Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

AI’s biggest impact in science is Google DeepMind’s use of a deep learning model to predict the complex structures of proteins — the molecules that drive virtually every process in living cells. But as AI models continue to spit out more candidates for potential treatments, there’s an emerging bottleneck: actually characterizing all those candidates in practice, for testing and mass production. That’s the goal of 10x Science, a startup founded in December 2025 that announced a $4.8 million seed round today, led by Initialized Capital and with backing from Y Combinator, Civilization Ventures, and Founder Factor. Its three founders are…

Google on Wednesday unveiled the latest generation of its AI chip, and for the first time, it’s splitting the line into two focus areas: training and inference. Loading audio narration… Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) have been growing into a credible rival to Nvidia’s chips, which are still the dominant silicon across the AI industry. Anthropic is a big TPU customer, and Apple has used the chips to train its AI models.As the AI battleground shifts to inference — the process of actually running the models once they’re deployed — Google is responding accordingly.Google’s new TPU 8t is designed for…

Google Cloud Next is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and one clear message has emerged: Google wants AI startups on its cloud. To that end, it made several startup-related announcements. The most significant is that the tech giant has earmarked a new $750 million budget to help its Cloud partners sell more AI agents to enterprises. This funding is available to partners ranging from startups to the big consulting firms. It can be used for costs like Gemini proof-of-concept projects, Google forward-deployed engineers, cloud credits, and deployment rebates. Google also highlighted a long list of startups that are…

Google has unveiled new generative AI features for its mapping and geospatial apps that are designed with enterprise users in mind. The new features, announced at Cloud Next in Las Vegas this week, add generative AI capabilities to Google’s mapping platform, giving it enhanced visual and data analytics powers. One of the new features, called Maps Imagery Grounding, allows enterprise users to use generative AI to create realistic scenes in Google Street View to visualize how a particular project—be it a movie set or a planned construction site—might look. Users merely type a prompt into Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which…

Former OpenAI executive Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines Lab, has signed a new multi-billion-dollar agreement to expand its use of Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure, including systems powered by Nvidia’s latest GPUs, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The deal is valued in the single-digit billions, according to a source familiar with the matter, and includes access to Google’s latest AI systems built atop Nvidia’s new GB300 chips, alongside infrastructure services to support model training and deployment. Google has been actively striking a number of cloud deals with AI developers as it aims to wrap together its cloud offerings with other services like…

Duolingo’s “unhinged” marketing strategy is getting a reset. Loading audio narration… Duolingo CMO Manu Orssaud helped build the learning app’s brand with absurdist marketing that leaned into TikTok trends and wasn’t afraid to get sassy in the comment section.Now, Duolingo and its rotund Duo bird mascot, who famously ripped out a fart in a five-second Super Bowl ad, are growing up.What does that mean? For one, fewer “butt jokes,” Orssaud told me in an interview.While crass humor gets eyeballs, there’s a risk in getting more and more risqué to maintain the shock factor. Orssaud wants to recalibrate Duolingo’s marketing output…

Apple’s incoming CEO, John Ternus, is set to inherit an intriguing marketing challenge from his predecessor, Tim Cook. Loading audio narration… By most metrics, Cook is leaving the company’s longtime hardware chief with a brand in top shape. Data from the brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance, shared exclusively with CMO Insider, pegs Apple’s brand value at $607.6 billion, its highest ever. This represents the value a company would be willing to pay to license Apple’s brand. The business fundamentals are solid, too.The dilemma for Ternus: Is Apple at a peak?US data captured by Lippincott’s Brand Aperture research-based measurement system in…

Elon Musk’s other company reports earnings today. Loading audio narration… That’s a funny way to describe a $1.2 trillion company, but Tesla’s increasingly feeling like it’s playing second fiddle to SpaceX.Musk’s space company, which houses his AI startup, xAI, is eyeing a historic IPO that could value it at up to $2 trillion.(He’s also got a court case against Sam Altman to worry about, but that’s another story entirely.)Meanwhile, the excitement around Tesla, which reports earnings this afternoon, is considerably less. The stock is down nearly 12% this year as Musk keeps pitching the world’s most valuable car company as…

The biggest names in AI are fighting over how the future of work will shake out. Loading audio narration… Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has long warned of a white-collar wipeout, predicting around 50% of entry level office jobs will be eliminated.After an old clip recirculated, Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun recently wrote on X: “Dario is wrong.”Instead of trusting figures in the business of AI like Amodei, Sam Altman, or even himself, LeCun wrote that the public should listen to the economists instead. He listed a few notable names, including Daron Acemoglu, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor…

Elad Gil, Silicon Valley’s top solo venture capitalist, has a stark message for AI founders: sell your company soon, while conditions are still favorable. Loading audio narration… “Founders running successful AI companies should all take a cold, hard look at exiting in the next 12-18 months, which may be a value-maximizing moment for outcomes,” Gil wrote in a blog post this week.Gil’s perspective carries weight. He’s raised more than $2 billion for a personal war chest to invest in AI startups. Gil, a serial founder who sold a startup to Twitter (now X), has backed several notable players in the…