Category: Semafor

Austria, the Czech ​Republic, Germany, and Poland sweat through record temperatures on Sunday, as a European heat wave reignited a political debate over the continent’s preparedness for hotter summers. The World Health Organization said the heat has caused more than 1,300 excess deaths since June 21, as some places hit ...

Thousands of migrants are fleeing South Africa as the country braces for violence after an anti-immigrant group set a Tuesday deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave. The unrest began in mid-March but has intensified, leaving at least three dead as vigilantes armed with spears, clubs, and whips assaulted migrants ...

The AI spending spree risks an extended “investment bust” that could imperil the global economy, a report warned Sunday. The Bank for International Settlements, which advises the world’s central banks, wrote in its annual report that lackluster returns on AI investment from tech giants — which are pouring billions into ...

A small plane crash in China’s capital exposed major gaps in the country’s airspace controls, analysts said, as the government tried to limit public discussion of the incident. The aircraft flew into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper Friday, not far from the Chinese Communist Party’s headquarters and the homes of top leaders. ...

President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Russia is facing a “difficult period” as Ukraine expanded its long-range assaults on the country’s infrastructure. Kyiv struck a Russian defense plant and set fire to a major oil refinery as part of its efforts to weaken Moscow’s wartime economy. Russian fuel production has dropped, and ...

The Scoop The US government Friday lifted its block on Anthropic’s powerful Claude Mythos 5 AI model, allowing the company to release it to more than 100 US institutions, including major companies and government agencies. The decision, in a letter sent Friday afternoon to Anthropic, is a major de-escalation in ...

Qualcomm, the chipmaker supplying smartphones and wearable devices, said it plans to use the new chip technology it created for data centers in smartphones — ultimately allowing AI to run better on mobile devices, said Executive Vice President Durga Malladi in an interview. When Qualcomm announced its data-center chips this ...

Palo Alto-based law firm Cooley built a platform that intends to help startups make legal decisions without a lawyer. Users can ask it to analyze nondisclosure and contractor agreements, locate proper business forms, and ask legal questions about company documents. Built with legal AI startup Legora and trained on Cooley’s ...

The Scoop Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pursued a more active role in artificial intelligence policy earlier this year after financial institutions warned advanced models could leave critical infrastructure vulnerable — including the Federal Reserve payment rails that enable them to send money back and forth, people familiar with the talks ...

Since the ChatGPT moment nearly four years ago, the AI race has been viewed by many as a contest of model performance. Say what you will about OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, but he saw from the very beginning that compute infrastructure would become an important battlefront, and his ...