Author: Art Ryan

As impressive as artificial intelligence (AI) in all its forms can be, its effectiveness still depends on one essential factor: the quality and governance of the data that powers it. For financial institutions that sit atop vast reservoirs of information, this connection between data and decision-making is creating both opportunity and pressure to evolve. That evolution is the focus of Snowflake Intelligence, the new enterprise AI agent designed by Snowflake to bridge the gap between the raw material of data and the intelligence that drives outcomes. The launch marks what Snowflake is positioning as a shift from data warehousing to decision intelligence…

Dubai, UAE: The inaugural edition of CARE (Climate Action, Renewable Energy & Sustainability) forum series by Trescon, is set to become the MENA region’s most influential platform for sustainability investment and climate innovation. The forum will unite regional and global leaders driving the Middle East’s clean energy transition. Co-located with DATE, a Digitization, AI & Emerging Tech Summit, CARE MENA will take place on 26-27 November at the iconic Madinat Jumeirah. “With the GCC committing billions to renewable infrastructure, CARE MENA offers a unique, action-oriented platform where capital meets climate ambition,” said Naveen Bharadwaj, Group CEO, Trescon. He continued, “From…

Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) hosted its first AI Hackathon – a collaborative, interdisciplinary event that brought together medical students from WCM-Q with computer science students from Cornell and Cornell Tech to develop AI-driven solutions for pressing clinical challenges. The Oct. 10-11 event, “MedAI Hack Collaborative: Unlocking Precision Health with AI,” was co-sponsored by Dr. Javaid Sheikh, dean of WCM-Q; and Dr. Curtis Cole, Cornell’s global chief information officer. The hackathon marked a milestone in WCM-Q’s mission to champion innovation at the intersection of medicine, data science and technology. Six interdisciplinary teams took part, merging the clinical knowledge of WCM-Q students with…

In search of an AI that keeps things private, Apple is reportedly planning to pay Google to provide a kind of white-label version of Google Gemini AI that will run securely on Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute servers. Weekend reports explained a little about how this is meant to work: AI- as-a-service The basic premise here seems to be that pending introduction of its own proprietary search tools; Apple will make use of Gemini. Further, because privacy is extremely important to Apple, the company will use a version of Gemini hosted on its own Apple servers. This isn’t the first AI partnership…

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Verizon Business today announced a new Verizon AI Connect deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide the resilient high-capacity, low-latency network infrastructure essential for the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. As part of the deal, Verizon will build new, long-haul, high-capacity fiber pathways to connect AWS data center locations. This will enable AWS to continue to deliver and scale its secure, reliable, and high-performance cloud services for customers building and deploying advanced AI applications at scale. These new fiber segments mark a significant commitment in Verizon’s network buildout, to enable the AI ecosystem to intelligently deliver the…

Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to secure more compute capacity for meeting its customers’ heavy demand for AI services. On Monday, the Redmond-based tech giant signed a $9.7 billion, five-year contract with Australia’s IREN to secure further AI cloud capacity. The deal will give Microsoft access to compute infrastructure built with Nvidia’s GB300 GPUs, which will be deployed over phases through 2026 at IREN’s facility in Childress, Texas, planned to support 750 megawatts of capacity. IREN said it is separately buying GPUs and equipment from Dell for about $5.8 billion. The deal comes after Microsoft last…

Microsoft will invest $15.2 billion in the United Arab Emirates over the next four years, the company announced Monday at the first annual Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit. The investment will include the first-ever shipments of the most advanced Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. As part of the deal, the U.S. has granted Microsoft a license to export Nvidia chips to the UAE, a move that positions the country as both a proving ground for U.S. export-control diplomacy and a regional anchor of American AI influence. The deal allows Microsoft to expand its foothold into the Middle East, a key region in the global fight…

OpenAI isn’t done securing the AI infrastructure it needs to rapidly scale agentic workloads. The ChatGPT-maker on Monday said it has reached a deal with Amazon to buy $38 billion in cloud computing services over the next seven years. OpenAI said it will immediately start using AWS compute, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, with the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond. The deal follows OpenAI’s restructuring last week, which freed the company from having to secure Microsoft’s approval to buy computing services from other firms. OpenAI’s deal with Amazon is part of its…

After training over five million learners worldwide, Be10x is launching its flagship no-coding AI workshop for United States professionals — a live, 4-hour hands-on session built to turn busy managers, analysts, and creators into confident AI power users. Rated 4.9/5 by 5M+ professionals, Be10x has earned its reputation for practical, results-first learning — not hype. This United States launch is designed to help participants apply AI to real work within hours, not weeks. What is Be10x? Be10x is an ed-tech platform focused on helping professionals become 10x more valuable with AI—without writing code. Its workshops teach participants to prompt better, analyze data faster, produce persuasive content, and…

Radar has long been used across the world to detect severe weather, airplanes, and other objects. But a collaboration between Polar Bears International and Spotter Global has developed a unique radar system in the Arctic. They call it “Bear-dar.” The innovation is only one of several high tech operations looking for new ways to protect polar bears, as climate change threatens the survival of the species. Polar bears depend on sea ice to hunt seals, their natural prey. As summers have grown longer in the Arctic, the polar bears have to wait longer and risk running low on fat reserves…

