Google is investing $40 billion to build new data centers in Texas through 2027. Google describes the project as focused on “new cloud and AI infrastructure, including new data center campuses in Armstrong and Haskell Counties,” emphasizing their energy efficiency. The investment includes the creation of a $30 million Google-backed Energy Impact Fund, and one of the Haskell County facilities will be built housed adjacent to a new solar and battery storage plant. At a Dallas-area launch event announcing the project, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the initiative will create thousands of new jobs. Continue reading Google Commits $40 Billion for New AI Data Centers in Texas

San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic, founded in 2021, announced plans to invest $50 billion in U.S. computing infrastructure, starting with the creation of data centers with Fluidstack in Texas and New York (with additional plans for future sites). Fluidstack builds and operates high-performance GPU clusters for researchers and AI teams. The new project with Anthropic is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and about 2,400 construction jobs. Sites are scheduled to come online throughout next year. “These facilities are custom built for Anthropic with a focus on maximizing efficiency for our workloads, enabling continued research and development at the frontier,” according to Anthropic. Continue reading Anthropic Plans to Invest $50 Billion in AI Data Centers in U.S.

SoftBank has cashed out of Nvidia, liquidating its stock holdings for $5.83 billion that it will reportedly use to fund what CNBC describes as “its ‘all in’ bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.” The sell-off was disclosed in SoftBank’s most recent earnings statement, which indicated 32.1 million Nvidia shares were sold in October. The Japanese conglomerate also said it sold part of its T-Mobile holdings for $9.17 billion. “Through those options and tools we make sure that we are ready for funding in a very safe manner,” SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said at an investor presentation. SoftBank announced a four-to-one stock split yesterday, while Nvidia shares were down 1.7 percent on the sell-off news. Continue reading SoftBank Sells Off Nvidia Shares to Pursue OpenAI, Robotics

Sony AI has introduced the Fair Human-Centric Image Benchmark (FHIBE, pronounced “Fee-bee”), a new global benchmark for fairness evaluation in computer vision models. FHIBE addresses the industry challenge of identifying biased and ethically compromised training data for AI, aiming to trigger “industry-wide improvements for responsible and ethical protocols throughout the entire life span of data — from sourcing and management to utilization — including fair compensation for participants and clear consent mechanisms,” Sony AI says. The FHIBE dataset is publicly available now, following publication in the science journal Nature. Continue reading Sony Debuts Benchmark for Measuring Computer Vision Bias

Microsoft has laid out an ambitious plan to develop its own AI superintelligence as it moves to separate its artificial intelligence plans from those of OpenAI, the startup it has financed to the tune of $13 billion, an investment valued at $135 billion following OpenAI’s restructuring as a for-profit public benefit company structure. Microsoft has reorganized to concentrate internal AI efforts under a unit called the MAI Superintelligence Team led by group CEO Mustafa Suleyman. MAI will work towards “Humanist Superintelligence (HSI): incredibly advanced AI capabilities that always work for, in service of, people and humanity more generally,” Suleyman says. Continue reading Microsoft Pursues AI Superintelligence Separate from OpenAI

Increased demand for cloud computing and AI services has propelled revenue growth of 18 percent to $77.7 billion for Microsoft for its fiscal Q1, ending September 30. Net income was $27.7 billion for the quarter, an increase of 12 percent year-over-year. “Our planet-scale cloud and AI factory, together with Copilots across high value domains, is driving broad diffusion and real-world impact,” said Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, noting “It’s why we continue to increase our investments in AI across both capital and talent to meet the massive opportunity ahead.” The news coincides with OpenAI’s next steps in becoming a for-profit company and an update in Microsoft’s stake in the AI startup. Continue reading Microsoft Market Cap Passes $4 Trillion Propelled by OpenAI

Meta Platforms shares fell by more than 7 percent despite record revenue of $51.2 billion in an adverse reaction to accelerated AI spending. Sales were up 26 percent year-over-year, but net income of $2.7 billion was far below analysts’ expectations. The company attributed the net income miss to accounting changes resulting from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act even as it advised analysts of “aggressive” capital expenditure increases to come. Meta’s 2025 capital expenditure forecast grew from the existing estimate of $66 billion to $72 billion. Most of that will be spent on data centers and researchers, Meta said, indicating 2026 capex would be “notably larger” and could reach as high as $100 billion. Continue reading Meta Reports Sales Increase, Record Revenue of $51.2 Billion

