Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

A large study from Massachusetts found that babies whose mothers had COVID-19 while pregnant were slightly more likely to have a range of neurodevelopmental diagnoses by age 3. Most of these children had speech or motor delays, and the link was strongest when the mother was infected late in pregnancy and in boys.The increase in risk was small for any one child, but because millions of women were pregnant during the pandemic, even a small increase matters. The study doesn’t prove that COVID-19 infection during pregnancy causes autism or other brain conditions in the fetus, but it suggests that infections…

OpenAI announced a $38 billion partnership with Amazon’s AWS on Monday, its first major cloud computing deal since striking a new agreement with Microsoft that gave it more flexibility.OpenAI will use AWS compute, which consists of “hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs,” according to a joint statement between the companies.Amazon shares were up more than 5% in premarket trading on the news. The deal is the latest example of a cloud provider leveraging its massive size to provide resources to compute-hungry AI companies.The partnership underscores OpenAI’s ongoing desire for more computing resources to train and run its frontier AI…

OpenAI isn’t done securing the AI infrastructure it needs to rapidly scale agentic workloads. The ChatGPT-maker on Monday said it has reached a deal with Amazon to buy $38 billion in cloud computing services over the next seven years.   OpenAI said it will immediately start using AWS compute, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, with the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.   The deal follows OpenAI’s restructuring last week, which freed the company from having to secure Microsoft’s approval to buy computing services from other firms. OpenAI’s deal with Amazon…

Microsoft will invest $15.2 billion in the United Arab Emirates over the next four years, the company announced Monday at the first annual Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit. The investment will include the first-ever shipments of the most advanced Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. As part of the deal, the U.S. has granted Microsoft a license to export Nvidia chips to the UAE, a move that positions the country as both a proving ground for U.S. export-control diplomacy and a regional anchor of American AI influence. The deal allows Microsoft to expand its foothold into the Middle East, a key region…

When four states between 2015 and 2021 stopped allowing parents to opt their children out of receiving routine vaccines without a medical reason, vaccination rates among kindergartners increased substantially. That’s the key finding from our new study published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.All states require children entering kindergarten to be vaccinated against infectious diseases like measles and polio. Parents can request medical exemptions if, for example, their child has a severe allergy to a vaccine ingredient. But most states also allow nonmedical exemptions based on religious or philosophical beliefs. To examine whether state policy on vaccine exemptions could counter…

Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to secure more compute capacity for meeting its customers’ heavy demand for AI services. On Monday, the Redmond-based tech giant signed a $9.7 billion, five-year contract with Australia’s IREN to secure further AI cloud capacity. The deal will give Microsoft access to compute infrastructure built with Nvidia’s GB300 GPUs, which will be deployed over phases through 2026 at IREN’s facility in Childress, Texas, planned to support 750 megawatts of capacity. IREN said it is separately buying GPUs and equipment from Dell for about $5.8 billion. The deal comes after Microsoft last…

At-home gut microbiome tests are trending, selling insights to the curious, empowerment to the chronically ill and a claimed path to longevity to the wellness-conscious.Private companies are offering tests, costing $100 to $500 or more, that promise a bacterial inventory of your intestines.But can microbiome tests actually provide actionable health information?As more patients arrive at doctors appointments with results in hand, frustrated gastroenterologists want people to know the tests have limits.There’s a world in your gut and we still don’t know a lot about itInside our intestines, entire ecosystems of bacteria help us digest our food, absorb key vitamins, combat…

Since AI tools went mainstream, filmmakers, writers, and actors have been scrambling to figure out whether these technologies can truly assist their creativity or if they might end up replacing humans. But there’s a larger concern to address before we get swept away by debate: AI can’t run without enormous data centers and energy infrastructure. A new joint venture, dubbed Utopai East, aims to address that need by developing infrastructure specifically for producing movies and TV shows using AI. The joint venture is held 50-50 by investment firm Stock Farm Road (SFR) and AI film and television production company Utopai…

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 20 Democrat-led states are challenging a new Trump administration policy designed to block nonprofit and government workers from a student loan cancellation program if federal officials determine their employer has a “substantial illegal purpose.”The policy is aimed primarily at organizations that work with immigrants and transgender youth.In the lawsuit filed Monday in Massachusetts, the states argue the Trump administration overstepped its authority when it added new eligibility rules for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The overhaul will worsen job shortages and create instability in state workforces, the suit said.The legal challenge is being led…

BOSTON (AP) — A Harvard Medical School building has reopened while a “very active” investigation continues into a weekend explosion that authorities said was intentionally set off. An officer who responded to a fire alarm early Saturday morning encountered two people running from the Goldenson Building, according to university police. The explosion occurred on the fourth floor of the building, which houses labs and offices associated with the medical school’s Department of Neurobiology.The Boston Fire Department determined that the explosion was intentional and officers did not find additional devices in a sweep of the building, police said. No one was…