US approves sale of Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China The US government has given chip giant Nvidia the green light to sell its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) processors in China, the Department of Commerce said on Tuesday. The H200, Nvidia's second-most-advanced semiconductor, had been restricted by Washington over concerns that it would give China's technology industry and military an edge over the US. The Commerce Department said the chips can be shipped to China granted that there is sufficient supply of the processors in the US. President Donald Trump said last month that he would allow the chip sales to approved customers in China and collect a 25% fee. Nvidia's spokesperson told the BBC that the company welcomed the move, saying it will benefit manufacturing and jobs in the US.

Scott Adams, the US cartoonist who wrote and illustrated the comic strip Dilbert, has died of cancer at the age of 68. His ex-wife Shelly Miles announced his death on Tuesday during a live stream of his podcast, Real Coffee with Scott Adams. The satirical cartoon strip - about a competent but frustrated engineer and his dysfunctional workplace environment - was first published in 1989, and went on to feature in more than 2,000 newspapers in 65 countries. The character also later appeared in books, an animated TV series and video game. But in 2023, his comic strip was cancelled by newspapers including the Washington Post after Adams was accused of making racist comments about black people.

The government is set to announce its intention to build a new rail link between Birmingham and Manchester, the BBC understands. Previous plans for the HS2 high-speed rail line had included a line between the two cities, but that part of the project was scrapped by Rishi Sunak's government. On Wednesday, the government is expected to confirm proposals for new and improved rail links across the North of England in a scheme known as Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR). Little detail about a new Birmingham to Manchester route is anticipated, other than the intention to build it after NPR is completed, meaning it may not happen for decades. HS2 is currently tens of billions of pounds over budget and around a decade behind schedule.

Improvements to a number of Apple services - including a more personalised version of its virtual assistant, Siri - are to be powered with AI provided by Google. The tech giants have announced a multi-year collaboration which will see the iPhone-maker base some of its key tech on Google's Gemini AI models. In a joint statement, the two firms said the partnership would unlock innovative new experiences for Apple users. However, experts say it demonstrates how Apple's cautious approach to building and rolling out its own AI tools has left it reliant on other companies. By outsourcing the foundational layer of its AI to Google, Apple is effectively admitting that its internal efforts couldn't compete with Google's Gemini in terms of capability and scale in the short term, IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said.

Two of these images were generated using the artificial intelligence tool Grok, which is free to use and belongs to Elon Musk. I've never worn the rather fetching yellow ski suit, or the red and blue jacket - the middle photo is the original - but I don't know how I could prove that if I needed to, because of those pictures. Of course, Grok is under fire for undressing rather than redressing women. It made pictures of people in bikinis, or worse, when prompted by others. And shared the results in public on the social network X.

The UK will bring into force a law which will make it illegal to create non-consensual intimate images, following widespread concerns over Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot. The Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said the government would also seek to make it illegal for companies to supply the tools designed to create such images. Speaking to the Commons, Kendall said AI-generated pictures of women and children in states of undress, created without a person's consent, were not harmless images but weapons of abuse. The BBC has approached X for comment. It previously said: Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content..

It is extraordinary enough to see the world's top central banker make an unscheduled video statement on social media. My first thought upon seeing the post from the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was: Is this an AI deepfake? That sense did not go away as I listened to what were indeed the real words of the world's most important financial official. The background here is a long-running spat between President Trump and the man responsible for setting interest rates in the US and indirectly much of the rest of the world. In theory, this has officially been about the cost of a renovation project at the Federal Reserve, the US equivalent of the Bank of England.

Ofcom has launched an investigation into Elon Musk's X over concerns its AI tool Grok is being used to create sexualised images. In a statement, the UK watchdog said there had been deeply concerning reports of the chatbot being used to create and share undressed images of people, as well as sexualised images of children. If found to have broken the law, Ofcom can potentially issue X with a fine of up to 10% of its worldwide revenue or £18 million, whichever is greater. The BBC has approached X for comment. Elon Musk previously said the UK government wanted any excuse for censorship in response to a post questioning why other AI platforms were not being looked at.

Ai, a female chimpanzee famous for her cognitive skills has died at 49, according to the Japanese institute where she lived. The Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior said Ai died on 9 January of old age and organ failure and that she was surrounded by staff when she died. Ai was born in western Africa and arrived at the Japanese institute in 1977. There, she became the namesake of the Ai Project, a research programme into the chimpanzee mind. Among the institute's noteable findings were the fact that Ai was able to use numbers and identify colours.

Malaysia and Indonesia block Musk's Grok over sexually explicit deepfakes Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked access to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok over its ability to produce sexually explicit deepfakes. Grok, a tool on Musk's X platform, allows users to generate images. In recent weeks however, it has been used to edit images of real people to show them in revealing outfits. The South East Asian countries said Grok could be used to produce pornographic and non-consensual images involving women and children. They are the first in the world to ban the AI tool.