Meta Platforms is adding new safety features to provide parents more control as to how children — most pointedly teens — interact with AI chatbots and characters. The move follows the September launch of an FTC investigation of Meta and five other companies on the potentially harmful effects of their AI on children and teens. Meta’s new guardrails will allow parents to turn off one-on-one chats with AI characters completely or just block specific characters. They’ll also be able to glean insight into topics their underage household members are discussing with AI, including Meta’s own AI assistant. Continue reading Meta Bolsters Parental Controls for AI in Wake of FTC Inquiry

OpenAI has expanded its alliance with Broadcom, announcing a plan to create enough custom AI accelerator chips to consume 10 gigawatts of power. News of the custom chip collaboration leaked out last month. Now that it is ready to go public, OpenAI says designing its own chips and systems will allow the startup to leverage directly into the hardware what it has learned from developing frontier models. The racks, scaled entirely with Ethernet and other connectivity solutions from Broadcom, will be deployed across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers beginning in the second half of 2026. Continue reading OpenAI & Broadcom Developing Custom AI Accelerator Chips

Anthropic and IBM have formed a strategic alliance that will see Anthropic’s Claude models integrated into select IBM software products, the first of which is a new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE) called Project Bob, now in private preview, which aims to help enterprise clients do things like modernize software. At its TechXchange 2025 conference in Orlando, IBM also debuted a new capability for AgentOps. The AgentOps practices unveiled at IBM Think in May was showcased here as a real-time governance and observability integration to help ensure autonomous agents don’t run amok. Continue reading IBM Previews Its Project Bob IDE, Intros Real-Time AgentOps

Meta Platforms has updated its Facebook recommendation algorithm to boost Reels use, adding a topic search filter as well as prioritizing same-day content, with a 50 percent increase in pushing Reels videos posted within 24-hours of user scrolls. In July, Meta said time spent watching videos on Facebook in the United States had expanded more than 20 percent year-over-year, and the company wants to continue boosting that number. Taking a page from the TikTok playbook, Facebook is adding topic search links to Reels displays to help users find material of interest. Facebook is also trying to accommodate user pushback against AI slop by urging use of a “Not Interested” button. Continue reading Meta Updates Recommendation Algorithm for Facebook Reels

More than 20 researchers have exited jobs at Meta Platforms, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other leading AI enterprises in recent weeks to join a Silicon Valley startup called Periodic Labs whose main goal is “to accelerate science,” focusing on areas including physics and chemistry. The venture has secured more than $300 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and started work at a makeshift facility in San Francisco as it lays groundwork for a dedicated Menlo Park facility where “physical robots” will run scientific experiments on a very large scale. Continue reading AI Startup Periodic Labs Raises $300M for Scientific Research

Meta Platforms is launching new AI features including Business AI, a new sales concierge service that aims to guide customers “from discovery to purchase” with AI-powered messaging agents appearing on Meta ads, threads and your company’s website. Meta is launching the Meta AI business assistant, an AI chat experience that will help optimize campaign targeting and resolve account issues, via Ads Manager and Business Support Home. There are also new generative video tools and expanded access to Meta’s creator discovery APIs to matchmake businesses with influencers and other grassroots partners. The news was shared as marketers convene for Advertising Week New York. Continue reading Meta Boosts AI Ad Tools: Adds Brand Chatbots, Creator APIs

Adobe is bringing a free “pro quality” version of Premiere to iPhone, so YouTubers, filmmakers, music video editors, commercial producers and other creators can edit video on the fly. While tools like ByteDance’s CapCut and Meta’s Edits have become popular for mobile, Adobe’s move marks a major productivity step for those aspiring to more than social video, particularly through integration with the entire Adobe tools ecosystem. The Adobe Premiere mobile app features what Adobe promises are “studio-quality audio enhancements, perfectly timed AI sound effects, precision editing on a multi-track timeline, AI content generation and more.” Continue reading Adobe’s Pro Quality Premiere Video Editor Is Free for iPhones

Meta Platforms is rolling out Vibes, a short-form AI video generator now in early preview. Using Meta AI, Vibes allows the visually adventurous to create videos from their own ideas or remix existing ones by adding music or changing the style to make it your own. Vibes has its own feed featuring “a range of AI-generated videos from creators and communities.” As you use it, “the feed will become more personalized over time,” according to Meta. Vibes videos can also be cross-posted to Instagram and Facebook Stories and Reels or shared with friends via DM. Vibes is available on the Meta AI app and the Web at Meta.ai. Continue reading Meta Previews Its Vibes AI Video Generator for Social Sharing