Xprize Carbon awarded to a dirt simple carbon removal technology
Mati Carbon walked away with the $50 million grand prize for its enhanced rock weathering program that locks carbon in soils for thousands of years.
Powering next-gen services with AI in regulated industries
Businesses in highly-regulated industries like financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and health care are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools to streamline complex and sensitive tasks. Conversational AI-driven interfaces are helping hospitals to track the location and delivery of a patient’s time-sensitive cancer drugs. Generative AI chatbots are helping insurance customers answer questions and solve problems. And agentic…
3 Things Caiwei Chen is into right now
A new play about OpenAI I recently saw Doomers, a new play by Matthew Gasda about the aborted 2023 coup at OpenAI, here represented by a fictional company called MindMesh. The action is set almost entirely in a meeting room; the first act follows executives immediately after the firing of company CEO Seth (a stand-in…
Why we still need AM radio
Ariel Aberg-Riger is the author of America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History.
Seeing AI as a collaborator, not a creator
The reason you are reading this letter from me today is that I was bored 30 years ago. I was bored and curious about the world and so I wound up spending a lot of time in the university computer lab, screwing around on Usenet and the early World Wide Web, looking for interesting things…
Tech resilience, breakout startups, and banking reinvented: The big conversations at StrictlyVC London in May
StrictlyVC is heading to London on May 13, uniting top investors and entrepreneurs to spark meaningful connections and drive forward innovation. We’re thrilled to welcome industry leaders like Nazo Moosa, general partner at Paladin Capital Group; Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel; and TS Anil, CEO of Monzo Bank, to the stage. Paladin is proud […]
Noxtua raises $92M for its sovereign AI tuned for the German legal system
Back in 2020, Xayn was a privacy-based, on-device AI startup designed specifically for smartphones. But that early experience eventually saw the company pivot into developing sovereign AI for the legal sphere. Now Xayn has rebranded as Noxtua and raised a $92.2 million (roughly €81.2 million) Series B round. The round was led by strategic investor […]
Intel reportedly plans to lay off over 21,000 employees
Intel is set to cut over 21,000 people, or roughly 20% of its workforce, with an announcement due this week, according to a Bloomberg report. The news comes ahead of Intel’s Q1 earnings call helmed by recently appointed CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who replaced longtime chief Pat Gelsinger last year. With the layoffs, Tan aims to […]
Meta’s Oversight Board seeks details on the company’s new hate speech policies
Meta’s Oversight Board, the independent group created to help Meta with content moderation decisions, on Tuesday issued its response to the social media company’s new hate speech policies announced in January. The Board says that Meta’s new policies were “announced hastily, in a departure from regular procedure,” and called on the company to provide more […]
StrictlyVC heads to Athens for in-depth conversations on European innovation and investment
StrictlyVC is turning up the heat in 2025 — and we’re going international! First stop: Athens, May 8. Get ready for sharp, unfiltered conversations onstage — and your chance to jump into the dialogue. This isn’t just an event; it’s a forum where every attendee has a voice with some of Europe’s most influential tech […]
Why OpenAI wanted to buy Cursor but opted for the fast-growing Windsurf
Anysphere, maker of AI coding assistant Cursor, is growing so quickly, it’s not in the market to be sold, even to OpenAI, a source close to the company tells TechCrunch. It’s been a hot target. Cursor is one of the most popular AI-powered coding tools and its revenue has been growing astronomically – doubling on […]