Alibaba’s net profit fell 75% in the June quarter, to $1.54bn. The cause was not a weak business. It was the bill for building one. Capital spending reached $9.98bn in three months, up 75% on the same quarter last year, according to the results announc…
The White House has published a new National Security Science and Technology strategy. It names 15 critical technology areas the United States intends to lead. Artificial intelligence and autonomy is one of them, with 12 subfields listed underneath. Op…
OpenAI has told enterprise customers that its promise not to keep their data will survive the next generation of models. The company set out the position on Wednesday in a post titled “Offering Zero Data Retention for frontier models”. In it, it previe…
Comcast is turning tens of millions of its home routers into motion detectors. The feature, called WiFi Motion, uses a home’s own WiFi signal to sense movement, without any cameras. It is part of a new service called Xfinity Shield, which the company b…
An investment firm is lending about $1.3bn to help build a giant AI data centre in Texas that will house Anthropic. It is one of the latest jumbo deals fuelling the AI boom. Eagle Point Credit Management is providing the loan, Bloomberg reported. The l…
OpenAI is bringing ads inside ChatGPT to 31 European countries, in its largest expansion of the ad business so far. The rollout starts next week, the company said in a blog post. The list runs from Germany, France, Spain and Italy to Sweden, Norway, De…
A people-search tool that promises “private and secure” searches left more than 9 million image files exposed online, including photos of people’s faces. A security researcher found the unprotected database, according to reports by WIRED and Digital Tr…
Relativity Networks has raised $22mn and landed a $40mn order from a large cloud provider. The company is pitching a faster kind of fibre for AI data centres. The Orlando-based company announced the funding and the commercial deal on Tuesday, in a pres…
Big Tech is pouring money into local PR campaigns to win support for the data centres it needs. Opposition to the buildings is spreading across the United States. They are holding town halls, dropping tax demands and sponsoring community groups. That i…
The US Department of Justice has stepped into a court fight on the side of Elon Musk’s xAI. It is backing the company’s challenge to a Minnesota law that bans AI “nudification” tools. A federal judge heard arguments on Wednesday and said he would rule …