Goto

Collaborating Authors

 newsletter


The Download: an organ transplant breakthrough, and homegrown Chinese chips

MIT Technology Review

Plus: Space data centers don't exist yet, but people already oppose them. Supercooled kidneys have been transplanted into pigs in a "landmark achievement" When it comes to organ donation, time is everything. As soon as an organ has been removed from a donor's body, it starts to deteriorate. Surgeons have only a matter of hours to get it into a recipient. In most cases, organs will be kept on ice during that time, at around 4 C (39 F). They cannot be frozen--in previous attempts, ice has formed, causing all kinds of damage.


The Download: energy transmission and US threats against Chinese AI

MIT Technology Review

Plus: Why the OpenAI hack is the scariest AI mishap yet. The power line that could reshape New York's grid is hitting snags During a heat wave on July 3, New York State's grid imported enough electricity from Canada to meet about 9% of its total demand that day. Some of that power shuttled in on a 339-mile power line stretching from Quebec to Queens. It opened in May and is officially the longest underground transmission line in North America. It could provide up to 20% of New York City's electricity demand, largely with abundant hydropower from Quebec. One wrinkle: The line has been down for most of this month, and some experts are concerned about how drought will affect the power supply feeding it.


White House official says Moonshot accessed banned Nvidia chips

The Japan Times

The release of Moonshot's Kimi K3 model upended assumptions that Chinese AI capabilities were meaningfully behind U.S. leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic. A White House official accused China's Moonshot of improperly using U.S. AI models and Nvidia chips to create the Kimi K3 system that stunned the tech industry last week with its advanced capabilities. The company "acquired GB300-equipped servers and has accessed GB300s in Thailand, likely to train its AI models," White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said in a social media post Wednesday, making the case that Moonshot violated U.S. export control rules and companies' terms of service to build its product. The semiconductor servers Kratsios referenced are part of the Blackwell generation of Nvidia products, which the U.S. forbids from sale to Chinese companies. Though the Trump administration has allowed some sales of Nvidia's H200 chips, it continues to prevent sales of the more advanced Blackwells. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.


The Download: Chinese AI divides the White House, and a record copyright payout

MIT Technology Review

China's AI models have Trump's AI world at war with itself David Sacks branded Anthropic's models "lobotomized" and "woke." Emil Michael, a top Pentagon official, called OpenAI's new head of strategic futures a "supreme village idiot." It began because no one can agree on what to do about Kimi, a free, open-source model that Chinese AI company Moonshot launched last week. It appears to rival the intelligence of models from OpenAI and Anthropic, which are very much not free. Every time a new smart, free model from China gets released, US companies see less reason to fork out money for models from Anthropic or OpenAI. Read the full story on why no one can agree what to do about Kimi .


Chinese AI sensation Moonshot's gamble on big models pays off

The Japan Times

Chinese AI sensation Moonshot's gamble on big models pays off People visit the Moonshot AI stand, featuring the Kimi K3 model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Saturday. Crowds rushed to an obscure corner of China's premier tech summit, moving past monumental booths from Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings to catch a glimpse of the hottest name in domestic artificial intelligence. Developers and users at the World AI Conference jostled for a closer look at Moonshot and its Kimi K3 -- the giant 2.8 trillion-parameter model whose release on Friday showed China was closing the gap on OpenAI and Anthropic PBC far quicker than anticipated. The startup became an instant global sensation, drawing comparisons to DeepSeek's 2025 breakout and plaudits from the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Such was the crush over the weekend that Moonshot blew through its entire stock of branded swag in just a few hours. Moonshot's emergence is a vindication not just for the country's AI industry, but also for founder Yang Zhilin.


