Self-driving technology developers Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI have secured regulatory approval from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to begin testing autonomous heavy-duty trucks on public roads, marking a significant policy shift for the state. Kodiak has already initiated preliminary operations using a small fleet centered around its Mountain View headquarters. The permits follow a regulatory update finalized by the California DMV on April 28, which ended a longstanding prohibition against testing driverless commercial vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds. The revised framework establishes a formal path for tech firms to test and eventually commercialize heavy-duty autonomous fleets across...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has firmly dismissed allegations that his public warnings about artificial intelligence have fueled negative sentiment toward the industry or hindered technological expansion. The response follows criticism from prominent investor Gavin Baker, who argued on X and the All-In podcast that executive-led warnings about AI risks have triggered public pushback in the U.S., including growing resistance to data center construction. Baker contended that Amodei’s approach to AI policy—including Anthropic’s backing of California transparency legislation—has been overly cautious, urging the CEO to serve as a more constructive advocate for the sector. Responding to the critique, Amodei denied that...

AI robotics startup Figure AI has raised $1 billion in a Series C funding round, reaching a valuation of $39 billion. The round was led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from Nvidia, Macquarie Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, Tamarack Global, LG Technology Ventures, Salesforce, T-Mobile Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures. Figure AI is developing humanoid robots designed to operate with near-human intelligence. These robots are envisioned to take on tasks ranging from household chores to large-scale commercial operations, ultimately becoming an integral part of daily human life. The company plans to allocate the fresh capital across three main areas: Expanding...

In a world-first move, the Albanian government has appointed an artificial intelligence bot as a member of its cabinet. Named Diella—meaning “sun” in Albanian—the digital minister has been tasked with overseeing public procurement processes and managing contracts with private companies. Prime Minister Edi Rama, introducing his new cabinet, described Diella as “the first minister created entirely by artificial intelligence, existing only in digital form.” According to Rama, this groundbreaking step is designed to help eliminate one of Albania’s most entrenched problems: corruption. For years, Albania has been plagued by scandals involving bribery and money laundering in public tenders. Allegations of...

Arm Holdings, one of the world’s leading chip design companies, has unveiled its next-generation processor family “Lumex,” designed specifically for mobile devices. The new line introduces on-device AI capabilities, enabling artificial intelligence tasks to run locally without relying on the internet or cloud services. The Lumex family consists of four models, ranging from low-power chips for wearables to high-performance processors for flagship smartphones. The top-tier version is optimized to handle large-scale AI models directly on the device, eliminating the need for cloud computing. Arm highlighted that the Lumex series was developed under its Compute Subsystems (CSS) division, which provides manufacturers...