Author: Art Ryan

China has developed and launched a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) system that connects directly to its national supercomputing network. This system is capable of conducting advanced scientific research independently. The initiative started on December 23, just a month after US President Donald Trump announced the Genesis Mission, which is an “AI Manhattan Project” intended to maintain US technological leadership. While the US plan is under strict deadlines that require proof of progress within 270 days, China has already rolled out its system across the country, serving over a thousand potential institutional users. The new AI agent can understand simple language…

Price.com launched “Buy with AI,” a feature that allows an AI agent to search for products, apply discounts, and complete purchases on the open internet without needing consumers to visit merchant websites. Instead of retailers and marketplaces controlling discovery and checkout through branded storefronts, AI agents are beginning to position themselves between buyers and sellers. They now determine what gets bought, where, and at what price. This change is significant because payment networks and retail platforms are racing to insert themselves within that agent layer. This signals a broader shift in who controls demand and transaction flow. Price.com Shows HowPrice.com’s…

Thousands of European banking sector workers could lose their jobs due to AI by 2030. Artificial intelligence (AI) and branch closures will drive this trend over the next five years. This may result in a 10% workforce reduction across the industry, according to a report from the Financial Times (FT) on Wednesday (Dec. 31), which cites a forecast from Morgan Stanley. The report states that the cuts are occurring as banks strive to save money with AI while moving more operations online. Most job losses will likely come from back-office and middle-office positions, along with roles in risk management and…

Nvidia is reportedly in talks to acquire Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) startup AI21 Labs. AI21 is one of the few startups in Israel developing a large-scale language model for artificial intelligence, according to Israeli tech publication Calcalist on Tuesday, December 30. The deal could be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion. This is an increase from AI21’s last known valuation of $1.4 billion, which was reached during a fundraising round in 2023. PYMNTS reached out to Nvidia for a comment but has not received a response yet. AI21 completed a $300 million fundraising round earlier this year, led by…

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup MiniMax aims to raise over $600 million in an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong. The company may begin accepting investor orders as early as Wednesday, December 31, for a listing in January, though the size and timing of the deal might change, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, December 30, citing unnamed sources. MiniMax did not comment on the report, according to Bloomberg. The company is one of several trying to be the first Chinese generative AI startup to go public. It plans to compete with U.S. leaders in the field, the report stated. Rival…

Caterpillar has long been known for construction equipment like bulldozers and dump trucks. But now, another part of the company’s business is driving sales: generators. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, December 30, Caterpillar’s power and energy business has become its fastest-growing sales unit due to a rise in data center projects for artificial intelligence (AI) use. The company expects this segment to boost annual sales growth by 5% to 7% through 2030, compared to an average of 4% in recent years. Caterpillar is also planning its largest factory spending in about 15 years to…

Ahead of CES 2026 next week in Las Vegas, several consumer electronics companies are showing off hardware products that use specific AI technologies. The devices include wearables, mixed-reality systems, home security tools, appliances, and robotics. Each relies on cameras, sensors, processors, and AI models to gather data from the physical world, analyze it locally, and trigger specific responses. Wearables and Headsets Rokid is previewing AI glasses that feature a first-person camera, microphones, a micro-display, and an internal computing unit, all designed to fit like regular glasses. According to the company’s CES preview, these glasses have entered mass production, moving past…

Microsoft’s CEO has reportedly made significant changes to strengthen the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) business. As the Financial Times (FT) reported Tuesday, December 30, these changes include a complete overhaul of Microsoft’s senior leadership. Satya Nadella aims to keep the company ahead in the AI race following the restructuring of its partnership with OpenAI. The chief executive is responding to increased competition in the AI field. He wants to speed up the development of Microsoft’s AI models, coding tools, and applications, according to more than half a dozen current and former Microsoft executives. “Satya is in ‘founder mode,’” said Dee…

Meta is acquiring the Singapore-based startup Manus to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) agent offerings. “Manus already meets the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide,” Meta stated in its announcement on Monday (Dec. 29). “It launched its first general AI agent earlier this year and has served more than 147 trillion tokens and created over 80 million virtual computers. We plan to expand this service to many more businesses.” While the companies did not disclose a price for the deal, a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says sources indicated Meta is paying more than $2…

Roblox is leaning heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) to solve one of the most complex operational challenges in digital platforms: moderating massive volumes of user-generated content in real time. The company says AI systems now form the backbone of how it keeps harmful text, voice and behavior from reaching its nearly 150 million daily users, many of whom are children. Unlike traditional social networks, Roblox operates as an interactive ecosystem where users create games, environments and social experiences. That structure generates billions of chat messages, voice interactions and in-game behaviors each day, making post-hoc enforcement impractical. Roblox says its moderation strategy has shifted toward real-time prevention, with AI models designed to intercept violations before content is distributed. Roblox reports…

