A.I./Robotics

Traditional AI training is something like spoon feeding: domain experts and AI/ML practitioners meticulously label data, guiding models step-by-step like a parent feeding a child. But what if AI could learn autonomously, inspired by the universe itself? Enter torque clustering, a novel algorithm introduced in 2023 by University of Technology Sydney researchers. Named after the…

Norwegian robotics firm 1X recently introduced its latest humanoid prototype, Neo Gamma. This prototype evolved from its predecessor, Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Unlike the factory-focused humanoids emerging from competitors like Tesla, Agility, and Figure, 1X is developing a system specifically designed for home environments. The company has showcased images of Neo Gamma performing…

Picture this: rapid, stimulus-free self-healing of electronic skin in 10 seconds. That’s the core innovation that scientists at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation have announced in a study published in Science Advances. But it’s not just fast, its healing is relatively sound with the E-Skin tech recovering over 80% of its functionality within that…

There’s not doubt about it. In an increasingly stressful world, immersive “escapes” via XR (Extended Reality) have undeniable appeal. Yet, headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro, Varjo’s XR-4, and Meta’s Quest Pro demonstrate that XR is evolving beyond entertainment. With designs emphasizing “look through” viewing (Apple) or modular flexibility (HTC), these tools are a compelling R&D…

In the not-too-distant future, you might simply say to your robot, “Put the milk in the fridge,” and watch as it does exactly that—no coding, no complicated setup. No muss, no fuss. That vision is inching closer to reality thanks to Figure AI’s new Helix system, billed as “a generalist Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model that unifies…

A research collaboration between Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) uses machine vision algorithms to track how brain cells, or neurons, develop over time. The team aims to better understand brain cell behavior and identify new therapies for neurological disorders by monitoring how new neurons grow and integrate…

The Protoclone V1 employs a water-based, bio-inspired cooling system—akin to “sweating”—to keep its 1,000* myofiber “muscles” from overheating as they flex across over 200 degrees of freedom. Clone Robotics’ first full-bodied android swaps traditional motors for pressurized actuators, delivering human-like moves monitored by a network of integrated sensors. Although the price is TBD, Clone Robotics…

On February 19, 2025, Microsoft unveiled its first-ever quantum chip—codenamed Majorana 1—claiming a breakthrough using a “new state of matter” called topological superconductivity. This innovation, designed to create topological qubits, directly addresses the high error rates that have historically hampered quantum computing’s scalability, with Bloomberg reporting Microsoft’s demonstration as showing “unprecedented stability.” Meanwhile, NVIDIA stock—hovering…

Google AI has unveiled an AI co-scientist, a Gemini 2.0-based system that significantly shortens the early research cycle—in some cases reducing hypothesis generation time from weeks to days—and delivering proposals rated higher in novelty by domain experts evaluating 15 complex biomedical goals, according to a Google-coauthored paper, “Towards an AI co-scientist” (Gottweis et al., 2025).…

Enfabrica Corporation has opened a new research and development facility in Hyderabad, India, marking its latest step in expanding global operations. The Hyderabad office will focus on building the company’s engineering team and scaling silicon and software product development. Enfabrica’s leadership views this move as a way to strengthen its capacity to design networking products…

Researchers at Arc Institute, in collaboration with NVIDIA and teams from Stanford University, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, have introduced Evo 2: an AI foundation model trained on the genetic sequences of more than 100,000 species. Evo 2 can identify meaningful patterns in a range of genomes and accurately predict mutations that influence disease…

San Francisco-based Crunchbase has rebooted itself as an AI-powered predictions engine, leaving behind its roots as a historical data repository to forecast private market moves with up to 95% accuracy and 99% recall. Unveiled on February 19, 2025, this shift taps billions of live market signals to deliver intelligence to organizations sizing up the innovation…

Researchers Jerry Tang and Alex Huth at UT Austin have developed an AI tool that decodes brain activity into continuous text, even for those who struggle with language comprehension. Unlike previous methods that needed many hours of training and worked only for specific individuals, the technique can be adapted to new users in about an…

Unsurprisingly, a state with several of the country’s top higher education institutions, including one of the highest-ranked technology colleges in the U.S., would be the first to establish a central AI hub. This center is currently offering incentives for industry collaboration to stimulate innovation. MassTech has launched the Massachusetts AI Models Innovation Challenge, offering up…

The R&D World Index saw gains this week, driven partly by a surge in Intel’s value amid significant developments across various sectors. Honda and Nissan have ended their merger talks, citing concerns over autonomy and decision-making, while GlaxoSmithKline consolidates its vaccine R&D in Cambridge, MA. Novartis is set to reacquire rights to a blood clot…

In a repurposed Electrolux factory in Memphis, xAI trained Grok 3 on a supercomputer dubbed “Colossus,” which the company says includes 200,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. Elon Musk and senior xAI employees described Grok 3 as “the smartest AI on Earth” in a recent livestream, citing each GPU’s capacity of up to 4 PFLOPS (four quadrillion…

Elon Musk and a trio of senior xAI employees introduced the newest iteration of his AI chatbot, Grok 3, which the company hails as “the smartest AI on Earth.” In a live video on X (formerly Twitter), Musk stressed how quickly Grok 3 had leapt ahead of its predecessor: “We’re very excited to present Grok 3, which is…

Meta has announced a new subsea cable initiative called Project Waterworth that aims to be the world’s longest submarine cable system at over 50,000 kilometers (31,069 miles) — longer than the earth’s 40,075 kilometer (24,902 miles) circumference. The project, the latest evidence of the company’s recent transformation, will connect five continents using 24 fiber pairs,…

Among the circa 15 million people worldwide who live with spinal cord injuries (SCI), many lose critical hand function, making everyday tasks like picking up a water bottle or reaching into a cupboard extraordinarily difficult. Now, a team of UC Berkeley researchers has developed a “backhand” robotic grasper that is showing promising results—enabling individuals with…

We think of cars and factories as major contributors to carbon emissions, but buildings make up a large chunk of those emissions. A collaborative research initiative led by Peking University and the University of Southern Denmark has developed an advanced framework integrating deep learning with remote sensing to identify building materials. The technology has the…

In early 2025, the AI landscape continues to undergo tectonic shifts—hybrid models are poised to emerge that blur the lines between brute-force scaling and elegant reasoning, code generation tools threaten to disrupt entire industries, and AI bets hundreds of billions of dollar in scope collide with existential safety debates. As systems escape screens to navigate…

Despite all of the bluster surrounding AI’s transformative promise, some R&D projects—especially in areas like battery materials development and drug discovery—face significant bottlenecks when relying on these tools, often requiring days and sometimes weeks or even months of GPU processing time on enormous datasets. Enthought—among other organizations—are investigating leaner approaches to tackle these limits, which…

Picture a high-tech version of Silly Putty that generates electricity. It would be capable of speeding up wound healing, delivering medication through the skin, or even producing clean energy, among other inventive uses. Researchers at the University of Guelph (U of G) have developed a slime-like material that generates electricity when compressed. The material is…

While the pace of AI news seemed to slow somewhat in late 2024, things have progressed quickly in recent months. The GenAI pioneer OpenAI is now building excitement for GPT-4.5, which would be the first model in the series to launch since 2023. (Its 4o variant dropped in May 2024.) In other news, the AI…

Many scientists and clinicians remain concerned about the impact of generative AI on critical thinking. In Elsevier’s global Insights 2024: Attitudes toward AI report—released July 9 and based on survey data gathered from December 2023 to February 2024—81% of respondents worried that GenAI could erode critical thinking skills. Now, a fresh study out of Microsoft…