More than 38 million farmers in India have received AI-powered forecasts predicting the start of the monsoon season, helping them plan when to sow crops.
The forecasts, powered by NeuralGCM, a Google Research model, blend physics-based simulations with machine learning trained on decades of climate data.
Unlike traditional models requiring supercomputers, NeuralGCM can run on a laptop, making advanced AI weather predictions more accessible.
Research shows that accurate early forecasts can nearly double Indian farmers’ annual income by helping them decide when to plant, switch crops or hold back.
The initiative demonstrates how AI research can directly support communities vulnerable to climate shifts and improve resilience in agriculture.
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To support this momentum, Google Cloud hosted its first AI Builders Forum in Silicon Valley, where hundreds of founders gathered to hear about new tools, infrastructure and programmes designed to accelerate innovation.
Google Cloud has also released a technical guide to help startups build and scale AI agents, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and multimodal approaches. The guide highlights leveraging Google’s agentic development kit and agent-to-agent tools.
The support is bolstered by the Google for Startups Cloud Program, which offers credits worth up to $350,000, mentorship and access to partner AI models from Anthropic and Meta. Google says its goal is to give startups the technology and resources to launch, scale and compete globally.
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Japan is adopting a softer approach to regulating generative AI, emphasising innovation while managing risks. Its 2025 AI Bill promotes development and safety, supported by international norms and guidelines.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is running a market study on competition concerns in AI, alongside enforcing the new Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA), aimed at curbing anti-competitive practices in mobile software.
The AI Bill focuses on transparency, international cooperation, and sector-specific guidance rather than heavy penalties. Policymakers hope this flexible framework will avoid stifling innovation while encouraging responsible adoption.
The MSCA, set to be fully enforced in December 2025, obliges mobile platform operators to ensure interoperability and fair treatment of developers, including potential applications to AI tools and assistants.
With rapid AI advances, regulators in Japan remain cautious but proactive. The JFTC aims to monitor markets closely, issue guidelines as needed, and preserve a balance between competition, innovation, and consumer protection.
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Notion has officially entered the agent era with the launch of Notion Agent, the centrepiece of its Notion 3.0 rollout. Described as a ‘teammate and Notion super user,’ the AI agent is designed to automate work inside and beyond Notion.
The new tool can automatically build pages and databases, search across connected tools like Slack, and perform up to 20 minutes of autonomous work at a time. Notion says this enables faster, more efficient workflows across hundreds of pages simultaneously.
A key feature is memory, which allows the agent to ‘remember’ a user’s preferences and working style. These memories can be edited and stored under multiple profiles, allowing users to customise their agent for different projects or contexts.
Notion highlights use cases such as generating email campaigns, consolidating feedback into reports, and transforming meeting notes into emails or proposals. The company says the agent acts as a partner who plans tasks and carries them out end-to-end.
Future updates will expand personalisation and automation, including fully customised agents capable of even more complex tasks. Notion positions the launch as a step toward a new era of intelligent, self-directed productivity.
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The UK and US have signed a landmark Tech Prosperity Deal, securing a £250 billion investment package across technology and energy sectors. The agreement includes major commitments from leading AI companies to expand data centres, supercomputing capacity, and create 15,000 jobs in Britain.
Energy security forms a core part of the deal, with plans for 12 advanced nuclear reactors in northeast England. These facilities are expected to generate power for millions of homes and businesses, lower bills, and strengthen bilateral energy resilience.
The package includes $30 billion from Microsoft and $6.8 billion from Google, alongside other AI investments aimed at boosting UK research. It also funds the country’s largest supercomputer project with Nscale, establishing a foundation for AI leadership in Europe.
American firms have pledged £150 billion for UK projects, while British companies will invest heavily in the US. Pharmaceutical giant GSK has committed nearly $30 billion to American operations, underlining the cross-Atlantic nature of the partnership.
The Tech Prosperity Deal follows a recent UK-US trade agreement that removes tariffs on steel and aluminium and opens markets for key exports. The new accord builds on that momentum, tying economic growth to innovation, deregulation, and frontier technologies.
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The two US tech firms, NVIDIA and Intel, have announced a major partnership to develop multiple generations of AI infrastructure and personal computing products.
They say that the collaboration will merge NVIDIA’s leadership in accelerated computing with Intel’s expertise in CPUs and advanced manufacturing.
For data centres, Intel will design custom x86 CPUs for NVIDIA, which will be integrated into the company’s AI platforms to power hyperscale and enterprise workloads.
In personal computing, Intel will create x86 system-on-chips that incorporate NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets, aimed at delivering high-performance PCs for a wide range of consumers.
