François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs. The startup, Ndea, will consist of an AI research and science lab. It’s looking to “develop and operationalize” AGI. AGI, which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” typically refers to AI that can perform any […]

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Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. This week was something of a swan song for the Biden administration. On Monday, the White House announced sweeping new restrictions on exporting AI chips — restrictions that tech giants, including Nvidia, loudly criticized. (Nvidia’s business […]

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In a bid to make its Gemini chatbot app more of one-stop shop, Google says it’s working with The Associated Press to build “a feed of real-time information” in Gemini. Jaffer Zaidi, Google’s VP of global news partnerships, said that the goal is to “further enhance the usefulness of results” in the Gemini experience. “As […]

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OpenAI has begun testing a feature that lets new ChatGPT users sign up with only a phone number — no email required. The addition was spotted by software engineer Tibor Blaho. The feature is currently in beta in the U.S. and India. There are, however, some restrictions. Users who create an account using their number […]

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Microsoft is launching a pay-as-you-go plan for corporate customers that bundles several, but not all, of the company’s existing AI-powered productivity features for Microsoft 365. The new plan, Copilot Chat — not to be confused with Microsoft’s Copilot Business Chat or GitHub Copilot Chat — is underpinned by OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model and lets users […]

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Intel says that it plans to spin off its corporate venture arm, Intel Capital, into a standalone fund, with Intel as an “anchor investor.” In a press release on Tuesday, Intel said that the move will “[enable] greater autonomy” and “the flexibility to attract external capital.” Intel expects Intel Capital to begin operating independently in […]

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OpenAI has appointed to its board of directors an executive at investment firm BlackRock. Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, a senior managing director at BlackRock and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investing platform, has joined OpenAI’s board, OpenAI announced on Tuesday. In a statement, OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor said that Ogunlesi has “an exceptional […]

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Apple has joined a consortium creating next-gen technology to link together chips in AI data centers. The consortium, the Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium, is developing a standard called UALink, which connects the AI accelerator chips found within a growing number of server farms. As of Tuesday, Apple is a member of the consortium’s board, along […]

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OpenAI has quietly removed language endorsing “politically unbiased” AI from one of its recently published policy documents. In the original draft of its “economic blueprint” for the AI industry in the U.S., OpenAI said that AI models “should aim to be politically unbiased by default.” A new draft, made available Monday, deletes that phrasing. When […]

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Shortly after OpenAI released o1, its first “reasoning” AI model, people began noting a curious phenomenon. The model would sometimes begin “thinking” in Chinese, Persian, or some other language — even when asked a question in English. Given a problem to sort out — e.g. “How many R’s are in the word ‘strawberry?'” — o1 […]

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In an announcement Tuesday, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, said it plans to invest $5 billion in Mexico over the next 15 years as a part of a “long-term commitment” in the region. A portion of that investment is a new server region launching today, AWS Mexico (Central) Region, that will allow […]

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Microsoft has created a new engineering organization aimed at accelerating AI infrastructure and software development within the company. According to Bloomberg, Jay Parikh, previously VP and global head of engineering at Meta, will lead the new division. He’ll report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and oversee groups, including the company’s AI platform and developer teams. […]

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OpenAI on Monday published what it’s calling an “economic blueprint” for AI: a living document that lays out policies the company thinks it can build on with the U.S. government and its allies. The blueprint, which includes a forward from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s VP of global affairs, asserts that the U.S. must act to attract […]

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Clearwater Analytics, a company developing accounting, compliance, and risk reporting tools for asset managers, said on Monday it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire investment management platform Enfusion for $1.5 billion. Clearwater, which says it has obtained an $800 million loan to fund the transaction, along with a $200 million revolving line of […]

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Financial services firm Moody’s announced on Monday that it has agreed to acquire Cape Analytics, a geospatial AI startup, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which is expected to close in Q1, subject to customary closing conditions, will give Moody’s access to Cape’s geospatial AI analytics technology for insurance underwriting. With the tech, Moody’s plans […]

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So-called reasoning AI models are becoming easier — and cheaper — to develop. On Friday, NovaSky, a team of researchers based out of UC Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, released Sky-T1-32B-Preview, a reasoning model that’s competitive with an earlier version of OpenAI’s o1 on a number of key benchmarks. Sky-T1 appears to be the first truly […]

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Microsoft has taken legal action against a group the company claims intentionally developed and used tools to bypass the safety guardrails of its cloud AI products. According to a complaint filed by the company in December in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a group of 10 unnamed defendants allegedly used […]

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OpenAI disbanded its robotics department. Then, it brought it back. Now, through a social media post from its hardware director and newly published job descriptions, OpenAI is revealing more about its plans for the revived team. In a post on X on Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI to lead hardware last November from Meta’s […]

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Hugging Face, the AI developer platform, has settled a lawsuit against Korean AI startup FriendliAI, which had accused Hugging Face of infringing on one of its patents. Per a filing on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Delaware, FriendliAI reached a “confidential agreement” with Hugging Face on January 8 and […]

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Businesses dependent on the physical supply chain — the network of facilities and transportation systems used to move materials from one location to another — face a number of challenges, from staff shortages to increasing customer expectations. The pressures aren’t easing up. According to a survey from Prologis, a real estate investment trust, two-thirds of […]

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