Silicon Valley’s AI startups have raised a record $150 billion this year. As the Financial Times reported on Sunday, December 28, this is part of an effort by these companies to safeguard themselves in case the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) investment slows down next year. The report, which cites data from Pitchbook, shows that this year’s funding surpassed the previous record of $92 billion set in 2021. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have drawn significant interest from investors. Venture capitalists and industry experts informed the FT that this funding will support growth and provide a buffer in case of…

According to reports, the consumer technology conference CES this year will have a lot of items that use artificial intelligence (AI) as their main selling point. According to Bloomberg on Monday, December 29, exhibitors at the event from January 6 to 9, 2026, would probably try to show investors, business clients, and regular people how useful AI is. The report says that smart glasses are one type of AI-powered product that will probably be on exhibit at the expo. The article added that Meta would show off some new or better software features, Snap might let more people try on…

As part of a bigger tech alliance, Nvidia has bought $5 billion worth of Intel shares. Intel revealed the purchase of 214.7 million shares in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, December 29. This was the end of a deal that was first announced in September. Reuters reports that the purchase is a big help for Intel after years of mistakes and expensive expansions of its production capacity that drained its resources. The statement comes just a few days after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that authorities had given the green light to the proposed…

Startups are using new money to hardwire artificial intelligence (AI) into their business processes, from automating warehouse docks and evaluating cognitive performance to changing the way insurance companies underwrite policies. Logistics Intelligence Makes Dock Operations Work Kargo.ai, a business that automates warehouses, raised $42 million in a Series B financing to grow its AI-powered dock operations platform for enterprise customers throughout the world. The money shows that there is an increasing need for automation in logistics environments, where margins are getting tighter because of manpower constraints, high error rates, and a lack of real-time visibility. Kargo’s technology uses AI software…

Since the AI race sped up, we’ve seen some major expenditures in the field. SoftBank, a big Japanese multinational company with its main office in Tokyo, is one of the most well-known brands in these kinds of investments. Reports from earlier this month said that Soft Bank and NVIDIA are teaming up to put at least $15 billion into Skild AI, a business that creates foundation models for robots and already has a lot of money. DigitalBridge acquisition helps SoftBank’s AI strategy.SoftBank Group is once again in the news. This time, the Japanese multinational conglomerate has made a big step…

Artificial Intelligence has a lot of potential, and some AI companies are working hard to make the most of it. But when we talk about that in terms of an emotionally aware AI, the effects can be different and, to say the least, scary. If you’ve ever thought that there should be limits on how much AI can do, China may have just given you a good answer. The Chinese government has begun to set limits on emotionally intelligent AI. China wants to develop new rules that will stop AI chatbots from affecting people’s feelings.The draft rules say that AI…

Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, has agreed to acquire Intersect Power in a deal valued at $4.75 billion, underscoring how access to electricity — not algorithms — is rapidly becoming the defining constraint of the artificial intelligence era. The acquisition reflects a fundamental shift in how major technology companies are approaching AI expansion: moving beyond software and chips toward direct control of energy generation and data-center power supply. As AI models grow larger and more computationally intensive, Google’s leadership has made clear that traditional grid access alone is no longer sufficient to support long-term ambitions in generative AI,…

The explosive growth of artificial intelligence in 2025 delivered one of the largest single-year wealth transfers in modern financial history, dramatically increasing the fortunes of the world’s most powerful technology billionaires and reshaping the hierarchy of global wealth. According to multiple market and media reports, the combined net worth of leading U.S. tech billionaires surged by more than $500 billion in 2025, driven largely by soaring valuations of AI-focused companies, chipmakers, cloud infrastructure firms, and generative AI platforms. At the start of the year, the collective wealth of America’s top technology figures stood at roughly $1.9 trillion. By late December,…

NVIDIA will join the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission as a private industry partner to keep U.S. AI both the leader and the standard in technology around the world. The Genesis Mission, which is part of an Executive Order recently signed by President Trump, aims to redefine American leadership in AI across three key areas: energy, scientific research and national security. NVIDIA will offer its services to the Department to integrate a discovery platform that unites the U.S. government, industry and academia. DOE officials expect the Genesis Mission to double the productivity and impact of American science and engineering, and…

The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory — specifically long-term memory. This change is what Andre Fenton, professor of neural science at New York University, and Abhishek Kumar, assistant professor of cell and regenerative biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, are studying at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “My life’s work is to understand how minds operate, and especially to understand memory — not merely as a trace of the past in the brain but as an estimate of…