Jeff Bezos Launches ‘Project Prometheus’ AI Startup for Manufacturing

Four years after stepping down as Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos is reportedly co-CEO of a new AI startup, Project Prometheus. The company will focus on developing artificial intelligence for engineering and manufacturing sectors and has allegedly secured a massive $6.2 billion in funding. Bezos will share the CEO role with tech executive Vik Bajaj. This new venture enters a highly competitive AI market, where substantial venture capital investments are being made in companies like OpenAI, raising questions about the long-term financial sustainability of the industry.

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Autonomous Driving Leaps Forward with New AI, Sensors, and Robotaxi Services

The autonomous vehicle industry is seeing rapid advancements across multiple fronts, from core AI technology to real-world service expansions.

  • Z Advanced Computing, Inc. (ZAC) has been recognized for its Cognitive Explainable-AI (CXAI), a technology that could enable Level-5 autonomous driving. This approach requires significantly less training data and computational power than traditional deep learning models.
  • Baidu’s Apollo Go and AutoGo have received one of the first permits for a fully driverless commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, with plans to deploy hundreds of vehicles by 2026.
  • Perrone Robotics’ autonomous electric shuttle service in Detroit, which utilizes Ford E-Transit vans, has been in continuous operation for over a year, making it the longest-running public autonomous shuttle program in the United States.
  • Waymo is pushing the boundaries of its robotaxi operations by expanding its services to include freeways for a select group of riders, a critical step in advancing self-driving capabilities.
  • Boston-based startup Teradar is developing solid-state terahertz sensors that promise improved vehicle perception in adverse weather conditions like rain, snow, and fog, potentially offering a more cost-effective solution than current radar and LiDAR systems.

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Xpeng Unveils ‘IRON’ Humanoid Robot with Ultra-Realistic Movements

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Xpeng has revealed a new humanoid robot named ‘IRON’. The robot’s movements are so realistic that the company demonstrated its inner workings to confirm it was not a person in a suit. ‘IRON’ features a flexible spine, articulated joints, and artificial muscles, enabling a remarkably humanlike gait. This development is a key part of Xpeng’s broader ‘physical AI’ initiative, which aims to integrate robotics, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence. The first ‘IRON’ models are expected to be deployed in commercial settings, such as Xpeng’s own stores and showrooms, in 2026.

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Citi Boosts Productivity with Generative AI Tools for 180,000 Employees

Citi has rolled out a suite of generative AI tools to its employees in the Philippines to enhance productivity and drive innovation. This initiative is part of the bank’s global strategy to integrate AI into its core operations. The new tools aim to empower employees by enabling faster, data-driven decisions and automating repetitive tasks. The deployed ‘Citi AI’ suite includes three main tools:

  • ‘Citi Stylus Workspaces’: A productivity tool for document summarization and comparison.
  • ‘Citi Assist’: A desktop assistant to help staff navigate internal systems.
  • ‘Citi Squad’: A tool for developers to automate non-coding tasks like code review.

Over 180,000 employees across 83 jurisdictions are now using these tools, which are governed by a strict framework to ensure responsible AI use and appropriate risk management.

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AlertD Launches Agentic AI Platform to Streamline DevOps and SRE

Startup AlertD has officially launched its agentic artificial intelligence platform designed for site reliability engineering (SRE) and DevOps teams. The tool aims to eliminate the toil and dashboard fatigue associated with legacy observability and log analysis. It provides highly contextual visibility within Amazon Web Services (AWS) environments through a conversational interface. Founded by industry veterans from Splunk and Cisco, AlertD’s platform uses a background process to continuously index a customer’s cloud environment. This allows its AI agents to understand all available data sources and metrics, sifting through telemetry overload to deliver meaningful, real-time context for engineers.

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Chinese Photonic Quantum Chip Achieves 1,000x Speed Breakthrough

A new photonic quantum chip developed in China by CHIPX and Turing Quantum reportedly offers a thousand-fold increase in the speed of complex calculations. The developers have also established a pilot production line with the capacity to produce 12,000 six-inch wafers annually. This development could enable the scaling of photonic hardware for critical applications in data centers, artificial intelligence, and quantum research. However, questions regarding the performance stability and error behavior of the new chip remain as research continues.

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Canonical Extends Ubuntu Linux LTS Support to 15 Years

Canonical has extended the support lifecycle for its Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) releases to a total of 15 years through the new Ubuntu Pro Legacy add-on. This extension builds upon the standard five years of free maintenance and the subsequent five years of Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) offered with Ubuntu Pro. The new 15-year support is aimed at enterprises in regulated sectors like banking, healthcare, and manufacturing, where system stability is critical and major upgrades can be disruptive. Starting with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, users can receive security fixes for critical, high, and key medium vulnerabilities for an extended period, a move designed to serve enterprise clients who require long-term infrastructure stability.