July 4, 2025

The Download: India’s AI independence, and predicting future epidemics

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. Inside India’s scramble for AI independence Despite its status as a global tech hub, India lags far behind the likes of the US and China when it comes to homegrown AI. That gap…

How generative AI could help make construction sites safer

July 2, 2025
Last winter, during the construction of an affordable housing project on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a 32-year-old worker named Jose Luis Collaguazo Crespo slipped off a ladder on the second floor and plunged to his death in the basement. He was one of more than 1,000 construction workers who die on the job each year in the US, making…

Congress just greenlit a NASA moon plan opposed by Musk and Isaacman

July 1, 2025
Legacy aerospace giants scored a win Tuesday when the U.S. Senate passed President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill that earmarks billions more for NASA’s flagship Artemis program.  The $10 billion addition to the Artemis architecture, which includes funding for additional Space Launch System rockets and an orbiting station around the moon called Gateway, is a rebuke […]

Road to Battlefield: Central Eurasia’s Gateway to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield

July 1, 2025
Historic regional competition launches to showcase Central Eurasia’s rising startup ecosystem on Silicon Valley’s biggest stage. For the first time in its history, Central Eurasia will have a direct pathway to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield through the launch of “Road to Battlefield,” a groundbreaking regional competition that promises to put the underrepresented region firmly on the […]

X is piloting a program that lets AI chatbots generate Community Notes

July 1, 2025
The social platform X will pilot a feature that allows AI chatbots to generate Community Notes. Community Notes is a Twitter-era feature that Elon Musk has expanded under his ownership of the service, now called X. Users who are part of this fact-checking program can contribute comments that add context to certain posts, which are […]