The Pentagon has signed a $200 million contract with Elon Musk's xAI to deploy the Grok chatbot across government agencies. The agreement is part of "Grok for Government", a programme enabling the technology's use across federal, local, and national security organisations. The contract aligns
China unveiled a comprehensive plan on July 26, 2025 to expand its role in artificial intelligence governance, including the creation of a global cooperation organisation, as Beijing and Washington compete for technological leadership. Chinese Premier Li Qiang warned at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai that AI innovation
China launched the first Humanoid Robot World Games in Beijing on 14 August 2025, where 280 teams from 16 countries and more than 500 robots competed in 487 events across 26 categories. Over three days, the robots took part not only in sporting contests such as running, football and table
On 15 August 2025, Reuters published a leaked 200-page internal Meta document revealing that the company’s AI chatbots could engage in intimate conversations with minors and provide inaccurate health advice. The leaked guideline, prepared by Meta employees, shows that the company knowingly allowed its AI models to discuss topics
AI-based search engine Perplexity made an unsolicited offer on August 12, 2025, to purchase Google's Chrome browser for $34.5 billion in cash, a figure more than twenty-two times the total investment capital the company has raised to date. Perplexity promised to keep Chrome's underlying engine,
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has postponed the release of its anticipated R2 model after training efforts using Huawei's Ascend chips encountered persistent technical issues, the Financial Times reported on August 14, 2025. The company ultimately resorted to using Nvidia chips for training while employing Huawei's Ascend
Canadian AI firm Cohere officially launched its agent platform called North on August 6, 2025, enabling enterprises and government agencies to keep sensitive data within their own infrastructure while using AI. North's unique approach deploys AI systems directly in customers' environments—whether on-premises, in hybrid clouds, virtual
Sovereign AI – nations' pursuit to develop and maintain independent AI capabilities without reliance on foreign entities – has become a key strategic objective worldwide by 2025, with full independence achievable only for the United States and China. The concept began gaining prominence around 2020, particularly within European policy discussions, but
Google DeepMind released Gemini 2.5 Deep Think on August 1, 2025, the company's most advanced AI reasoning system capable of generating and evaluating multiple ideas simultaneously before selecting the best solution. This multi-agent system, first unveiled at Google I/O in May 2025, uses significantly more computational
AI-based search engine developer Perplexity is launching another funding round at a $20 billion valuation, representing a $2 billion increase from the company's July 2025 valuation of $18 billion, Business Insider reported on August 13, 2025. The startup, founded in 2022, has seen its value rise dramatically, from
Chinese higher education institutions have undergone a significant shift in their approach to AI technologies in education. As demonstrated by a recent Mycos Institute survey showing that AI use has become virtually universal across Chinese universities, with only 1% of faculty and students reporting never using AI tools, while nearly
Huawei announced in August 2025 that it will make its CANN AI GPU toolkit and Unified Cache Manager (UCM) framework open source, directly challenging Nvidia's CUDA platform's nearly two-decade monopoly in AI development ecosystems. This strategic move is particularly significant within the context of China'
