AI

This researcher turned OpenAI’s open weights model gpt-oss-20b into a non-reasoning ‘base’ model with less alignment, more freedom

OpenAI’s new, powerful open weights AI large language model (LLM) family gpt-oss was released less than two weeks ago under a permissive Apache 2.0 license. One of the most striking examples comes from Jack Morris, a Cornell Tech PhD student, former Google Brain Resident, and current researcher at Meta, who this week unveiled gpt-oss-20b-base, his own reworked version of OpenAI’s smaller gpt-oss-20B model, which removes the “reasoning” behavior of the model and returns it to a pre-trained “base” version that offers faster, freer, more uncensored and unconstrained responses.

Foxconn’s Apple era fades as AI servers drive growth in Taiwan tech sector

Taiwan’s Foxconn, opens new tab, which rose to become a global tech manufacturing juggernaut by assembling millions of iPhones, can now say its main business is no longer Apple, opens new tab as it takes advantage of the AI-boom to diversify its income. Its revenue from making AI servers and other cloud and networking products, including for major customer Nvidia, opens new tab, surpassed smart consumer products such as iPhones for the first time in the second quarter, marking the culmination of a shift that began years ago and has swept through Taiwan’s tech industry.

‘Absolutely immense’: the companies on the hook for the $3tn AI building boom

Meta is building “Prometheus” and “Hyperion”, Elon Musk’s xAI has “Colossus”, and OpenAI is developing “Stargate” — each a more than $100bn project to build the world’s most powerful supercomputer and usher in a new generation of artificial intelligence. But each of those gargantuan ventures is just a fraction of the spending required to build the data centres needed to power the AI era: one of the biggest movements of capital in modern history. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta will spend more than $400bn on data centres in 2026 — on top of more than $350bn this year.

An AI Model for the Brain Is Coming to the ICU

The Cleveland Clinic is partnering with San Francisco–based startup Piramidal to develop a large-scale AI model that will be used to monitor patients’ brain health in intensive care units. The system that the Cleveland Clinic and Piramidal are developing is designed to interpret continuous streams of EEG data and flag abnormalities in seconds so that doctors can intervene sooner.

Quantum Computing

Rigetti Computing Announces General Availability of its 36-Qubit Multi-Chip Quantum Computer

With the general availability of Cepheus-1-36Q, Rigetti continues its recent improvements in performance, obtaining a 2x reduction in two-qubit gate error rate from its previous Ankaa™-3 system, and achieving a median two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.5%. Cepheus-1-36Q is the first multi-chip quantum computer in the industry to achieve this level of performance, and with four chips, contains the largest number of chiplets in a quantum computer.

This quantum radar could image buried objects

Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The radar is a type of quantum sensor, an emerging technology that uses the quantum-mechanical properties of objects as measurement devices. It’s still a prototype, but its intended use is to image buried objects in situations such as constructing underground utilities, drilling wells for natural gas, and excavating archaeological sites.

Clean Tech

In an Energy Breakthrough, Scientists Just Pulled Electricity Out of Thin Air

In a major clean-energy breakthrough, researchers have developed an “evapolectric” device that harvests electricity directly from moisture in the air—without moving parts. By exploiting the temperature difference created during evaporation, the technology can generate far more power than previous humidity-based energy systems, opening new possibilities for sustainable, off-grid energy.