Amazon is reportedly in advanced talks for a second multi-billion dollar investment in the AI startup Anthropic, building on its previous $4 billion commitment made in 2023. This new investment would not only bolster Amazon’s growing ties with Anthropic but also help enhance its strategic position in the highly competitive AI sector. Anthropic, which is using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to power its AI model training, has become a key player in the AI race.
In addition to providing financial backing, Amazon has reportedly asked Anthropic to utilise its servers, which are powered by Amazon’s custom-designed chips. However, sources note that Anthropic has a preference for using Nvidia-designed chips, which are widely recognised as the industry standard for AI processing. This dynamic highlights the ongoing competition between Amazon and Nvidia in the AI hardware space, as both tech giants vie for dominance in the rapidly expanding market.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, has attracted significant interest from other major players in the tech industry. The startup secured a $500 million investment from Google’s parent company, Alphabet, last year, with Alphabet pledging an additional $1.5 billion over time. Despite these investments, both Amazon and Anthropic have declined to comment on the specifics of the latest talks regarding the new investment, underscoring the confidential nature of these high-stakes negotiations.
A woman from Littlehampton, West Sussex, is ‘deeply grateful’ to AI for detecting her breast cancer, which had previously gone unnoticed despite a routine mammogram showing no signs of the disease. Sheila Tooth, 68, had her mammogram at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, where AI is being used to enhance breast cancer screenings and identify cancers that human reviewers might miss.
Sheila’s cancerous cells were nearly undetectable by traditional methods, and she believes AI’s detection helped catch it at an early, treatable stage. ‘I just feel so lucky,’ she said, reflecting on how AI detected the cancer that could have become invasive if left unnoticed. The technology is part of a larger project involving 15 trusts across the UK, which reviewed over 12,000 mammograms to identify missed cases. AI flagged nearly 10% of these as potentially needing a second look, leading to further investigations for some women and five confirmed breast cancer diagnoses.
Dr Olga Strukowska, a consultant radiologist, called AI screening ‘exciting’ because it enhances the accuracy of breast cancer detection, reduces missed diagnoses, and lowers false positives. AI’s role in early and precise cancer detection could greatly improve outcomes for patients, according to Dr Strukowska. With about 650 women diagnosed with breast cancer annually in Sussex, the trust now plans to participate in a national trial to further integrate AI into routine breast screenings.
GEA Digital and EIT Digital Champions are collaborating to boost AI-driven innovation in the European defence sector through the prestigious EIT Digital Champions competition. As the sponsor of this 12th edition, GEA Digital is focused on advancing AI solutions for defence applications, particularly in areas like electronic warfare, real-time threat detection, autonomous drone identification, edge computing, and communication disruption.
The partnership offers European scaleups a unique platform to showcase their cutting-edge technologies, addressing the growing need for scalable and efficient defence capabilities. Through this competition, GEA Digital also aims to bridge the gap between startups and defence organisations, encouraging the defence sector to adopt a more open approach to innovation.
In January 2025, the finalists will pitch their solutions to an international panel of investors, with winners receiving tailored support from EIT Digital’s Growth Services program, exclusive access to Italian defence clients, and mentoring from GEA Digital’s experts. GEA Digital’s sponsorship reflects its commitment to modernising Italy’s defence industry at a crucial time.
With rising demands for advanced technology and a shrinking workforce, GEA Digital aims to promote collaboration between the defence sector and high-tech industries. This partnership supports Italy’s defence organisations in adopting innovative technologies, helping them stay competitive in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Germany’s SAP, the global software giant, plans to significantly expand its workforce in India, with the region soon set to surpass its German headquarters in employee numbers, CEO Christian Klein announced on Wednesday. SAP’s India division, with 15,000 employees, already hosts the largest number of engineers in the company worldwide and is among SAP’s top ten revenue-generating markets.
The company’s primary investments in research and development, as well as customer success roles, will be directed toward India, though specifics on hiring timelines were not disclosed. SAP is also building a new office in Bengaluru that will accommodate an additional 15,000 employees as part of this growth plan.
Despite concerns about generative AI’s impact on jobs, Klein expressed confidence that demand for new developers would continue to grow alongside Germany‘s SAP’s business. He also highlighted that India is home to SAP’s core AI development team, emphasising the country’s critical role in driving the company’s technology strategy.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged Sitejabber, an online review platform, for violating its new rules on fake reviews. This marks one of the agency’s first enforcement actions under updated regulations designed to curb deceptive practices. The FTC alleges that Sitejabber misled consumers by using point-of-sale reviews—feedback collected before customers had received any products or services—to falsely inflate businesses’ review scores.
The company allowed its clients to publish these premature reviews, giving a false impression that they reflected actual customer experiences. The FTC has now ordered Sitejabber to stop this practice and prohibited it from assisting other businesses in misrepresenting reviews. The new rules, which took effect last month, aim to tackle deceptive online review practices, including those involving AI-generated reviews and fake review websites masquerading as independent.
