DeepMind's AI beats new record

Google's DeepMind has beaten a 50-year-old record, contributing to a major development in the field of machine learning. Researchers at the lab trained a new version of its board game-playing AI, AlphaZero, to figure out a faster way to do matrix multiplication, a fundamental problem in computing that powers everything from displaying images on a screen to simulating complex physics. Speeding up the calculation could have "a big impact on thousands of everyday computer tasks," according to MIT Technology Review, and cut costs and save energy.