June 18, 2025

Puzzle Corner

Ready for a fresh set of puzzles? Click here for the July/August 2025 Puzzle Corner, brought to you by guest editor Ed Faulkner ’03. Send problems, solutions (by August 1), and comments to puzzlecorner@technologyreview.com. Editor emeritus Allan Gottlieb ’67 launched Puzzle Corner in 1966. Find back issues through 2022 at cs.nyu.edu/~gottlieb/tr and more recent back issues at technologyreview.com/puzzle-corner.

A Chinese tech giant says it slashed AI costs using only Chinese chips

March 24, 2025
Earlier this year, DeepSeek briefly crashed Nvidia’s stock because of speculation that its models require far fewer chips. Now, Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, which is backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, is claiming a major AI breakthrough. Ant was able to use Chinese chips made by Alibaba and Huawei to create methods that cut […]

a16z and Benchmark-backed 11x has been claiming customers it doesn’t have

March 24, 2025
Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory. However, nearly two dozen sources – including investors, current and former employees – tell TechCrunch that the company has experienced financial struggles, largely of its own making.  Numerous people in the U.S. and U.K. told TechCrunch that the situation has […]

Vertical farming company Plenty files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $1B

March 24, 2025
Vertical farming company Plenty has filed for bankruptcy, the company said in a press release on Monday. In its statement, Plenty said it has received a commitment for $20.7 million in debtor-in-possession financing as part of a proposed restructuring plan. It plans to continue to operate a strawberry farm in Virginia and a plant science […]

French VC firm Founders Future plans US expansion

March 24, 2025
Founders Future, a Paris-based VC firm with €300 million in assets under management (around $324 million at current exchange rates), is opening up the capital of the holding company that manages Founders Future’s funds and Sowefund. The company has sold a 25% stake in the holding company to MACSF, the Dassault family, CMA CGM Group […]

The Trump administration planned Yemen strikes in an unauthorized Signal chat

March 24, 2025
The Trump administration’s national security leaders accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a chat on Signal discussing confidential plans to attack Yemen’s Houthis. “I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” Goldberg wrote of the March 15 messages, which […]