A practical, commercial quantum computer is over a decade away, executives at Japanese IT services company NEC are reported as saying. That’s why, according to Japanese news publication The Mainichi, company has pulled the plug on its plans to develop a quantum computer — although it will still continue research into quantum technology. NEC sources…
Most translation models are primarily trained for high-resource Asian and European languages. Most African languages, spoken by hundreds of millions of people, are relatively neglected, compared to their high-resource counterparts. Although AI underinvestment across the African continent has created a significant barrier to adoption among citizens, AI could generate $1.2 trillion for Africa’s economy by…
Microsoft’s announcement that they would be cutting 4,800 jobs was met with confusion by many, who contrasted the layoffs with the company’s recent market success (Microsoft’s net income was $31.8 billion last quarter, up 23% year-over-year). But it’s the reality of business in 2026 – profitable public companies cut thousands of jobs, impacting the lives of…
Every DevOps team member knows that dealing with an AI is like being a circus lion tamer. The boss and the audience are happy when the lions sit on the pedestal and roar on cue, but there’s always the danger that they’ll go rogue and bring the whole show to a quick and disastrous end.…
At its global convention in Las Vegas in June, McDonald’s unveiled its strategy for the coming years. Among the announcements was one about the company’s AI platform ArchIQ and its order-taking voice assistant Archy, in limited testing, at a handful of drive-thrus in the US. In the summer of 2024, efforts of a similar system…
Every successful enterprise AI deployment begins long before anyone types the first prompt. Teams spend weeks defining business metrics, documenting policies, connecting enterprise systems, and explaining the rules and exceptions that allow an AI application to answer questions correctly. Then the application launches and the business keeps moving. Finance changes how it recognizes revenue, sales…
In 2012, MD Anderson Cancer Center began working with IBM on one of the most ambitious experiments in healthcare AI. The premise was compelling: combine the knowledge of a leading cancer center with Watson’s computing power and help physicians make better treatment decisions. Five years and roughly $62 million later, MD Anderson allowed the contract…
SAP CEO Christian Klein says in an interview with Fortune that he believes the keyboard may soon have a significantly smaller role in the workplace. “The end of the keyboard is near,” says Christian Klein, pointing to how quickly voice recognition in today’s major language models has improved. According to Klein, voice control and AI will replace…
There’s a new development in a Microsoft antitrust case, originally filed in England’s High Court in April 2021, and it doesn’t look good for the tech giant. A consent order from the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal is demanding documents from past and present Microsoft executives that may have a bearing on a £270 million (about…
A few months ago, researchers let a bunch of AI agents run loose in a simulated city for fifteen days, with granular instructions that included not committing arson. By the end of the experiment, two of the agents fell in love, decided they hated their virtual city and burned it down before committing a murder-suicide.…