Spending on chips and AI is expected to nearly quadruple to ¥1.23 trillion ($7.9 billion), accounting for the majority of the ministry’s ¥3.07 trillion budget, a 50% increase from last year. The budget, approved by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet, will be debated in parliament early next year.
The funding boost reflects Japan’s push to strengthen its position in frontier technologies amid global competition with the US and China. The government will fund most of the additional support through regular budgets, ensuring more stable backing for semiconductor and AI development.
Key initiatives include ¥150 billion for chip venture Rapidus and ¥387.3 billion for domestic foundation AI models, data infrastructure, and ‘physical AI’ for robotics and machinery control.
The budget also allocates ¥5 billion for critical minerals and ¥122 billion for decarbonisation, including next-generation nuclear power. Special bonds worth ¥1.78 trillion will also support Japanese investment in the US, reinforcing the trade agreement between the two countries.
The increase in funding demonstrates Japan’s strategic focus on achieving technological self-sufficiency and enhancing global competitiveness in emerging industries, thereby ensuring long-term support for innovation and critical infrastructure.
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Researchers at MIT and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab have introduced a new attention mechanism designed to enhance the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) in tracking state and reasoning across long texts.
Unlike traditional positional encoding methods, the PaTH Attention system adapts to the content of words, enabling models to follow complex sequences more effectively.
PaTH Attention models sequences through data-dependent transformations, allowing LLMs to track how meaning changes between words instead of relying solely on relative distance.
The approach improves performance on long-context reasoning, multi-step recall, and language modelling benchmarks, all while remaining computationally efficient and compatible with GPUs.
Tests demonstrated consistent gains in perplexity and content-awareness compared with conventional methods. The team combined PaTH Attention with FoX to down-weight less relevant information, improving reasoning and long-sequence understanding.
According to senior author Yoon Kim, these advances represent the next step in developing general-purpose building blocks for AI, combining expressivity, scalability, and efficiency for broader applications in structured domains such as biology.
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The US administration is criticising foreign digital regulations affecting major online platforms while avoiding trade measures that could disrupt the US economy. Officials say the rules disproportionately impact American technology companies.
US officials have paused or cancelled trade discussions with the UK, the EU, and South Korea. Current negotiations are focused on rolling back digital taxes, privacy rules, and platform regulations that Washington views as unfair barriers to US firms.
US administration officials describe the moves as a negotiating tactic rather than an escalation toward tariffs. While trade investigations into digital practices have been raised as a possibility, officials have stressed that the goal remains a negotiated outcome rather than a renewed trade conflict.
Technology companies have pressed for firmer action, though some industry figures warn that aggressive retaliation could trigger a wider digital trade war. Officials acknowledge that prolonged disputes with major partners could ultimately harm both US firms and global markets.
Despite rhetorical escalation and targeted threats against European companies, the US administration has so far avoided dismantling existing trade agreements. Analysts say mounting pressure may soon force Washington to choose between compromise and more concrete enforcement measures.
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Users of popular AI chatbots are generating bikini deepfakes by manipulating photos of fully clothed women, often without consent. Online discussions show how generative AI tools can be misused to create sexually suggestive deepfakes from ordinary images, raising concerns about image-based abuse.
A now-deleted Reddit thread shared prompts for using Google’s Gemini to alter clothing in photographs. One post asked for a woman’s traditional dress to be changed to a bikini. Reddit removed the content and later banned the subreddit over deepfake-related harassment.
Researchers and digital rights advocates warn that nonconsensual deepfakes remain a persistent form of online harassment. Millions of users have visited AI-powered websites designed to undress people in photos. The trend reflects growing harm enabled by increasingly realistic image generation tools.
Most mainstream AI chatbots prohibit the creation of explicit images and apply safeguards to prevent abuse. However, recent advances in image-editing models have made it easier for users to bypass guardrails using simple prompts, according to limited testing and expert assessments.
Technology companies say their policies ban altering a person’s likeness without consent, with penalties including account suspensions. Legal experts argue that deepfakes involving sexualised imagery represent a core risk of generative AI and that accountability must extend to both users and platforms.
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India’s technology ministry plans to showcase more than 100 homegrown applications at an upcoming AI Impact Summit. The event aims to highlight locally developed tools across public services and industry.
Officials say the initiative supports domestic innovation while reducing reliance on foreign technology platforms. Priority areas include governance, healthcare, education and small business productivity.
The ministry intends to promote practical AI adoption rather than experimental research. Developers will demonstrate solutions already deployed or nearing commercial readiness.
The showcase reflects India’s broader strategy to position local firms within global AI supply chains. Indian policymakers view applied AI as central to economic growth.
