California Colleges Partner with Google & Microsoft for Free AI Training

California’s public university and community college systems are launching a major initiative with tech giants like Google and Microsoft to offer free artificial intelligence training to students. This partnership aims to address the evolving job market, equipping the future workforce with critical AI skills as automation impacts entry-level roles. Governor Gavin Newsom emphasized that the state’s public higher education system is the backbone of economic development. In exchange for providing free AI resources, the tech companies gain a direct channel to millions of potential new users. The program will also include AI training for instructors across California’s 116 community colleges, which serve over 2 million students, meeting the rising employer demand for AI proficiency in tech and non-tech sectors alike.

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Armenia Plans $500M AI Data Center with NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs

Armenia is in advanced discussions with Firebird to establish a landmark $500 million artificial intelligence data center. Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, Armenia’s Minister of High-Tech Industry, met with Firebird co-founder Alexander Yesayan to outline the project’s strategic and technical details. The proposed facility will be a technological powerhouse, featuring thousands of cutting-edge NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and an infrastructure capacity exceeding 100 megawatts. Key discussion points included site selection, infrastructure requirements, and securing a stable power supply. Minister Hayrapetyan highlighted the project’s potential to significantly bolster Armenia’s technological ecosystem, and both parties have agreed on concrete steps to accelerate the initiative.

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VinFast and Tensor to Build Level-4 Autonomous Robocar for Consumers

Vietnamese EV maker VinFast is partnering with U.S. AI firm Tensor to manufacture the Tensor Robocar, a level-4 autonomous vehicle aimed directly at the consumer market. In a departure from the industry norm of focusing on ride-hailing fleets, the Robocar is designed for private ownership. The entire production process—including stamping, welding, painting, and assembly—will be handled at VinFast’s state-of-the-art facility in Hai Phong, Vietnam. The vehicle’s advanced autonomous capabilities are powered by over 100 sensors, including 37 cameras, five LiDAR units, and 11 radars. A standout feature is its retractable steering wheel and pedals, which stow away during autonomous operation. The first deliveries are slated for the second half of 2026 in the U.S., Europe, and the UAE.

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Exterro has launched Exterro Intelligence, a new AI-powered platform specifically designed for the legal sector. This innovative solution leverages generative AI and intelligent workflows to streamline legal investigations, e-discovery, and document analysis. The platform is built to provide actionable insights for legal, compliance, and investigations teams, significantly accelerating the time-to-evidence. By automating complex tasks, Exterro Intelligence aims to improve the accuracy of document review and reduce the manual workload for legal professionals.

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Mindware Becomes Official VMware Distributor in Egypt to Boost Cloud Adoption

Mindware, a prominent value-added distributor in the MEA region, has been appointed an official distributor for VMware in Egypt. This strategic partnership will make VMware’s leading cloud infrastructure and virtualization solutions widely available in the Egyptian market, fueling the nation’s digital transformation. Mindware will provide VMware’s full portfolio, encompassing cloud infrastructure, application modernization, networking, security, and digital workspace tools. This expands Mindware’s existing VMware distribution network, which already includes Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. The timing is critical, as Egypt’s cloud computing expenditure is projected to exceed $800 million by 2027, signaling strong demand for robust digital infrastructure.

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GitLab Launches Duo Agent in Public Beta for Agent-Orchestrated DevSecOps

GitLab has released its Duo Agent platform into public beta. This new offering is engineered to deliver agent-orchestrated DevSecOps, seamlessly integrating security practices throughout the entire software development lifecycle.

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ORNL Creates Blueprint to Integrate Quantum Computing with HPC Systems

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a software architecture blueprint for integrating quantum computers with traditional high-performance computing (HPC) systems. This innovative, hardware-agnostic framework is designed to be flexible and adaptable as quantum technologies mature. The architecture features a unified resource management system, a versatile quantum programming interface, and a quantum platform management interface to streamline the integration of diverse quantum hardware. A central quantum controller will translate between classical and quantum computations, aiming to unlock unprecedented computational power by combining the strengths of both paradigms—much like the performance leap gained from integrating CPUs and GPUs. This could accelerate scientific breakthroughs in fields like materials science and climate modeling.

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Japanese Researchers Find ‘Heavy Fermions’ Key to New Quantum Computers

A research team in Japan has made a significant discovery involving “heavy fermions”—electrons that behave as if they have a substantially increased mass. They found that these particles exhibit quantum entanglement governed by Planckian time, the smallest theoretical unit of time. This breakthrough opens a new avenue for harnessing quantum effects within solid-state materials, potentially paving the way for a new generation of quantum computers. The study, led by Dr. Shin-ichi Kimura of The University of Osaka, provides the first direct observation of the relationship between quantum entanglement and the unique behavior of heavy fermions.

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DavMail 6.4 Released with Experimental Microsoft Graph API Support

DavMail 6.4, the latest version of the popular open-source Exchange and Office 365 gateway, is now available. This release introduces an experimental Microsoft Graph backend, a crucial step toward supporting Microsoft’s modern APIs. The update also fixes a long-standing issue with shared mailbox synchronization in IMAP and re-enables JCIFS NTLM support via a new setting. Additionally, the logging framework has been fully updated from Log4j to Reload4j. DavMail enables users to connect standard clients like Thunderbird to Microsoft Exchange. Version 6.4 also includes better handling of Office 365 tokens and improved error messaging.

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Pogocache 1.0: A New Low-Latency, Open-Source Caching Solution

Pogocache, a new open-source caching software, has officially launched its 1.0 general availability release. Written in C for maximum performance, Pogocache is designed for low latency and high CPU efficiency. It operates as a server-based program and supports multiple wire protocols, including Memcache, Valkey/Redis, HTTP, and PostgreSQL, allowing developers to use their existing client libraries. The project claims superior throughput and lower latency compared to established alternatives like Redis and Memcache, thanks to its sharded hash map and optimized threading model. Future plans include domain-specific integrations and enterprise features like distributed routing. Pogocache is licensed under AGPLv3.

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