Video game fans and big, blockbuster releases have had an uneasy relationship in recent years. As so-called triple-A games get more expensive to make, the publishers behind them are accused of taking fewer risks and failing to try new things. But highly anticipated new release Crimson Desert asks a different question - what if a big-budget, graphically advanced game tried to do absolutely everything? The ambitious action-adventure's been compared to a buffet, presenting players with a smorgasbord of ideas, gameplay styles and quests to gorge on. While some have praised it as a feast, others have found it overstuffed, with some undercooked morsels behind the impressive presentation.

The astronaut training tourists to fly in the world's first commercial space station Former NASA astronaut Drew Feustel now leads the astronaut training program for the private space company Vast, which aims to put its Haven-1 station into orbit in May. For decades, space stations have been largely staffed by professional astronauts and operated by a handful of nations. But that's about to change in the coming years, as companies including Axiom Space and Sierra Space launch commercial space stations that will host tourists and provide research facilities for nations and other firms. The first of those stations could be Haven-1, which the California-based company Vast aims to launch in May 2026. If all goes to plan, its earliest paying visitors will arrive about a month later. Drew Feustel, a former NASA astronaut, will help train them and get them up to speed ahead of their historic trip.

A float would support Sam Altman's ambitions to splash trillions of dollars on building datacentres. A float would support Sam Altman's ambitions to splash trillions of dollars on building datacentres. OpenAI is reportedly gearing up for a stock market listing valuing the company at $1tn (£760bn) as soon as next year, in what would be one of the biggest ever initial public offerings. The developer behind the hit AI chatbot ChatGPT is considering whether to file for an IPO as soon as the second half of 2026, according to Reuters, which cited people familiar with the matter. The company is thought to be looking to raise at least $60bn.

A degree in computer science used to promise a cozy career in tech. Now, students' ambitions are shaped by AI, in fields that blend computing with analysis, interpretation, and data. In the early 2010s, nearly every STEM -savvy college-bound kid heard the same advice: Learn to code . Python was the new Latin. Computer science was the ticket to a stable, well-paid, future-proof life.

Anthropic and Google are among the companies and groups working to fix that. Over the past year, they have both introduced protocols that try to define how AI agents should interact with each other and the world around them. If they work as planned, they could give us a crucial part of the infrastructure we need for agents to be useful. Read our story to learn more. OpenAI has given itself a dual mandate: on the one hand, it's a tech giant rooted in products, including of course ChatGPT, which people around the world reportedly send 2.5 billion messages to each day. But its original mission is as a research lab that will not only create "artificial general intelligence" but ensure that it benefits all of humanity.

Whether it's poaching top talent away from competitors, acquiring AI startups or proclaiming that it will build data centers the size of Manhattan, Meta has been on a spending spree to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities for months now. The massive splurge is paying off, according to Meta's chief executive. In a new memo posted on Wednesday ahead of the company's quarterly earnings report, Mark Zuckerberg, describes his ambitions for developing what he calls "superintelligence". "Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves," Zuckerberg wrote. "The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable. Developing superintelligence is now in sight."

"Eddington" is a slog, but a slog with ambitions--and its director and screenwriter, Ari Aster, is savvy enough to cultivate an air of mystery about what those ambitions are. His earlier chillers, "Hereditary" (2018) and "Midsommar" (2019), had their labyrinthine ambiguities, too, but they also had propulsive craft and cunning, plus a resolute commitment to scaring us stupid. Then came the ungainly "Beau Is Afraid" (2023), a cavalcade of Oedipal neuroses both showy and coy, in which Aster didn't seem to lose focus so much as sacrifice it on the altar of auteurism. With "Eddington," his high-minded unravelling continues. No longer a horror wunderkind, Aster, at thirty-nine, yearns to be an impish anatomist of the body politic.

A Dragons' Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services. Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been "drinking the Kool-Aid" on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade. AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a "vibe check" on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals. Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money.

Ukraine's European allies pledged increased levels of military aid to Ukraine this year, making up for a United States aid freeze, as Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his ambition to absorb all of Ukraine into the Russian Federation. "At this moment, the Europeans and the Canadians have pledged, for this year, 35bn in military support to Ukraine," said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte ahead of the alliance's annual summit, which took place in The Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 24-25. "Last year, it was just over 50bn for the full year. Now, before we reach half year, it is already at 35bn. And there are even others saying it's already close to 40bn," he added.

On June 12, Alexandr Wang stepped down as Scale's CEO to chase his most ambitious moonshot yet: building smarter-than-human AI as head of Meta's new "superintelligence" division. As part of his move, Meta will invest 14.3 billion for a minority stake in Scale AI, but the real prize isn't his company--it's Wang himself. Wang, 28, is expected to bring a sense of urgency to Meta's AI efforts, which this year have been plagued by delays and underwhelming performance. Once the undisputed leader of open-weight AI, the U.S. tech giant has been overtaken by Chinese rivals like DeepSeek on popular benchmarks. Although Wang, who dropped out of MIT at 19, lacks the academic chops of some of his peers, he offers both insight into the types of data Meta's rivals use to improve their AI systems, and unrivaled ambition.