Latest AI News
GPT-5.6 Pro Solves a 20-Year-Old Statistics Problem
The model generated a mathematical proof that disproves a long-held assumption behind the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure, a staple of modern statistical analysis.
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ESA Selects Keysight and Sateliot for Secure 5G Satellite Network Project
The three-year programme will test blockchain, AI and anomaly detection for future satellite and terrestrial networks.
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Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Launches Open-Weight AI Model, Takes on NVIDIA Nemotron
The multimodal model supports a 1-million-token context window and is available for fine-tuning with fully open weights.
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GPT-5.6 Sol Leads New React Coding Benchmark, Beats Fable 5
The evaluation tests AI coding agents on production-style React development, combining hidden behavioural tests with checks for performance, accessibility and code quality.
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Applied Computing Secures $20 Mn Funding Led by KBR to Expand AI Solutions for Energy Sector
The British AI startup will use the fresh capital to accelerate global expansion, deepen AI research and deploy its Orbital foundation model across energy operators.
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embedUR Spins Off ModelNova to Simplify Edge AI Deployments
The new company launches with nine semiconductor partners, an open-source model library and production-ready AI tools aimed at simplifying deployment on resource-constrained edge devices.
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Microsoft is reportedly training salespeople to talk down OpenAI and Anthropic
Microsoft appears to be prepping its sales team to get more competitive with the other major players in the AI industry. At an internal meeting on Tuesday, the company’s executives outlined a plan for salespeople to negatively compare AI products from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to its own, according to anew reportfrom Bloomberg. The meeting, billed as a strategy session for the new fiscal year, reportedly leaned heavily on pitching the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Microsoft’s in-house models against those of its rivals. “Everyone else is selling parts — we’re selling the full end-to-end system. That’s the story that we all need to get out there and tell in FY27,” Executive Vice President Jay Parikh reportedly told the room. Executive Vice President Jacob Andreou reportedly went further, delivering a presentation comparing Copilot directly to Anthropic’s chatbot Claude. According to Bloomberg, Andreou noted that, when it came to performance within Microsoft’s office apps, Anthropic’s model was “slower and less accurate, and lacked the proper security integrations,” Bloomberg writes. TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft and Anthropic for comment and will update this story if we hear from either outfit. A company coaching its sales team on how to trash-talk competitors isn’t particularly surprising. What’s more notable is who Microsoft is now targeting — the same companies it has long depended on for the AI models powering its own products. It’s just the latest move in that direction. Areportearlier this month found that Microsoft has been swapping OpenAI and Anthropic’s models out of flagship apps like Word and Excel in favor of its own — a cost-cutting move, according to that report. There was a time when Microsoft and OpenAI were attached at the hip. The two companies entered into a very unique agreement years ago that saw Microsoft provide capital and compute to OpenAI while allowing Microsoft to enjoy exclusive access to OpenAI’s API and models. The companiesamendedthe partnership in April, dropping the exclusivity clause and clearing OpenAI to sell to Microsoft’s competitors. That revised relationship may help explain the sales team’s new pitch. Microsoft has been battling aless-than-optimalstock outlook over the past year, as investors question the company’s massive spending on thebuildout of its AI business. Talking up how competitive those products actually are is likely an attempt to calm those waters and build confidence in Microsoft’s long-term AI plan.
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SpaceX falls to $135 IPO price ahead of Starship launch
SpaceX’s shares fell to just above $135 on Wednesday, the price that CEO Elon Musk and his company chose ahead of its blockbuster June 12 IPO that raked in nearly $86 billion. The company’s stock spent much of the day below that IPO price, at one point dipping beneath $133 per share, before it traded back up to finish at $135.27. The dip on Wednesday followed a steady decline in the month since the company went public. SpaceX initially saw its stock price rise to more than $200 in the days after it went public, briefly giving it a valuation that rivaled tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft. Its shares have lost value basically every week since reaching that high point. Some of the volatility is attributable to the fact that just 4% of the company’s total shares are trading on the Nasdaq. That small “float,” as it’s known, combined with an immense amount of constant attention on the company, has created wild swings during the first month of trading. The markets also appear to be sobering up on CEO Elon Musk’s grand vision for the company, part of a broader deflation in tech stocks over the last month. Not only has SpaceX’s stock traded down, but alsobonds the company soldin the wake of the IPO are suffering. A prolonged downturn for SpaceX could have wider effects because the company’s stock price is a sign of how investors view the (literal) otherworldly promises Musk has made about what his company can accomplish. SpaceX’s IPO has also set the table for other Big Tech companies like Anthropic and OpenAI to go public. Both of those companies have filed confidentially for an IPO. While neither has set a date to go public, SpaceX’s stock is being closely watched to gauge how successful those IPOs could be. SpaceX is about to face another early test of the durability of its stock price. On Thursday the company will test launch its Starship rocket for the first time since the IPO. Starship is still very much in development, which means it is prone to failures — the result of SpaceX’s “fly, fail, fix” approach. This will be the first Starship flight since it experienced a booster failure in May. And once again, the company does not plan to try to recover the Starship booster or upper stage on this flight, instead opting to have them simulate a landing in the Gulf of Mexico. That means both parts of the overall Starship rocket system will end in an explosion no matter what, even if they don’t run into any problems during the flight plan. This story has been updated to include the closing price.
