The AI boom has a problem no amount of capital can solve on its own: there are not enough electricians, welders, and pipefitters to build it. Google’s answer is to pay to train them. Its philanthropic arm, Google.org, said it is committing $50M to prepare more than 300,000 skilled-trade workers across over 20 US states, […]

The US-backed plan to build an AI and supply-chain hub in the Philippines now has a number attached: about $10bn in initial investment, with more to follow, according to the official leading the Philippine side. It also has a striking term on the table, a lease to the United States of up to 99 years. […]

Mercedes-Benz is leaning deeper into defence. The carmaker has signed a memorandum of understanding with TYTAN Technologies, a Munich counter-drone startup, to develop vehicle-based systems that detect and shoot down hostile drones, built on its G-Class SUV and Sprinter van. Mercedes calls the defence sector “a strategic growth field”. The deal, signed at the ILA […]

A German startup wants to rebuild online commerce for shoppers who are not human. ShopAgentic has raised a €1.9mn pre-seed to do it. May Ventures and Greenfield Capital co-led the oversubscribed round. What ShopAgentic is building ShopAgentic calls itself a “native agentic commerce system”. It runs a squad of specialised AI agents, each owning one […]

The backlash against AI data centres has reached a new stage: a class-action lawsuit. Residents of Mississippi have sued Elon Musk’s xAI and SpaceX, claiming a gas-fired power plant that feeds nearby data centres blasts “omnipresent and inescapable” noise that has eroded their health and home values. The case, made public in federal court in […]

OpenAI is wiring a payment network into ChatGPT. Under an expanded partnership announced at the Visa Payments Forum on Wednesday, AI agents inside OpenAI’s products will be able to shop and pay on a user’s behalf at, in principle, any of the more than 175 million merchant locations that accept Visa, once the user grants […]

South Korea’s privacy watchdog has slapped e-commerce giant Coupang with a record-breaking 624.7 billion won ($409 million) fine, the largest data breach penalty in the country’s history. The ruling, handed down today by the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), dwarfs the previous record of 134.8 billion won imposed on telecoms firm SK Telecom last year. The […]

In the past fortnight, the two most powerful AI labs on the planet have published research papers, blog posts, and policy proposals warning that frontier artificial intelligence is advancing faster than anyone can control it. In the very same stretch, both filed confidential paperwork to go public. The tension is hard to miss. OpenAI and […]

Satispay, the Milan-based mobile payments company that became Italy’s second unicorn in 2022, is reportedly planning to raise up to €120 million ($139 million) in fresh funding. The round would fuel the fintech’s expansion beyond payments into stock and ETF trading, savings, investments, and pensions. Existing investors are set to vote on the round on […]

China’s Workers’ Daily, the official mouthpiece of the country’s umbrella trade union, has published a pointed editorial urging government agencies to protect labour rights as artificial intelligence spreads across the economy. The newspaper, which is published by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, titled the piece: “With the AI wave surging, how can we build […]