President Sheikh Mohamed has witnessed the exchange of an agreement between the UAE and the US to accelerate collaboration in energy and artificial intelligence. Under the agreement, the UAE and the US will work together on increasing advanced industrial capabilities and adopting smart manufacturing technologies. It covers the use of AI in robotics and automation, alongside efforts to promote sharing of knowledge and capacity building. The agreement was signed in the presence of the UAE President by Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, managing director and group chief executive of Adnoc, and executive chairman of XRG,…

In the midst of an unprecedented AI buildout, Meta is spending more than most. The company is building two massive data centers, and reporting indicates there will be as much as $600 billion in spending on U.S. infrastructure over the next three years. Those figures might not raise eyebrows in Silicon Valley, but they’re starting to make Wall Street nervous. The issue came to a head this week as Meta reported quarterly earnings, which showed the company’s operating expenses jumping $7 billion year-over-year and nearly $20 billion in capital expense. It was the result of intense spending on AI talent and infrastructure, which…

Google says it has removed Gemma from its AI Studio after a U.S. senator accused the AI model of fabricating accusations of sexual misconduct against her. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Senator Marsha Blackburn — a Republican from Tennessee — said that when Gemma was asked, “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?” it responded by falsely claiming that during a 1987 state senate campaign, a state trooper alleged that Blackburn “pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts.” “None of this is true, not even the campaign year which was actually…

TranscendAP said Thursday (Oct. 30) that it secured venture funding to accelerate the growth of its artificial intelligence-driven accounts payable automation software. The firm’s funding round was led by Rittenhouse Ventures and Tech Council Ventures, the company said in a press release. It did not disclose the amount of funding. Its platform helps enterprise AP teams reduce manual processing, improve visibility and lower invoice processing costs by delivering intelligent data capture, workflow automation and exception handling capabilities, according to the release. The platform was launched in 2018 and is now used by enterprise organizations in a range of sectors, including healthcare, higher education and manufacturing,…

Agentic AI is reshaping how patents are searched, written and understood, marking what IPWatchdog calls a “new paradigm” for innovation. The emerging technology is moving patent work from single-query search toward multi-step, goal-driven investigation, raising new questions about how invention is defined and who deserves credit. The latest example is Perplexity Patents, a platform that uses autonomous research agents to conduct patent searches and interpret results. The company said the tool allows users to ask natural-language questions such as “What are the latest patents in AI-powered healthcare?” and returns not just documents but summaries, citations and follow-up queries. By linking terms like “activity…

As tech companies tout their plans for massive new data centers, consumers are increasingly worried the AI-driven gold rush will ultimately drive up the price they pay for electricity, according to a new survey. The report, commissioned by solar installer Sunrun, found that 80% of consumers are worried about the impact of data centers on their utility bills. Consumers’ concerns aren’t unfounded. Electricity demand in the United States held steady for over a decade, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Over the last five years, commercial users including data centers and industrial users began drinking more deeply from the grid, with…

Adam, one of the most viral startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch, has raised a $4.1 million seed round to power its next steps, TechCrunch learned exclusively. After generating over 10 million social media impressions with the launch of its text-to-3D model app, the AI startup had its pick of investors. “We were getting term sheets over email without any meetings,” said CEO Zach Dive (on the right in the picture above). Adam quickly went with TQ Ventures as its lead investor because they agreed on the future of computer-aided design (CAD). Just as importantly, they also agreed on Adam’s roadmap…

Walmart has launched several new artificial intelligence (AI) tools designed to help customers with their holiday shopping. The tools are now available on the retailer’s app and website, according to a Friday (Oct. 31) press release. The Walmart app now includes an In-Store Savings feature that displays all the items that are on sale at a specified location; an enhanced search feature for in-store use that shows whether an item is in stock and where it is located; and a feature that allows users to create a shopping list and then sorts those items by the aisle in which they are located. The retailer’s Gen…

 Visual search-and-discovery platform Pinterest is turning inspiration into action. The company on Thursday (Oct. 30) introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) shopping assistant and upgraded its boards with generative technology that personalizes recommendations and surfaces shoppable products in real time. From Inspiration to Discovery The new Pinterest Assistant uses AI to help users find products and ideas that match their tastes, expanding the platform’s long-standing focus on inspiration into one centered on action. The company said the update is designed to make Pinterest “a more actionable destination,” unifying search, personalization and shopping within a single experience. Complementing the Assistant, Pinterest also announced AI-powered upgrades to its…

Earnings season has illuminated in real time how artificial intelligence (AI) has been making steady inroads into how companies plan, operate and serve customers. The opportunity remains vast, but as PYMNTS Intelligence research has discovered, firms across industries are learning that the power of AI depends on how well they align it with measurable business outcomes. The greenfield opportunity is immense, yet strategies diverge depending on whether firms sell goods, provide services or power the technology behind both. The next phase, agentic AI, moves beyond analysis to autonomous execution, but much depends on the relationships struck with outside vendors. Different…