DeepMind parts ways with core AI leadership as top scientist departs to start Discovery Loop; labs push ahead amid viral-genome AI biotech work and expanding safety policy debates.
Demis Hassabis has stepped back from daily management to become Alphabet’s chief scientist and Google DeepMind chair, while Koray Kavukcuoglu leads day-to-day DeepMind. Jeff Dean and others depart to launch Discovery Loop as Google races to maintain momentum in AI amid fierce competition.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has joined President Trumps delegation to China and has been pictured in Beijing; the trip has been focusing on trade, AI export controls and Iran. China has not approved any purchases of Nvidias H200 chips and is continuing to push domestic chip development while U.S. export controls remain in place.
A coalition of U.S. state attorneys general has subpoenaed OpenAI for internal documents on advertising, user engagement, handling of health and consumer data, and protections for minors and seniors. OpenAI has said it will "engage constructively," highlighted new safeguards in ChatGPT and is cooperating with investigators while facing related lawsuits and regulatory pressure.
Three articles report on cutting-edge biotech and AI-driven medicine: base editing in embryos stirs debate over cures and designer babies; Google-backed AI seeks clinical trust; Life Biosciences tests cellular reprogramming in humans to combat aging and glaucoma.
Tech CEOs including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and DeepMind's Demis Hassabis have met with G7 leaders at a closed lunch in Évian to press the U.S. to lead an international coalition on frontier-AI rules and structured access. The meeting has followed U.S. export controls that forced Anthropic to cut global access to its newest models.
Major tech firms have announced widespread workforce reductions while reporting record AI spending and rising head counts at heavy AI adopters. Oracle, Microsoft, Meta and others have cut roles and cited AI-driven change even as studies from Ramp/Revelio, SignalFire and Draup show engineering hires and entry-level roles growing at AI‑intensive firms and job listings shifting toward judgment and AI-tool fluency.
Microsoft has announced 4,800 job cuts companywide, including 3,200 roles in Xbox during fiscal 2027 and 1,600 Xbox positions eliminated immediately. Xbox will spin out or divest five studios and reduce management layers as it restructures to strengthen margins while shifting resources toward AI and core franchises. The move has reduced Xbox headcount by about 20%.
Northwestern University researchers find that TikTok’s recommendation engine responds to negative feedback but gradually reverts if users repeatedly flag content; a finding based on cloned accounts and controlled signals shows the “not interested” button reduces unwanted content by about 84%, but the effect fades with brief re-engagement.
A Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based startup, Aina, has announced a $5.5 million round led by Redstart Labs and 360 ONE to develop context-aware AI interfaces. Its first product, Dune, is a macro keypad that controls mic and camera, with two other devices—Radiance and Shift—testing new ways to automate workflows. The funding signals growing investor interest in AI hardware that pairs with software agents.
Experts from MIT and the University of Queensland have evaluated 24 AI risks and assigned probabilities to catastrophic outcomes by 2030. Five risks stand out for higher likelihood, including dangerous AI capabilities, cyber-enabled mass harm, unequal benefit distribution, competitive dynamics, and misinformation. Mitigations could reduce severity, but chances remain above 10%.
Researchers have used genome-language AI to design whole bacteriophage genomes and synthesize 16 viable viruses that kill bacteria. The work, published in Science, shows AI can generate functional viral genomes but raises urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions. Experts caution governance did not keep pace with this capability.