say, 16 bits to 8 bits shrinks the network’s size and boosts its speed. Researchers took this approach to an extreme: They built a competitive large language model whose weights are limited to three values.
Tech & Society
AI Uses Energy, AI Saves Energy: The International Energy Agency examines the energy costs and potential savings of the AI boom
AI’s thirst for energy is growing, but the technology also could help produce huge energy savings over the next five to 10 years, according to a recent report.
Machine Learning Research
How DeepSeek Did It: Researchers describe training methods and hardware choices for DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 models
DeepSeek made headlines late last year, when it built a state-of-the-art, open-weights large language model at a cost far lower than usual. The upstart developer shared new details about its method.
Machine Learning Research
4-Bit Efficiency, 16-Bit Accuracy: Microsoft researchers show that heavily quantized versions of Llama can perform as well as near-full-precision
Using an 8-bit number format like FP8 during training saves computation compared to 16- or 32-bit formats, but it can yield less-accurate results. Researchers trained models using 4-bit numbers without sacrificing accuracy.
Business
U.S. to Supply Middle Eastern AI Hubs: Nvidia, AMD, Amazon, and others strike deals with Saudi Arabia’s Humain and G42 in the UAE
The United States government announced sweeping agreements to sell tens of billions of dollars worth of AI technology and services to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Hardware
Hugging Face Rolls Out Open Robot: Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics, launches Reachy 2 robot for open-source research
Hugging Face has made a name by providing open AI models. Now it’s providing an open robot.
Business
Big AI Spending Continues to Rise: Tech giants increase capital spending to meet growing infrastructure demands
Top AI companies announced plans to dramatically ramp up their spending on AI infrastructure.