April 11, 2025

Why the climate promises of AI sound a lot like carbon offsets 

The International Energy Agency states in a new report that AI could eventually reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, possibly by much more than the boom in energy-guzzling data center development pushes them up. The finding echoes a point that prominent figures in the AI sector have made as well to justify, at least implicitly, the gigawatts’ worth…

The Download: AI co-creativity, and what Trump’s tariffs mean for batteries

April 10, 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How AI can help supercharge creativity Existing generative tools can automate a striking range of creative tasks and offer near-instant gratification—but at what cost? Some artists and researchers fear that such technology could…

AI insurtech Ominimo bags its first investment at a $220M valuation

April 10, 2025
How do you get talented engineers to work for a startup in a mundane field at a time when more exciting companies are paying well and hiring aggressively? Here’s an answer from one insurance startup out of Poland called Ominimo: make pay competitive, yes, but more importantly, give those engineers the license to apply their […]

How AI can help supercharge creativity

April 10, 2025
Sometimes Lizzie Wilson shows up to a rave with her AI sidekick.  One weeknight this past February, Wilson plugged her laptop into a projector that threw her screen onto the wall of a low-ceilinged loft space in East London. A small crowd shuffled in the glow of dim pink lights. Wilson sat down and started…

Revent rocks the boat with a fresh $100M to invest in people and the planet

April 10, 2025
It would appear the environment and society remain relevant, whatever you might hear in some other quarters. At least, that’s one conclusion to be drawn from the news that European specialist VC Revent has closed a  €100 million ($109 million) Fund II to invest in “planetary and societal health” startups.  Launched out of Berlin in […]

A fresh $100M rolls into DIG Ventures as it bids to woo early-stage European startups

April 10, 2025
The number of “operator VCs” — former founders turned VCs — in Europe in recent years. This is common in the U.S., where the majority of VCs are former founders. The reverse is true in Europe, where most come from banking or finance. Recent examples in Europe include Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus, Glovo founder Oscar […]

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, launches an API for Grok 3

April 10, 2025
Billionaire Elon Musk might’ve just been countersued by OpenAI. But that isn’t stopping his AI company, xAI, from making its flagship Grok 3 model available via an API. It has been several months since xAI unveiled Grok 3, the company’s answer to models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini.  Grok 3 can analyze images and respond to questions, […]

Wayve’s self-driving tech is headed to Nissan vehicles

April 10, 2025
Nissan said it will use self-driving software developed by Wayve to beef up its advanced driver assistance system starting in 2027, a landmark deal for the buzzy UK startup that has raised more than $1.3 billion from Nvidia, Microsoft, SoftBank Group, and Uber.  Nissan will integrate Wayve’s software as well as sensors, including lidar from an undisclosed […]

Google says it’ll embrace Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data

April 9, 2025
Just a few weeks after OpenAI said it would adopt rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides, Google is following suit. In a post on X on Wednesday, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis announced that Google will add support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, or MCP, to its Gemini […]