Trump is silent so far on Iran strategy as U.S. death toll hits 17

The Japan Times

Trump is silent so far on Iran strategy as U.S. death toll hits 17 U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office on July 14. | Doug Mills / The New York Times If U.S. President Donald Trump knows where he wants to take the war in Iran, he's giving little sign of it publicly. The conflict continued to spiral over the weekend, with both sides trading attacks in the aftermath of an Iranian strike that killed two U.S. service-members in Jordan and injured others. Both Iran and the U.S. have largely abandoned the tentative peace deal the president had touted. The week of escalating missile and drone strikes underscored the risk that the conflict will reignite in full again even as the man who started it stayed silent, only acknowledging the U.S. troop fatalities in a brief conversation with a media outlet. U.S. Central Command announced Sunday that a third service member died the day before during an controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone in northern Iraq. And the U.S. said unidentified remains of another victim in Friday's Jordan strike were being examined.


China's Moonshot plans IPO in six months after AI breakthrough

The Japan Times

China's Moonshot plans IPO in six months after AI breakthrough A Kimi logo is pictured at the Moonshot AI stand, featuring the Kimi K3 model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Saturday. Moonshot AI has told investors it's preparing to list in as early as six months, seizing the opportunity to tap capital markets after its latest model upended industry perceptions of China's burgeoning capabilities and sent global tech stocks reeling. The Chinese AI pioneer has officially distributed the shareholder resolution to its investors, seeking the blessing of its backers on a Hong Kong listing, people familiar with the matter said. The initiation of the notification process indicates an IPO could happen as soon as within the next six months. Moonshot is now in the process of wrapping a fundraising round that may value the three-year-old startup at more than $30 billion, the people said.


Moonshot AI's Kimi upends conventional wisdom on U.S. lead over China

The Japan Times

Moonshot AI's Kimi upends conventional wisdom on U.S. lead over China People walk past the Moonshot booth promoting its Kimi K3 AI model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday. At an event in Beijing earlier this year, some of China's top artificial intelligence leaders warned that the country remained meaningfully behind the U.S. in developing cutting-edge AI models, with one executive arguing that "the gap may actually be widening." Leading U.S. firms also appeared confident they were significantly ahead. As recently as last week, one executive at Anthropic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, mused that the Claude maker's technology was roughly six to 12 months ahead of Chinese rivals. The Chinese AI lab released Kimi K3, a more advanced open-weight model that it said outperforms all rivals except for Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 on overall capability.


Nikkei briefly dives over 4,100 points in afternoon

The Japan Times

The 225-issue Nikkei stock average slipped below 63,000 on Friday for the first time in about a month on an intraday basis. The 225-issue Nikkei stock average temporarily plunged over 4,100 points Friday afternoon due to selling of issues related to semiconductors and artificial intelligence following overnight falls in their U.S. counterparts. At 1:41 p.m., the index of 225 major issues listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime section stood at 62,704.60, down 4,130.94 points, or 6.18%, from Thursday's closing. It slipped below 63,000 for the first time in about a month on an intraday basis. In the Tokyo market, memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings and other key Nikkei component issues came under selling pressure. "We can't help thinking that the boom in generative AI-related stocks is about to end," an official of a bank-affiliated securities firm said.


China sends robots out into the world to learn how to be human

The Japan Times

In an industrial park on the outskirts of Beijing, a humanoid arm picks up a bag of Lay's potato chips and places it neatly along a row of snacks on a shelf. Nearby, a worker films himself grabbing cushions off a sofa and folding sheets on a bed, recording videos that will be used to develop brains for robots. China is deploying more humanoids than ever before, sending thousands to logistics hubs, battery factories and other industrial locations at a faster pace than the U.S. Buoyed by support from the government and a flood of investment, startups are getting their most advanced machines out into the world in a bid to gather torrents of data that can fuel the development of smarter, more humanlike machines. President Xi Jinping is looking to the robotics industry for help beating the U.S. in a global technology race. China's manufacturing prowess and robust supply chain management position it well to reap the benefits of humanoids before its geopolitical rival. Xi is due to address the country's flagship AI conference this week for the first time, where the latest humanoids will be on display.