AMD says that it plans to launch its next major data center GPUs, the AMD Instinct MI350 series, sooner than originally announced.During the company’s Q4 2024 earnings call Tuesday, AMD CEO Lisa Su said AMD plans to sample the MI350 with “lead customers” this quarter, and “accelerate” production shipments to “mid-year.” “So, we had previously stated that we thought we would launch [the MI350] in the second half of [2025],” Su said. “And frankly, that bring-up has come up better than we expected, and there’ ...

In Brief Google removed a pledge to not build AI for weapons or surveillance from its website this week. The change was first spotted by Bloomberg. The company appears to have updated its public AI principles page, erasing a section titled “applications we will not pursue,” which was still included as recently as last week.Asked for comment, the company pointed TechCrunch to a new blog post on “responsible AI.” It notes, in part, “we believe that companies, governments, and organizations sharing these value ...

Renewables notched another win as Amazon signed contracts to buy 476 megawatts of wind and solar on the Iberian Peninsula. The power purchase agreements with multinational utility Iberdrola should help Amazon feed new data centers it has planned in the region. Last May, the company said it would invest $17 billion in infrastructure projects, including data centers, in Spain. Amazon’s power bill has been soaring lately as it adds data centers to deal with rising demand for AI and cloud services.One of the p ...

Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is laying off 50% of its workforce — cuts that extend to the CEO and several other top executives — as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of Cruise will move under parent company General Motors as the automaker directs its resources towards improving its hands-free driver assistance system Super Cruise — and eventually rolls out personal autonomous vehicles. The layoffs were announced by Craig Glidden, Cruise’s president and chief administrative officer, acco ...

Apple on Tuesday launched a new app called “Invites” that allows users to create custom invitations for any occasion. With Invites, users can create and share invitations on their iPhone, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and curate event soundtracks.To create an invitation, you need an iCloud+ subscription. However, anyone can RSVP, regardless of whether they have an Apple Account or Apple device. The launch marks Apple’s latest instance of “Sherlocking” a service, or simply put, introducing a new featur ...

China said Tuesday it has launched an antitrust investigation into Google, part of a swift retaliation after the U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods.The probe by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation will examine alleged monopolistic practices by the U.S. tech giant, which has had its search and internet services blocked in China since 2010 but maintains operations there primarily focused on advertising. “Because Google is suspected of violating the Anti-Monopoly ...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to make artificial general intelligence (AGI) — which is roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can — openly available one day. But in a new policy document, Meta suggests that there are certain scenarios in which it may not release a highly capable AI system it developed internally.The document, which Meta is calling its Frontier AI Framework, identifies two types of AI systems the company considers too risky to release: “high risk” and “critical ris ...

In Brief Apple will be giving iCloud users a new way to invite people to parties, meetings, and other events, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.The company has code-named the service Confetti, and it could launch as early as this week, Gurman says. There aren’t many details about how it will actually work, but Confetti is reportedly tied to iCloud and could also be the beginning of a broader revamp of Apple’s Calendar app. It also sounds like the feature release will be tied to iOS 18.3, the latest upda ...

Group 1 - Adobe's chief strategy officer Scott Belsky is leaving the company to join independent movie studio A24 as a partner [1][3] - Belsky has a history with Adobe, having joined in 2012 through the acquisition of Behance, and has held various roles including executive vice president of design and emerging products [1] - A24, founded in 2012, has gained recognition for its critically acclaimed films and has won two Best Picture Oscars for "Everything Everywhere All At Once" and "Moonlight" [2] Group 2 - A24 is signaling its ambition for larger commercial success, having raised significant funding rounds at a reported valuation of $3.25 billion [2] - The studio is known for "elevated" horror films and has developed a devoted following [2] - Belsky expressed eagerness to support A24's storytelling initiatives and kick off special projects with his new partners [3]

Apple has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit over battery swelling on the Apple Watch. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 2019, the suit alleges that the problem affected the first four Apple Watch models.Battery swelling is pretty much what it sounds like: a buildup of heat and gas inside the lithium-ion battery, causing its walls to expand. The phenomenon can, in turn, damage or break other components in the device as it grows within the ti ...