Reuters – Japan needs to rapidly expand its computing power as it vies to become a global leader in artificial intelligence, said Hideki Murai, a special AI adviser to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. "The government's key priority is computing power. We feel a real sense of crisis about that," Murai, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who heads the government's AI strategy team, said in an interview on Tuesday. "We want to create the foundations for an AI era." Japan, the world's third-largest economy, has been slow to invest in the field, and lags the United States in AI computer infrastructure.

In a world first, Romania's prime minister unveiled a new honorary government adviser that will be joining his team – run entirely on artificial intelligence (AI). The AI is called Ion and consists of a mirror-like surface that displays text as well as at times a male or female face that responds in a calm voice. "Hi, you gave me life and my role is now to represent you, like a mirror," Ion's voice said at the launch. "What should I know about Romania?" The AI-powered adviser was developed by researchers to quickly analyse the opinions of Romanian citizens on key issues and policies.

Tianjin, China – At a factory in China's north, workers are busy testing an automated vehicle designed to move bulky items around industrial spaces, one of a new generation of robots Beijing wants to shift the country's manufacturing up the value chain. The robot's Tianjin-based maker has received tax breaks and government-guaranteed loans to build products that modernize China's vast factory sector and advance its technological expertise. "The government is paying great attention to the manufacturing sector and the real economy -- we can feel that," said Ren Zhiyong, general manager of Tianjin Langyu Robot Co. China is backing R&D efforts by high-tech manufacturers like Langyu, driven by an urgent desire to reduce reliance on imported technology and reinforce its dominance as a global factory power, even as it cracks down on other parts of the economy. Beijing's pivot puts the focus on advanced manufacturing, rather than the services sector, to steer the world's second-largest economy past the so-called "middle income trap", where countries lose productivity and stagnate in lower-value economic output.