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Amid hardware legal battle, OpenAI releases a $230 keyboard for Codex
OpenAI is officially entering the hardware market withthe launch of a$230 light-up keyboard designed to pair with its AI coding assistant, Codex. The Codex Micro, co-designed with specialty keyboard designer Work Louder, is being advertised as a fancy new way for ChatGPT users to manage their fleets of AI coding agents — the semi-autonomous bots that can write and execute code with little human input. The device comes equipped with light-up “Agent Keys” that show agent status, customizable Command Keys that act as shortcuts for frequent Codex actions, and a joystick for launching common workflows. It also has a dial that adjusts how much “reasoning” — essentially, how much time and computing power — an agent uses on a given task (agent reasoning level). The idea is that, instead of managing your agents through your phone or desktop app, you can now use the Micro as your “command center for agentic work,” as OpenAI puts it. It’ll also probably just look really cool sitting on your desk. The device is controllable and customizable via the ChatGPT desktop app. OpenAI told TechCrunch in an email that the Micro is a limited-run collaboration, signaling that it’s more of a novelty item than a product designed for mass appeal. It seems like a flashy bauble designed to herald the company’s entrance into the hardware market. The more consequential hardware news arrived Tuesday. A yet-to-be-released OpenAI device thatBloomberg revealedsounds like it is being designed for the long haul. It’s described as a portable, screenless smart speaker that integrates with ChatGPT and involves “mechanical elements that can move on their own.” At this juncture, it’s difficult to imagine how all of those disparate details — screenless, portable, moving parts — will come together into a coherent product (OpenAI isn’t saying). But it leaves an intriguing picture, to say the least. It also sounds like it’s not done yet. The Bloomberg report highlights that the item is still in development and subject to change. This new device is also reportedly being designed by former engineers from Apple — a company that is currently suing OpenAI for trade theft. That connection hasn’t gone unnoticed, least of all by Apple.Apple last week sued OpenAI, accusing the company’s senior leadership of a deliberate strategy to extract its confidential information; it alleges OpenAI used that information in developing its own hardware device. OpenAI has denied wrongdoing.
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Inside Ode with Anthropic, the startup betting AI services are the future of enterprise
Can a handful of engineers really do the work of an army of consultants? That’s the bet behind Ode with Anthropic — the joint venture dedicated to embedding forward-deployed engineers in enterprise firms, backed by Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others. On this episode of TechCrunch’sEquitypodcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Ode’s leadersChris TaylorandEddie Siegel,who founded Fractional AI, the applied AI services startup that Odeacquired earlier this yearto serve as the new venture’s core. The three discuss why so many enterprise AI pilots never make it to production and why they think AI-native services are about to become one of the biggest categories in tech. Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You also can follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.
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Apple Intelligence approved for launch in China with Alibaba’s Qwen AI
Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s generative AI offering, is coming to China. On Wednesday, Reutersreportedthat China’s regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, approved Apple’s AI services in the country, on the back of a deal to integrate Alibaba’s Qwen AI model into Apple’s operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. The deal, which wasrumored to be in the workslast year, marks an important step for Apple’s AI ambitions in a key market. In the second quarter, Apple sales in Greater Chinaincreased 28%to $20.5 billion. Apple also recentlyregained the No. 2 positionin China’s smartphone market after a recent shopping festival offered discounts on the iPhone lineup. Prior to working with Alibaba, Apple was reportedly exploring a deal with Baidu but faced issues adapting its models for Chinese customers. It also explored integrations with DeepSeek and with models from ByteDance, reports claimed. This led to delays in getting Apple Intelligence features, which debuted in 2024, to the Chinese market. Alibabaconfirmedthe company’s news to CNBC in a statement, saying that Qwen would be “integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences,” but did not provide a timeframe. It also said the integrations would involve AI capabilities like “text and image understanding and generation.” U.S. shares of Alibaba rose 4% in pre-market trading on news of the deal and are now up by over 6%, as of the time of publication.
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Microsoft patches record number of security vulnerabilities, citing its use of AI
Microsoft released a record number of security patches for Windows, Office, and other tech product lines this week, citing the use of AI to aid the discovery of code vulnerabilities. The technology and cloud giant issued patches for 570 security flaws on Tuesday as part of its monthly scheduled release of fixes, which security researchers have long dubbed “Patch Tuesday.” At least two of the vulnerabilities are classified aszero-days, meaning that they were exploited before Microsoft was made aware of them. Onebugaffecting Windows Server allows hackers to escalate their privileges from a limited user to a system administrator. Another bug affects the SharePoint file sharing server — the U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency CISA has warned hackers wereactively exploitingthe bug to compromise organizations. Krebs on Security firstreportedthe news. The huge patch update comes a week afterMicrosoft said in a blog postthat it expected its usual batch of monthly security patches to be far higher in number than before. The company cited its use of AI to help its employees uncover previously undiscovered security bugs in its software. “As AI helps defenders discover more issues, customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release,” said Windows boss Pavan Davuluri. As AI models become more advanced and focused on cybersecurity issues, security researchers are using them to uncover vulnerabilities that may have been dormant in software code for years, if not longer. Parts of Microsoft’s Windows code dates back decades.
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