Artificial Intelligence

AI Infrastructure: OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Announce 5 New US Data Centers OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank have announced the development of five new artificial intelligence (AI) data center locations in the United States as part of the Stargate AI supercomputer project. The new sites will be located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; Lordstown, Ohio; Milam County, Texas; and an unannounced Midwest location. This expansion brings the total planned capacity for the Stargate project to nearly 7 gigawatts, with a total investment exceeding $400 billion over the next three years. The companies are now ahead of schedule to meet their goal of a $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment by the end of 2025. The project is expected to generate over 25,000 onsite jobs. These new data centers are designed to provide the massive computing power required to train and operate next-generation AI models. ...

O2 Telefonica, Tech Mahindra & Nvidia to Build Generative AI for Telecom Operations O2 Telefonica is partnering with Tech Mahindra and Nvidia to develop a generative AI model designed to revolutionize telecom network operations. The “Large Telco Model” (LTM) aims to significantly improve operational efficiency and customer service reliability. This advanced system will empower technicians to identify network disruptions faster and coordinate field operations more effectively. Built on Nvidia’s AI Enterprise software, the model leverages agent-based AI specifically tailored for the telecommunications sector. This initiative is a key part of O2 Telefonica’s strategy to pioneer data-driven and autonomous network management in Germany. ...

Google Launches Gemma 3 270M: A Compact AI Model for Specialized Tasks Google has introduced Gemma 3 270M, a new and compact AI model featuring 270 million parameters. This model is engineered for efficient, task-specific fine-tuning and offers robust instruction-following capabilities directly out of the box. Its minimal footprint makes it ideal for on-device and research applications, enabling developers to build and deploy multiple custom models for tasks like text classification and data extraction without requiring significant computational overhead. Google is providing both pretrained and instruction-tuned versions of the model through platforms such as Hugging Face, Ollama, and Kaggle. ...

Zoox Gets Federal Green Light for Driverless Robotaxi Deployment Amazon’s subsidiary, Zoox, has received a crucial federal exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to deploy its purpose-built, driverless robotaxis on public roads. This is a landmark decision, making Zoox the first U.S. company to gain such an exemption under the expanded Automated Vehicle Exemption Program (AVEP). The custom-designed vehicles notably lack traditional controls like steering wheels or pedals, featuring a carriage-style interior with inward-facing seats for four passengers. As a condition of the approval, Zoox must remove any claims that its vehicles comply with all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. This regulatory milestone clears the path for Zoox to scale production at its California facility, as the NHTSA has also closed its investigation into the company’s self-certification processes. ...