The Download: climate tech under Trump, and scaling up quantum computing
This is today’s edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Three questions about the future of US climate tech under Trump Donald Trump has officially been in office for just over a week, and the new administration has already issued a blizzard of…
MIT Technology ReviewThree questions about the future of US climate tech under Trump
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Donald Trump has officially been in office for just over a week, and the new administration has hit the ground running with a blizzard of executive orders and memos. Some of the…
MIT Technology ReviewThis quantum computer built on server racks paves the way to bigger machines
A Canadian startup called Xanadu has built a new quantum computer it says can be easily scaled up to achieve the computational power needed to tackle scientific challenges ranging from drug discovery to more energy-efficient machine learning. Aurora is a “photonic” quantum computer, which means it crunches numbers using photonic qubits—information encoded in light. In…
MIT Technology ReviewThe Chancellor’s Speech on Economic Growth - January 2025
Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a speech in Oxfordshire outlining the Government’s plans for economic growth, with significant implications for the technology sector.
techUKKey Takeaways from Davos 2025
The jet fumes have now settled on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual gathering in Davos, which allows us to reflect on what business, political, and civil society leaders had to say about the pressing global issues of 2025.
techUK'Digital doppelgangers' are helping scientists tackle everyday problems—and showing what makes us human
As rising seas lap at its shore, Tuvalu faces an existential threat. In an effort to preserve the tiny island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, its government has been building a "digital twin" of the entire country.
Phys.org > Computer Sciences3 Questions: Modeling adversarial intelligence to exploit AI’s security vulnerabilities
MIT CSAIL Principal Research Scientist Una-May O’Reilly discusses how she develops agents that reveal AI models’ security weaknesses before hackers do.
MIT NewsNew training approach could help AI agents perform better in uncertain conditions
Sometimes, it might be better to train a robot in an environment that’s different from the one where it will be deployed.
MIT NewsThe Download: mice with two dads, and Meta’s fact-checking challenges
This is today’s edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Mice with two dads have been created using CRISPR What’s new: Mice with two fathers have been born—and have survived to adulthood—following a complex set of experiments by a team in China. The…
MIT Technology ReviewThree reasons Meta will struggle with community fact-checking
Earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will cut back on its content moderation efforts and eliminate fact-checking in the US in favor of the more “democratic” approach that X (formerly Twitter) calls Community Notes, rolling back protections that he claimed had been developed only in response to media and government pressure. The move…
MIT Technology ReviewResults of techUK Defence Programme elections announced - 2025-2027
techUK is delighted to announce the results of the 2024 Defence Programme elections.
techUKCMA publishes provisional decision on its cloud market investigation
The CMA has publisheda provisional decision in its market investigation into the supply of public cloud infrastructure services in the UK.
techUKProblematic paper screener: Trawling for fraud in the scientific literature
Have you ever heard of the Joined Together States? Or bosom peril? Kidney disappointment? Fake neural organizations? Lactose bigotry? These nonsensical, and sometimes amusing, word sequences are among thousands of "tortured phrases" that sleuths have found littered throughout reputable scientific journals.
Phys.org > Computer SciencesFitness centrality: New tool finds critical points in everything from cybersecurity to ecological conservation
What if you could break apart a network like grating cheese—isolating its most crucial elements, fragmenting it into disconnected pieces to reveal where disruptions would be most devastating? That's the power of fitness centrality, a new method introduced by researchers at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) in a recent study published in Journal of Physics: Complexity.
Phys.org > Computer SciencesUsing network science, study shows music has become less complex
A team of Italian computer scientists from Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Padova reports that network science can be used to measure the complexity of a piece of music, allowing for comparison between genres. In their study, reported on the arXiv preprint server, the team used network science techniques to compare the complexity of types of music over time.
Phys.org > Computer SciencesInitiative Aims to Enable Ethical Coding LLMs
AI coding assistants are quickly becoming indispensable tools for developers. But the provenance of the code they’re trained on is often murky, leading to concerns around transparency and author rights. A new initiative launched yesterday by the nonprofit Software Heritage hopes to change this by providing the world’s largest repository of ethically sourced code for training AI. The large language models (LLM) that underlie chatbots and coding assistants are trained on vast reams of data scraped from the Internet. But AI developers rarely provide details of what’s included in their training datasets, says Roberto Di Cosmo, director of Software Heritage. This makes it hard to reproduce ..
IEEE Spectrum > ComputingMice with two dads have been created using CRISPR
Mice with two fathers have been born—and have survived to adulthood—following a complex set of experiments by a team in China. Zhi-Kun Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his colleagues used CRISPR to create the mice, using a novel approach to target genes that normally need to be inherited from both…
MIT Technology ReviewThe Download: DeepSeek forces a reality check, and robotaxis’ future
This is today’s edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI’s energy obsession just got a reality check Just a week in, the AI sector has already seen its first battle of wits under the new Trump administration. The clash stems from two…
MIT Technology ReviewAI’s energy obsession just got a reality check
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Just a week in, the AI sector has already seen its first battle of wits under the new Trump administration. The clash stems from two key pieces of news: the announcement of…
MIT Technology ReviewInstitutions of Innovation: British Business Bank
Find out more about how the British Business Bank is leading on enabling innovation.
techUKIntroducing techUK’s New AI Leader's Series: A Deep Dive into the Future of Artificial Intelligence
Learn how to stay ahead in AI developments with our new AI Leader's Series
techUKA fundamental revision of how AI acquires and processes language could result in more effective LLMs
Can a computer learn a language the way a child does? A study published in Computational Linguistics by professors Katrien Beuls (University of Namur) and Paul Van Eecke (AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) sheds new light on this question.
Phys.org > Computer SciencesHumanoid robots join human musicians for synchronized musical performances
In a fascinating blend of technology and artistry, researchers present a study in PeerJ Computer Science, showcasing how humanoid robots can collaborate seamlessly with human musicians during live musical performances. This innovative work highlights the evolving role of robotics in entertainment and creativity.
Phys.org > Computer SciencesNew Neural Network Slashes Sensor Data Overload
Modern technology collects vast amounts of data from sensors, with one estimate placing global data from Internet of Things devices at about 73 zettabytes (or 73 trillion gigabytes) in 2025. And as more data are collected, the infrastructure required to store, transfer, and run compute on that data also grows. But what if, instead of collecting all possible data from a sensor, we could be more selective, collecting just enough data to accurately identify whatever we’re looking for? That’s the approach proposed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and MIT. Their paper, recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, demonstrates how a neural network can achieve an accuracy of ..
IEEE Spectrum > Artificial IntelligenceThe Download: China’s DeepSeek, and useful quantum computing
This is today’s edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model. The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which…
MIT Technology ReviewUseful quantum computing is inevitable—and increasingly imminent
On January 8, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang jolted the stock market by saying that practical quantum computing is still 15 to 30 years away, at the same time suggesting those computers will need Nvidia GPUs in order to implement the necessary error correction. However, history shows that brilliant people are not immune to making mistakes.…
MIT Technology ReviewJust How Many Robots Can One Person Control at Once?
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.Swarms of autonomous robots are increasingly being tested and deployed in complex missions, yet a certain level of human oversight during these missions is still required. Which means a major question remains: How many robots—and how complex a mission—can a single human manage before becoming overwhelmed? In a study funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), experts show that humans can single-handedly and effectively manage a heterogenous swarm of more than 100 autonomous ground and aerial vehicles, while feeling overwhelmed only for brief periods of time during an ..
IEEE Spectrum > Robotics