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Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion
Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, bringing one of the most popular open-source AI model hosting platforms under the ownership of the world's biggest AI chipmaker. Hugging Face hosts over 3 million models and is used by over 18 million developers globally. The deal targets platform growth and infrastructure investment, aiming to expand AI access for enterprise developers, researchers, and software engineers.
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Crusoe reportedly raises $3B at a $30B valuation
AI data center developer Crusoe has reportedly raised $3 billion at a $30 billion valuation. The funding round came together after the company reportedly secured a $13 billion contract with Jane Street, signaling strong institutional demand for AI infrastructure.
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Accel reportedly in talks to lead $1B round for Thinking Machines at $40B valuation
Accel is reportedly in talks to lead a $1 billion funding round for Thinking Machines, valuing the high-profile AI startup at $40 billion. The company's annual revenue run rate has surpassed $100 million, underlining rapid commercial traction.
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OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, calling it a step into 'the AGI era'
OpenAI has released its next major model, GPT-6 Astra, describing it as a 'generational leap in capability' across areas including cybersecurity, software engineering, science, and computer use. It is the first OpenAI model to meet the company's 'critical cybersecurity capability threshold,' raising both excitement and controversy. OpenAI claims Astra represents a new frontier in computer and browser use, delivering unmatched speed, accuracy, and safety.
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ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude all went down at the same time
OpenAI's ChatGPT, xAI's Grok, and Anthropic's Claude simultaneously experienced outages on Thursday, beginning around 11AM ET. ChatGPT returned error messages and reported 'elevated errors across ChatGPT and Codex' on its status page. All three services have since come back online.
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Nvidia launches PAIR, a free tool linking idle home computers for local AI inference
Nvidia has announced the Personal AI Router (PAIR), a free, open-source software tool that connects multiple home computers to collaborate on local AI inference tasks using tools like Ollama and LM Studio. Despite its name, PAIR is not a hardware router but a software layer designed to maximize the use of idle computing resources for running local large language models.
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Google rolls out AI voice modes for Gmail, Docs, and Keep
Google is introducing AI-powered live voice assistant modes for Gmail, Docs, and Keep, allowing users to manage these apps through real-time conversation. The features — Gmail Live, Docs Live, and Keep Live — mirror the Gemini Live experience and aim to make everyday tasks like note-taking and email management more intuitive.
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Ollie bets on privacy to win the AI assistant market
Ollie is a family-focused AI assistant that seeks access to details of users' everyday lives while promising not to use that data to train AI models or share it with third parties. The startup believes its privacy-first approach can differentiate it in an increasingly crowded AI assistant market.
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OneRail uses Nvidia AI for real-time last-mile delivery optimisation
OneRail has launched OmniSTAR, an AI-powered delivery platform built on Nvidia technology that helps retailers and distributors select the most cost-effective delivery option for each order in real time. The system evaluates owned fleets, couriers, parcel carriers, and other delivery modes to find the lowest-cost option that meets required service levels.
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Google's WeatherNext 3 AI model improves rainfall and snowfall prediction
Google has released WeatherNext 3, an updated AI weather model offering more accurate forecasts with unprecedented global resolution, particularly for rain and snowfall. The model will feed into weather information shown in Google Search, Google Maps, and Gemini. WeatherNext 3 represents the latest advance in a broader shift toward deep learning-based meteorology.
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The sameness problem behind AI-generated restaurant menus
Restaurant owners are turning to generative AI to quickly redesign their menus, but customers can intuitively sense that something feels off about AI-generated food imagery and descriptions. The article explores the underlying 'sameness problem' — a homogenization of aesthetics and language that makes AI-generated content feel unappetizing and inauthentic.
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Abliteration.ai is making a business out of removing AI guardrails
Abliteration.AI is commercializing the removal of safety guardrails from powerful AI models, arguing that giving defenders the same unconstrained tools as bad actors could ultimately improve cybersecurity. The startup positions itself as serving legitimate security research and red-teaming use cases.
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Meta pays users to share prompts and outputs from its new Muse Spark model
For its new Muse Spark model — aimed at coding and agentic tasks — Meta is offering an approximately 95% discount to users who agree to share their prompts and model outputs for future model development. The program raises questions about data privacy and the trade-offs users make when opting into subsidized AI access.
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