The FTC’s crackdown is part of a broader effort to address the rising problem of fake reviews on e-commerce platforms like Amazon. With the new regulations in place, the agency intends to prevent misleading online content that could deceive consumers into making purchasing decisions based on false information.
OpenAI has acquired Chat.com, adding another high-profile domain to its portfolio. Starting today, the website redirects directly to ChatGPT, the company’s popular AI chatbot, marking a significant move in expanding OpenAI’s online footprint. Though OpenAI has yet to reveal the acquisition price, reports indicate the domain previously sold for $15.5M when bought by HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, making it one of the largest known domain sales.
Last year, Shah sold Chat.com to an undisclosed buyer, which he recently confirmed on social media to be OpenAI. The sale may have included OpenAI shares as part of the deal, but no further details have been shared. While Chat.com now directs users to ChatGPT, it does not represent a rebranding. The domain acquisition aligns with OpenAI’s ongoing strategy of increasing accessibility to its AI offerings by securing memorable, high-value digital properties.
Researchers at the University of Manchester and The Christie Cancer Hospital have received a £5.9 million grant from Cancer Research UK to use AI in cancer treatment. The funding will support a project that simulates clinical trials to test the effectiveness of radiotherapy on ‘virtual’ patients, created using real-life data. This innovative approach aims to make cancer research faster, safer, and more cost-effective than traditional large-scale clinical trials.
The virtual trials will focus on patient-specific genetics and tumours, with a particular emphasis on comparing new proton beam therapy with conventional radiotherapy for lung cancer. AI will allow researchers to test treatments more quickly than through traditional trials involving real patients. This initiative is part of Cancer Research UK’s push to advance radiotherapy research, with Manchester being one of only seven centres of excellence in the UK to receive funding for this work.
Martin Storey, a lung cancer survivor who benefited from radiotherapy in a clinical trial, expressed his support for the project, saying that AI-driven trials could help more people survive cancer. Storey, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009, believes that the use of AI could accelerate treatment advancements and improve outcomes for future patients.
As a follow-up to the Global Digital Compact (GDC), the President of the General Assembly appointed the Permanent Representatives of Costa Rica and Spain to the UN as co-facilitators for the intergovernmental process and consultations to identify the terms of reference and modalities for the establishment and functioning of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, for adoption by the General Assembly.
Through the GDC, UN member states committed to:
(a) Establish, within the United Nations, a multidisciplinary Independent International Scientific Panel on AI with balanced geographic representation to promote scientific understanding through evidence-based impact, risk and opportunity assessments, drawing on existing national, regional and international initiatives and research networks;
(b) Initiate, within the United Nations, a Global Dialogue on AI Governance involving Governments and all relevant stakeholders which will take place in the margins of existing relevant United Nations conferences and meetings (paragraph 56).
Apple has launched the AI-powered version of iOS 18.2, bringing new features to public beta users. These include tools like Genmoji, an AI-powered emoji generator, Image Playground for creating AI-generated images and ChatGPT integration with Siri. The update also introduces Visual Intelligence, which uses the iPhone 16’s camera for real-time object and place identification. These features were previously available only to developers but are now open to select users, with some requiring a waitlist for access.
The new capabilities, grouped under “Apple Intelligence,” promise to enhance Siri’s functionality, including offering writing and proofreading assistance across apps. Apple plans to extend these AI tools to third-party developers, potentially increasing their impact. For now, users can experiment with ChatGPT for text generation and image creation, as well as generate custom emojis and edit rough sketches using Image Wand.
While Apple Intelligence is enabled by default on some devices, others will need to sign up for the new features. However, there’s a waitlist for certain tools, which Apple is managing to ensure a safe rollout. Concerns over misuse, like the creation of NSFW emojis, have contributed to the cautious approach.
The update follows AI improvements introduced in iOS 18.1, such as enhanced writing tools and updated Siri features. Alongside iOS 18.2, Apple also released public betas for iPadOS 18.2, macOS Sequoia 15.2, and tvOS 18.2, continuing to expand its AI-driven ecosystem.
Researchers in the UK are exploring how AI could lead to new treatments for children with brain tumours. With around 420 children diagnosed annually, the team at the Cancer Research UK Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence in Cambridge is focused on improving survival rates, especially for those with the most aggressive forms of the disease, who currently have a low likelihood of survival beyond a year.
Dr Elizabeth Cooper, one of the researchers, noted that children’s brain tumours differ from adult tumours due to the ongoing development of the brain in children, which may explain why treatments like immunotherapy, effective in other cancers, have limited success with brain tumours. Dr Cooper highlighted that the brain has its own unique immune system, but scientists have yet to fully understand how to harness it for treatment.
Led by co-director Prof. Richard Gilbertson, the team is also working to develop new drugs that are less harmful to young patients. With a substantial grant, the centre plans to use AI to build digital models of complex brain tumours. These models will allow the team to conduct virtual trials, aiming to identify more effective and less toxic treatment options than traditional methods like radiotherapy, which can cause severe side effects in children.
