Messi and Ronaldo Are Building Tech Portfolios. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are betting on AI, health tech, and startups. Mohamed Salah is taking a more traditional route beyond football. Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mohamed Salah have spent the past two decades defining one of soccer's greatest eras. Now, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup marks Ronaldo's final appearance at the tournament and another defining moment in the careers of Messi and Salah, they're also preparing for life beyond the pitch.

Experiments in using AI to build AI show that the future doesn't just belong to the frontier labs. These days, the frontier AI labs are all racing to build self-improving models . Some believe it's the surest route to superintelligence --as AI improves itself in a mind-melting loop, the thinking goes, it will eventually surpass human comprehension (and perhaps even control). That's all well and good, but I have a newsletter to produce. I wondered if recursive self-improvement might also be useful for me.

The lab will beam back data to train AI models to predict how proteins behind age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and certain cancers behave. Space is becoming the next frontier in longevity research. A British startup just launched self-run chemical experiments into orbit, in the hopes zero-gravity data might shine a light on a group of disease-causing proteins too difficult to study on Earth. But first they need to check their autonomous laboratory will work in space. Mass Balance's grapefruit-sized apparatus containing chemicals, sensors and control elements to keep the chemicals functioning launched on a SpaceX transporter on Tuesday morning.

Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with Advanced Micro Devices graphics processing units. Self-driving tech developer Turing has added AMD Ventures to its list of backers and begun adopting Advanced Micro Devices' AI accelerators in its systems. The five-year-old Japanese startup is adding to its capabilities as it builds toward a commercial launch. Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with AMD graphics processing units, company executives said in an interview. AMD, headquartered a stone's throw away from Nvidia in Santa Clara, California, presented a good chance to diversify supply and achieve lower costs, the executives said. "We've made notable progress with the technology.

The incident could disrupt a key part of the defense company's rocket motor business, which designs and tests prototype motors for military customers. A rocket motor exploded during a test at an Anduril facility in Mississippi last Friday, marking another setback in the startup's hopes of becoming a major supplier of missile propulsion systems for the defense industry. Anduril publicly confirmed the incident after an inquiry from WIRED. No one was injured in the blast, which damaged Anduril's testing stand, the company's chief operating officer Matt Grimm said in a social media post on Tuesday hours after WIRED contacted the company about the incident. Three people familiar with Anduril's operations, who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation, tell WIRED that they can't recall another time when a similar test resulted in an explosion in the past few years, and they were unaware of what may have caused last week's mishap.

Flexion Robotics, a startup founded by ex-Nvidia engineers, has a clever way of training robots to do useful work. Humanoid robots might be able to run, dance, and occasionally kick people, but to become human, they're going to need to learn how to do all sorts of menial chores at work. Flexion Robotics, a Swiss startup founded by ex-Nvidia robotics researchers, thinks it has the solution. The company has developed a way to train robots to perform complex tasks that involve simple skills like opening doors, climbing stairs, and carrying boxes. The key is to teach the robots individual skills in simulation, then have a master AI algorithm determine how to use them.

It's a stretch to think that the continent can build a top-tier model, but it has an advantage: Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron, president of France, discussed AI's risks at the G7 Summit. Earlier this month I attended Vivatech, a huge tech conference in Paris. One fear dominated the discussions: the prospect of ending up stuck using American AI, trained on American values. While the US and China are locked in an AI arms race, France and Germany, which consider their engineering talent second to none, feel boxed out.

Indie movie fans are upset about Google DeepMind's $75 million investment in the studio, which comes as AI companies are deepening their influence in Hollywood. Backrooms, the recent horror movie mega-hit, is a film replete with ideas about repetition and degradation. Its central theme--the horror of a world that seems to be mindlessly, monstrously, ripping off our own--was regarded in some circles as a critique of generative AI . The idea has clearly struck a nerve. Recently passing $300 million at the global box office, has become the biggest hit yet for its buzzy boutique producer and distributor, the New York company A24.

Modular, one of the most promising chip software startups of the AI era, heads for a multibillion-dollar exit. Qualcomm will acquire the Silicon Valley chip startup Modular for nearly $4 billion. The companies announced the acquisition on Wednesday; Qualcomm said it expects to issue up to 19.2 million shares of common stock in the deal, which works out to just under $4 billion based on the company's last closing share price. The deal, which includes $300 million for Modular employees, comes nine months after the chip startup raised $250 million at a $1.6 billion valuation . It's expected to close in the second half of this year.

The biodegradable material can help improve healing after surgery--or an avocado-related accident. Roughly 500,000 Americans suffer nerve injuries that require treatment each year, whether from an errant attempt to hack out an avocado pit or an unfortunate woodworking accident. Many will never get full feeling back in their fingers. But a startup has developed a thick and sticky liquid that could change that, and it's begun deploying it with surgeons in the US. French firm Tissium is working to replace and supplement medical stitches with a liquid that attaches to tissue when exposed to light.