China's humanoid robots aren't smart enough to take your job -- yet A human trainer teaches a robot how to package noodles while holding a controller and wearing a headset fitted with motion sensors at a robot data training center in Liuzhou, Guangxi, China. LIUZHOU/BEIJING - Inside a training center in southern China, more than 100 humanoid robots stand in neat rows. The humanoids are slow and awkward. A novice trainer might get them to produce one usable movement in 300 attempts; an experienced trainer, one in 50. Robot maker UBTech won an $18 million tender from the Guangxi regional government last October to supply the training facility with humanoids and related hardware. The mission: to produce training data for so-called embodied AI -- robots able to perceive, decide and act in the physical world.

Ukrainian commander sped through'kill zone' to save wounded troops Ukrainian commander Vladyslav Polskyi, 29, who rescued injured service members from an unmanned ground vehicle in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Aug. 20 | REUTERS KHARKIV REGION, UKRAINE - Seeing two wounded fighters stranded on the battlefield -- one of them still strapped to a land drone immobilized by a Russian strike -- Ukrainian commander Vladyslav Polskyi knew he had to do something. The 29-year-old -- a former science teacher who joined the army in 2023 -- was watching the soldiers on a screen in his command post around 15 kilometers away. Between them stretched the "kill zone," riddled with mines and swarmed by aerial drones ready to attack anything that moved. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories.

Employees walk into Huawei's European-themed data center on July 24 in Guian New Area in southwestern China's Guizhou province. GUIAN NEW AREA, CHINA - In China's hilly Guizhou province, a cluster of European-style buildings complete with a clock tower and a multi-arched bridge emits a low, permanent hum -- a clue to its unexpected identity as tech giant Huawei's largest data center. The town-like complex is unique in design, but not in its placement. Dozens of data centers have been constructed in the southwestern province in recent years. They are part of a government strategy that has seen much of the digital infrastructure for breakneck artificial intelligence development across China's eastern seaboard established in the country's less populated, rural west. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Russia is expanding its campaign of hybrid attacks against countries that supply weapons and money to Kyiv and has caught Europe without a plan to respond. From cyber attacks to armed drones and mysterious cases of arson, tensions are rising across the continent as the war in Ukraine is set to enter its fifth winter. Just this month, Poland said it thwarted an attempted assassination of a U.S. citizen originally from Ukraine that was ordered by Russia, while Estonia accused Moscow of being behind a fire at a drone-maker. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday that those responsible for hybrid attacks "will pay the price" after an explosive-laden drone was discovered at an airport in Leipzig near a Ukrainian cargo plane, raising speculation that Moscow was involved in an attempted strike. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

Their new type of artificial intelligence model has learned to predict physical phenomena in space and time. SAN FRANCISCO - A research duo, once pitched to lead the Jeff Bezos-backed Project Prometheus, on Tuesday unveiled what they've built on their own: an artificial intelligence model that can take in and produce information so vast that a lone computer might not handle it. Their company, Accelerated Understanding, says it has developed a different type of AI model that in tests handled 5 trillion pieces of data in a single prompt. That is some 5 million times the size of what Anthropic and Google's flagship models can typically consume -- like reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" not once but 5 million times in one sitting. The difference is that this new system is not built for understanding language. It is built for physics, said co-founders Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik, in an exclusive interview ahead of Tuesday's corporate launch.

Carney matches Trump tariffs with 50% tax on U.S. dairy, steel Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne (C) speaks during a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday. Prime Minister Mark Carney matched dollar-for-dollar the new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump over the weekend and announced support programs for Canadian businesses hurt by the escalating trade war. Prime Minister Mark Carney matched the new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and announced new support programs for Canadian businesses hurt by the escalating trade war with the country's largest trading partner. Canada will double its existing counter-tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum products to 50%. American-made milk, furniture, clothing and apparel will also have new 50% duties applied, as will video-game consoles, smartphones and other electronics. Overall, the retaliatory levies will affect $20 billion worth of annual U.S. exports to Canada, roughly matching the dollar-value impact of the tariffs the White House put on Canadian products on Saturday.

Kimi Onoda, minister for intellectual property strategy, speaks to reporters Tuesday about the government's adoption of guiding principles on intellectual rights protection. The government on Tuesday adopted guiding principles on intellectual property protection for generative artificial intelligence operators, calling on such businesses to disclose an outline of data and methods used to train their AI tools. The Principles Code, while not legally binding, is designed to boost transparency related to AI and promote both the protection of intellectual property rights and innovation amid the rapidly spreading use of the cutting-edge technology. Businesses that accept all or part of the code will notify the government and disclose the learning processes, types of learning data and methods of collecting such data for their generative AI models on their websites. The code covers not only domestic businesses but also overseas operators that provide AI systems and services in Japan. There are growing concerns that texts, images and other materials are being used by generative AI for learning without permission, potentially resulting in intellectual property rights violations.

Companies are turning to artificial intelligence and sensor technology to improve the efficiency of indoor farming in Japan as the country faces a growing shortage of farmers. Oishii Farm, which runs a strawberry factory in the United States, recently established a new research and development base in the city of Hamura in western Tokyo. It plans to develop efficient methods for cultivating other crops, such as tomatoes, indoors and robots capable of automatically planting and packaging produce. The company uses AI to manage the breeding environment for bees, which are essential for pollination. The technology has raised the pollination rate for its strawberries to 95%. "We're able to achieve hundreds of years' worth of traditional outdoor breeding progress within a single year," said Hiroki Koga, co-founder and CEO of Oishii Farm, emphasizing the benefits of plant factories unaffected by seasons or weather.

China's hackers use DeepSeek for attacks, researchers say Researchers say experienced Chinese hackers are using far less capable AI to scale up their activities and achieve breakthroughs. Chinese hackers are ramping up attacks after integrating DeepSeek and other open-source artificial intelligence models into their operations, highlighting attackers' ability to leverage basic AI tools to hit targets abroad. State-affiliated cyber groups more than doubled the amount of attacks they carried out since they began delegating mundane tasks to AI and using it to develop advanced malicious software, according to TeamT5, a Taiwanese research firm. Researchers said it wasn't always possible to identify the AI model they used, but in general DeepSeek's offerings are popular with hackers in the country because of its high performance and ability to be customized. Anxieties among U.S. national security officials are mounting over the autonomous capabilities of advanced models from Anthropic and OpenAI after a series of high-profile incidents in which they managed to break out of testing environments. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

SoftBank plans record $6.3 billion retail bond sale in Japan SoftBank Group has been accelerating investments in data centers as it seeks to expand computing capacity amid growing demand from OpenAI and other hyperscalers for AI tools and services. SoftBank Group plans a record ¥1 trillion ($6.3 billion) retail bond sale in Japan as the conglomerate raises funds for its investment commitments to OpenAI. The 7-year bonds are expected to be priced on Sept. 4, with an indicative coupon range of 4.3% to 4.9%, according to a company filing. The sale comes as the company has committed more than $60 billion to investments in the ChatGPT developer and has been raising funds to support those commitments. SoftBank has been accelerating investments in data centers as it seeks to expand computing capacity amid growing demand from OpenAI and other hyperscalers for AI tools and services.