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AI-powered tools are adding new features to long-running Santa Tracker services used by families on Christmas Eve. Platforms run by NORAD and Google allow users to follow Father Christmas’s journey through their Santa Tracker tools, which also introduce interactive and personalised digital experiences.
NORAD’s Santa Tracker, first launched in 1955, now features games, videos, music, and stories in addition to its live tracking map. This year, the service introduced AI-powered features that generate elf-style avatars, create toy ideas, and produce personalised holiday stories for families.
The Santa Tracker presents Santa’s journey on a 3D globe built using open-source mapping technology and satellite imagery. Users can also watch short videos on Santa Cam, featuring Santa travelling to destinations around the world.
Google’s rendition offers similar features, including a live map, estimated arrival times, and interactive activities available throughout December. Santa’s Village includes games, animations, and beginner-friendly coding activities designed for children.
Google Assistant introduces a voice-based experience to its service, enabling users to ask about Santa’s location or receive updates from the North Pole. Both platforms aim to blend tradition with digital tools to create a seamless and engaging holiday experience.
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Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts are using AI and advanced visualisation tools to study how memories are formed in the human brain. Their work focuses on understanding how experiences produce lasting biological changes linked to long-term memory.
The project is led by Andre Fenton of New York University and Abhishek Kumar of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Using NVIDIA RTX GPUs and HP Z workstations, the team analyses large-scale brain imaging data with custom AI tools and the syGlass virtual reality platform.
Researchers centred on the hippocampus, a brain structure central to memory. Scientists are examining specific protein markers in neurons to reveal how memories are encoded, even though these markers represent only a small fraction of the brain’s overall protein landscape.
High-resolution 3D imaging previously created a major data bottleneck. AI-supported workflows now allow researchers to capture, inspect, and store terabytes of volumetric data, enabling more detailed analysis of brain cell structure and function.
Researchers say understanding memory at a molecular level could support earlier insights into neurological and psychiatric conditions. The tools are also being used for education, allowing students to explore brain data interactively while contributing to ongoing research.
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OpenAI has introduced new Personalisation settings in ChatGPT that allow users to fine-tune warmth, enthusiasm and emoji use. The changes are designed to make conversations feel more natural, instead of relying on a single default tone.
ChatGPT users can set each element to More, Less or Default, alongside existing tone styles such as Professional, Candid and Quirky. The update follows previous adjustments, where OpenAI first dialled back perceived agreeableness, then later increased warmth after users said the system felt overly cold.
Experts have raised concerns that highly agreeable AI could encourage emotional dependence, even as users welcome a more flexible conversational style.
Some commentators describe the feature as empowering, while others question whether customising a chatbot’s personality risks blurring emotional boundaries.
The new tone controls continue broader industry debates about how human-like AI should become. OpenAI hopes that added transparency and user choice will balance personal preference with responsible design, instead of encouraging reliance on a single conversational style.
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The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) announced it will investigate AI-based online search services over concerns that using news articles without permission could violate antitrust laws.
Authorities said such practices may amount to an abuse of a dominant bargaining position under Japan’s antimonopoly regulations.
The inquiry is expected to examine services from global tech firms, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as US startup Perplexity AI and Japanese company LY Corp. AI search tools summarise online content, including news articles, raising concerns about their effect on media revenue.
The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association warned AI summaries may reduce website traffic and media revenue. JFTC Secretary General Hiroo Iwanari said generative AI is evolving quickly, requiring careful review to keep up with technological change.
The investigation reflects growing global scrutiny of AI services and their interaction with content providers, with regulators increasingly assessing the balance between innovation and fair competition in digital markets.
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A significant debate has erupted in South Korea after the National Assembly passed new legislation aimed at tackling so-called fake news.
The revised Information and Communications Network Act bans the circulation of false or fabricated information online. It allows courts to impose punitive damages up to five times the losses suffered when media outlets or YouTubers intentionally spread disinformation for unjust profit.
Journalists, unions and academics warn that the law could undermine freedom of expression and weaken journalism’s watchdog function instead of strengthening public trust.
Critics argue that ambiguity over who decides what constitutes fake news could shift judgement away from the courts and toward regulators or platforms, encouraging self-censorship and increasing the risk of abusive lawsuits by influential figures.
Experts also highlight the lack of strong safeguards in South Korea against malicious litigation compared with the US, where plaintiffs must prove fault by journalists.
The controversy reflects more profound public scepticism about South Korean media and long-standing reporting practices that sometimes rely on relaying statements without sufficient verification, suggesting that structural reform may be needed instead of rapid, punitive legislation.
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