Artificial intelligence

Adobe Firefly expands with new AI tools for audio and video creation

Adobe has unveiled major updates to its Firefly creative AI studio, introducing advanced audio, video, and imaging tools at the Adobe MAX 2025 conference.

These new features include Generate Soundtrack for licensed music creation, Generate Speech for lifelike multilingual voiceovers, and a timeline-based video editor that integrates seamlessly with Firefly’s existing creative tools.

The company also launched the Firefly Image Model 5, which can produce photorealistic 4MP images with prompt-based editing. Firefly now includes partner models from Google, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Topaz Labs, and others, bringing the industry’s top AI capabilities into one unified workspace.

Adobe also announced Firefly Custom Models, allowing users to train AI models to match their personal creative style.

In a preview of future developments, Adobe showcased Project Moonlight, a conversational AI assistant that connects across creative apps and social channels to help creators move from concept to content in minutes.

A system that can offer tailored suggestions and automate parts of the creative process while keeping creators in complete control.

Adobe emphasised that Firefly is designed to enhance human creativity rather than replace it, offering responsible AI tools that respect intellectual property rights.

With such a release, the company continues integrating generative AI across its ecosystem to simplify production and empower creators at every stage of their workflow.

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OpenAI and Microsoft sign new $135 billion agreement to deepen AI partnership

Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a new agreement that marks the next phase of their long-standing partnership, deepening ties first formed in 2019.

The updated deal builds on years of collaboration in advancing responsible AI, positioning both organisations for long-term success while introducing new structural and operational changes.

Under the new arrangement, Microsoft supports OpenAI’s transition into a public benefit corporation (PBC) and recapitalisation. The technology giant now holds an investment valued at around $135 billion, representing about 27 percent of OpenAI Group PBC on an as-converted diluted basis.

Despite OpenAI’s recent funding rounds, Microsoft previously held a 32.5 percent stake in the for-profit entity.

The partnership maintains Microsoft’s exclusive rights to OpenAI’s frontier models and Azure API until artificial general intelligence (AGI) is achieved, but also introduces several new terms. Once AGI is declared, an independent panel will verify it.

Microsoft’s intellectual property rights are extended through 2032, including models developed after AGI with safety conditions. OpenAI may now co-develop certain products with third parties, while retaining the option to serve non-API products on any cloud provider.

OpenAI will purchase an additional $250 billion worth of Azure services, although Microsoft will no longer hold first-refusal rights for compute supply. The new framework allows both organisations to innovate independently, with Microsoft permitted to pursue AGI independently or with other partners.

The updated agreement reflects a more flexible collaboration that balances independence, growth, and shared innovation.

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Google commits to long-term power deal as NextEra advances nuclear restart

NextEra Energy and Google have launched a major collaboration to accelerate nuclear energy deployment in the United States, anchored by the planned restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Centre in Iowa. The plant has been offline since 2020 and is slated to be back online by early 2029.

Under their agreement, Google will purchase the plant’s energy output through a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA). Additionally, NextEra plans to acquire the remaining minority stakes in Duane Arnold to gain full ownership.

Central Iowa Power Cooperative, which currently holds part of the facility, will secure the output under the same terms.

As the energy needs of AI and cloud computing infrastructure surge, the Duane Arnold partnership positions nuclear power as a reliable, carbon-free baseload resource.

The revival is expected to bring substantial economic benefits: thousands of direct and indirect jobs during construction and operation, and over US$9 billion in regional economic impact.

Beyond Iowa, Google and NextEra will explore broader nuclear development opportunities across the US, including next-generation technologies to meet long-term demand.

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Amazon plans up to 30,000 corporate job cuts as AI automation expands

Beginning Tuesday, Amazon plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate roles, nearly 10% of its white-collar workforce, to reduce costs after pandemic over-hiring.

Cuts may hit human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services. According to people familiar with the policy, the company has also tightened office-attendance rules; employees who are not swiping in daily have been told they are considered to have resigned without severance.

Analysts say AI-driven productivity gains and the need to fund long-term AI infrastructure are key factors behind the reductions in staff. Executives have indicated that greater use of automation and AI to handle routine tasks will drive further reductions.

Internal planning papers reported in US media suggest the company could avoid hiring more than 500,000 US workers by 2033, yielding around $12.6 billion in savings between 2025 and 2027.

The scale and timing of the layoffs could change as financial priorities evolve. Separately, Amazon still expects a busy holiday period and plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers for warehouses and fulfilment roles unrelated to the corporate cuts.

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Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom plan €1 billion AI data centre in Germany

Plans are being rolled out for a €1 billion data centre in Germany to bolster Europe’s AI infrastructure, with Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom set to co-fund the project.

The facility is expected to serve enterprise customers, including SAP SE, Europe’s largest software company, and to deploy around 10,000 advanced chips known as graphics processing units (GPUs).

While significant for Europe, the build is modest compared with gigawatt-scale sites elsewhere, highlighting the region’s push to catch up with US and Chinese capacity.