As part of the deal, NVIDIA will invest $5 billion in Intel common stock at $23.28 per share, pending regulatory approvals.
NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang described the collaboration as a ‘fusion of two world-class platforms’ that will accelerate computing innovation, while Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the partnership builds on decades of x86 innovation and will unlock breakthroughs across industries.
The move underscores how AI is reshaping both infrastructure and personal computing. By combining architectures and ecosystems instead of pursuing separate paths, Intel and NVIDIA are positioning themselves to shape the next era of computing at a global scale.
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Three lawsuits have been filed in US federal courts alleging that Character.AI and its founders, with Google’s backing, deployed predatory chatbots that harmed children. The cases involve the family of 13-year-old Juliana Peralta, who died by suicide in 2023, and two other minors.
The complaints say the chatbots were designed to mimic humans, build dependency, and expose children to sexual content. Using emojis, typos, and pop-culture personas, the bots allegedly gained trust and encouraged isolation from family and friends.
Juliana’s parents say she engaged in explicit chats, disclosed suicidal thoughts, and received no intervention before her death. Nina, 15, from New York, attempted suicide after her mother blocked the app, while a Colorado, US girl known as T.S. was also affected.
Character.AI and Google are accused of misrepresenting the app as child-safe and failing to act on warning signs. The cases follow earlier lawsuits from the Social Media Victims Law Center over similar claims that the platform encouraged harm.
SMVLC founder Matthew Bergman stated that the cases underscore the urgent need for accountability in AI design and stronger safeguards to protect children. The legal team is seeking damages and stricter safety standards for chatbot platforms marketed to minors.
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The WTO launched the 2025 World Trade Report, titled ‘Making trade and AI work together to benefit all’. The report argues that AI could potentially boost global trade by up to 37% and GDP by 12–13% by 2040, particularly through digitally deliverable services.
It notes that AI can lower trade costs, improve supply-chain efficiency, and create opportunities for small firms and developing countries. Still, it warns that without deliberate action, AI could deepen global inequalities and widen the gap between advanced and developing economies.
The report underscores the need for investment in digital infrastructure, energy, skills, and enabling policies, highlighting the importance of IP protection, competition frameworks, and government support.
A newly developed indicator, the WTO AI Trade Policy Openness Index (AI-TPOI), revealed significant variation in AI-related trade policies across and within income groups.
It assessed three policy areas relevant to AI diffusion: barriers to services trade, restrictions on trade in AI-enabling goods, and limitations on cross-border data flows.
Stronger multilateral cooperation and targeted capacity-building were presented as essential to ensure AI-enabled trade supports inclusive, sustainable prosperity rather than reinforcing existing divides.
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Broadcasters and advertisers seek clarity before the EU’s political advertising rules become fully applicable on 10 October. The European Commission has promised further guidance, but details on what qualifies as political advertising remain vague.
Meta and Google will block the EU’s political, election, and social issue ads when the rules take effect, citing operational challenges and legal uncertainty. The regulation, aimed at curbing disinformation and foreign interference, requires ads to display labels with sponsors, payments, and targeting.
Publishers fear they lack the technical means to comply or block non-compliant programmatic ads, risking legal exposure. They call for clear sponsor identification procedures, standardised declaration formats, and robust verification processes to ensure authenticity.
Advertisers warn that the rules’ broad definition of political actors may be hard to implement. At the same time, broadcasters fear issue-based campaigns – such as environmental awareness drives – could unintentionally fall under the scope of political advertising.
The Dutch parliamentary election on 29 October will be the first to take place under the fully applicable rules, making clarity from Brussels urgent for media and advertisers across the bloc.
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Scientists from Australian universities and The George Institute for Global Health have developed an AI tool that analyses mammograms and a woman’s age to predict her risk of heart-related hospitalisation or death within 10 years.
Published in Heart on 17 September, the study highlights the lack of routine heart disease screening for women, despite cardiovascular conditions causing 35% of female deaths. The tool delivers a two-in-one health check by integrating heart risk prediction into breast cancer screening.
The model was trained on data from over 49,000 women and performs as accurately as traditional models that require blood pressure and cholesterol data. Researchers emphasise its low-resource nature, making it viable for broad deployment in rural or underserved areas.
Study co-author Dr Jennifer Barraclough said mobile mammography services could adopt the tool to deliver breast cancer and heart health screenings in one visit. Such integration could help overcome healthcare access barriers in remote regions.
Next, before a broader rollout, the researchers plan to validate the tool in more diverse populations and study practical challenges, such as technical requirements and regulatory approvals.
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