News reporting focused on AI and machine learning, covering the companies behind these technologies, their real-world applications, and the ethical concerns they raise. This includes areas like generative AI (large language models, text-to-image and video), speech tech, and predictive analytics.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. would examine open source models from China for signs of intellectual property theft, threatening sanctions against Chinese AI companies if IP theft is established. The statement comes as Chinese models gain capabilities and popularity, threatening American AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Google released three new AI models on Tuesday, including its most powerful Gemini 3.6 Flash and a cybersecurity-focused Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber. The move aims to compete with rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, which have advanced in cybersecurity AI. A third model, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, targets agent management tasks.
A new free Chinese AI model called Kimi from Moonshot has sparked a fierce debate among President Trump's AI advisers, with some calling for restrictions and others warning against self-defeating measures. Meanwhile, a federal judge approved Anthropic's record $1.5 billion copyright settlement, the largest known payout in history, though many authors remain unsatisfied.
Gritt, a startup founded by Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticists, exited stealth with $34 million in total funding to deploy AI-controlled robots for solar panel installation. The company uses off-the-shelf hardware and its own AI models to help construction crews install panels faster and more safely. It is contracted to help install 2.8 gigawatts of solar capacity over the next 18 months.
Xiaomi released Xiaomi-Robotics-1, an AI model for robots that improves with more training data. To build a large dataset, the team used handheld grippers instead of physical robots, collecting over 100,000 hours of motion recordings. Tests showed that adding data boosted performance far more than increasing model size, with success rates in unfamiliar environments rising from about 25 percent to 75 percent.
Sony Music Entertainment has filed a new lawsuit against AI music generator Udio, accusing it of infringing copyright on more than 30,000 songs. The list includes tracks from Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, and Harry Styles. Sony claims the songs were copied and ingested into Udio's generative AI models without permission.
Alphabet is developing a new server chip internally called Frozen v2, expected in 2028, to make its Gemini AI models up to 10 times more efficient than current Google AI chips. The chip aims to address AI computing shortages and reduce reliance on Nvidia, boosting investor confidence ahead of earnings.
Nativ is a new open source desktop app that lets users run frontier open AI models locally on Apple Silicon Macs. The app supports models from Google, Cohere, and Liquid AI, and offers chat, telemetry, and integrations with coding agents. It is MIT licensed and requires no accounts or subscriptions.
The release of Kimi, a free open-source model from Chinese company Moonshot, has sparked public infighting among current and former Trump administration AI advisors. The model's capabilities rival those of paid US models from OpenAI and Anthropic, creating economic and political tensions. Disagreements have emerged over whether the government should restrict open-source competition or let market forces decide.
Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model is reportedly close to matching top Western AI models, raising fresh doubts about U.S. export controls. The model's performance, achieved with limited computing power, has impressed researchers and sparked debate about the role of compute in AI capability. An OpenAI strategist warns against open-weight models, while experts note the model's high cost per task.
Kimi has released K3, a multimodal open-weight model with 2.8 trillion parameters and a one million token context window. In benchmarks, it approaches Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol but trails them slightly. Priced at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, K3 signals an end to ultra-cheap Chinese AI models, though it remains cheaper than top Western competitors.
Google announced an update to Google Vids that lets users create custom digital avatars from a selfie and voice recording. The company also brought its multi-modal AI model Gemini Omni to the platform, enabling video creation from text prompts and reference images, along with step-by-step editing. The updates position Vids as a broader video creation tool within Google Workspace, competing with startups like HeyGen and Synthesia.