An announcement is anticipated next month in Berlin alongside senior industry and government figures, with Munich identified as the planned location.

The move aligns with the EU efforts to expand AI compute, including the €200 billion initiative announced in February to grow capacity over the next five to seven years.

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Deepfake videos raises environmental worries

Deepfake videos powered by AI are spreading across social media at an unprecedented pace, but their popularity carries a hidden environmental cost.

Creating realistic AI videos depends on vast data centres that consume enormous amounts of electricity and use fresh water to cool powerful servers. Each clip quietly produced adds to the rising energy demand and increasing pressure on local water supplies.

Apps such as Sora have made generating these videos almost effortless, resulting in millions of downloads and a constant stream of new content. Users are being urged to consider how frequently they produce and share such media, given the heavy energy and water footprint behind every video.

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Elon Musk launches AI-powered Grokipedia to rival Wikipedia

Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, an AI-driven online encyclopedia developed by his company xAI. The platform, described as an alternative to Wikipedia, debuted on Monday with over 885,000 articles written and verified by AI.

Musk claimed the early version already surpasses Wikipedia in quality and transparency, promising significant improvements with the release of version 1.0.

Unlike Wikipedia’s crowdsourced model, Grokipedia does not allow users to edit content directly. Instead, users can request modifications through xAI’s chatbot Grok, which decides whether to implement changes and explains its reasoning.

Musk said the project’s guiding principle is ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ acknowledging the platform’s imperfections while pledging continuous refinement.

However, Grokipedia’s launch has raised questions about originality. Several entries contain disclaimers crediting Wikipedia under a Creative Commons licence, with some articles appearing nearly identical.

Musk confirmed awareness of the issue and stated that improvements are expected before the end of the year. The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, responded calmly, noting that human-created knowledge remains at the heart of its mission.

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New ChatGPT model reduces unsafe replies by up to 80%

OpenAI has updated ChatGPT’s default model after working with more than 170 mental health clinicians to help the system better spot distress, de-escalate conversations and point users to real-world support.

The update routes sensitive exchanges to safer models, expands access to crisis hotlines and adds gentle prompts to take breaks, aiming to reduce harmful responses rather than simply offering more content.

Measured improvements are significant across three priority areas: severe mental health symptoms such as psychosis and mania, self-harm and suicide, and unhealthy emotional reliance on AI.

OpenAI reports that undesired responses fell between 65 and 80 percent in production traffic and that independent clinician reviews show significant gains compared with earlier models. At the same time, rare but high-risk scenarios remain a focus for further testing.

The company used a five-step process to shape the changes: define harms, measure them, validate approaches with experts, mitigate risks through post-training and product updates, and keep iterating.

Evaluations combine real-world traffic estimates with structured adversarial tests, so better ChatGPT safeguards are in place now, and further refinements are planned as understanding and measurement methods evolve.

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AI200 and AI250 set a rack-scale inference push from Qualcomm

Qualcomm unveiled AI200 and AI250 data-centre accelerators aimed at high-throughput, low-TCO generative AI inference. AI200 targets rack-level deployment with high performance per pound per watt and 768 GB LPDDR per card for large models.

AI250 introduces a near-memory architecture that boosts adequate memory bandwidth by over tenfold while lowering power draw. Qualcomm pitches the design for disaggregated serving, improving hardware utilisation across large fleets.

Both arrive as full racks with direct liquid cooling, PCIe for scale-up, Ethernet for scale-out, and confidential computing. Qualcomm quotes around 160 kW per rack for thermally efficient, dense inference.

A hyperscaler-grade software stack spans apps to system software with one-click onboarding of Hugging Face models. Support covers leading frameworks, inference engines, and optimisation techniques to simplify secure, scalable deployments.

Commercial timing splits the roadmap: AI200 in 2026 and AI250 in 2027. Qualcomm commits to an annual cadence for data-centre inference, aiming to lead in performance, energy efficiency, and total cost of ownership.

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A generative AI model helps athletes avoid injuries and recover faster

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a generative AI model designed to prevent sports injuries and assist rehabilitation.

The system, named BIGE (Biomechanics-informed GenAI for Exercise Science), integrates data on human motion with biomechanical constraints such as muscle force limits to create realistic training guidance.

BIGE can generate video demonstrations of optimal movements that athletes can imitate to enhance performance or avoid injury. It can also produce adaptive motions suited for athletes recovering from injuries, offering a personalised approach to rehabilitation.

The model merges generative AI with accurate modelling, overcoming limitations of previous systems that produced anatomically unrealistic results or required heavy computational resources.

To train BIGE, researchers used motion-capture data of athletes performing squats, converting them into 3D skeletal models with precise force calculations. The project’s next phase will expand to other types of movements and individualised training models.

Beyond sports, researchers suggest the tool could predict fall risks among the elderly. Professor Andrew McCulloch described the technology as ‘the future of exercise science’, while co-author Professor Rose Yu said its methods could be widely applied across healthcare and fitness.

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