Author: Frank Salvato

Nvidia and OpenAI have formalized one of the largest artificial intelligence infrastructure partnerships announced to date, centered on a massive AI data center campus in southern Ohio that is expected to reshape the economics of large-scale computing. Under the agreement, Nvidia will provide a financial guarantee of up to $105 billion to support OpenAI’s long-term lease obligations and will also invest in the project’s developer, SB Energy. The facility is planned to begin operations in 2028, then expand over time into a multi-gigawatt AI campus powered by millions of advanced processors. Supporters argue the project represents a major investment in…

China is intensifying its efforts to shape the information consumed by artificial intelligence systems by expanding the availability of state-approved digital content while simultaneously restricting access to politically sensitive material. As Chinese technology companies race to compete with Western AI developers, the country’s vast ecosystem of government-sanctioned news, academic publications, and online resources is increasingly being incorporated into the datasets used to train large language models. Researchers and policy experts argue that because AI systems learn from the most accessible and abundant information, Beijing’s information controls could influence how future AI systems characterize Chinese history, politics, and global affairs. The…

For nearly two decades, social media companies have enjoyed an extraordinary position in American life. They have built products used by billions, collected staggering quantities of personal information, reshaped advertising, transformed politics, altered childhood, and changed how human beings communicate. Yet despite that enormous influence, the industry has largely continued to insist that it merely provides neutral platforms that people voluntarily choose to use. That argument becomes considerably harder to maintain if Meta is ultimately found legally responsible for deliberately targeting young people with products designed to encourage compulsive or addictive behavior. Such a judgment would represent far more than…

Visa is acquiring Israeli cybersecurity firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, underscoring the growing urgency among financial institutions to combat increasingly sophisticated AI-driven fraud. BioCatch’s behavioral biometrics platform evaluates thousands of data points—including typing patterns, touchscreen interactions, mouse movements, and device behavior—to distinguish legitimate customers from criminals before fraudulent transactions occur. The acquisition reflects a broader industry shift toward stopping scams upstream rather than merely detecting fraudulent payments after they occur. As generative artificial intelligence enables convincing phishing attacks, deepfakes, and social engineering schemes, payment providers are investing heavily in advanced cybersecurity technologies that emphasize prevention, customer trust, and…

The explosion of low-quality, AI-generated content—commonly referred to as “AI slop”—is forcing major technology companies to confront a problem they helped create. As generative AI dramatically lowers the cost of producing text, music, images, videos, and other digital media, platforms are finding themselves flooded with repetitive, misleading, and often worthless material that degrades the user experience. In response, several companies have begun removing spam-like AI-generated uploads, tightening moderation practices, and refining recommendation algorithms to preserve trust and improve content quality. The growing recognition that unlimited AI generation can overwhelm human-created work has shifted the debate from celebrating AI’s capabilities to…

A Maryland Tax Court has struck down the nation’s first state tax on digital advertising, ruling that the law violated multiple constitutional and federal legal protections while ordering refunds for taxes already paid by affected companies. The court found the tax ran afoul of the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, the First Amendment, and the Commerce and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. The decision represents a significant setback for state efforts to impose targeted taxes on large technology companies and could influence similar proposals under consideration elsewhere. Maryland officials have indicated they intend to continue defending the policy…

An Israeli startup, Hemispheric, is pursuing an ambitious effort to use artificial intelligence to translate the brain’s electrical activity into meaningful clinical insights, with the long-term goal of improving diagnosis and treatment for neurological and psychiatric disorders. The company says it has trained its AI on EEG data collected from approximately 100,000 individuals, allowing it to identify electrical patterns that may correspond with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, epilepsy, and other brain-related illnesses. Rather than relying solely on traditional imaging or subjective symptom reporting, Hemispheric hopes to establish a scalable system that can interpret the brain’s own electrical…

Kalshi’s expansion into political prediction markets is encountering mounting legal resistance as state officials, regulators, and private litigants increasingly challenge whether the company’s federally regulated event contracts amount to unlawful gambling under state law. While Kalshi maintains that its markets operate legally under oversight from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a growing number of lawsuits argue that betting on elections, sporting events, and other real-world outcomes falls within longstanding state prohibitions on gambling. The resulting legal conflict has become a broader test of federal versus state authority, with court decisions expected to shape not only the future of prediction…

President Donald Trump has expanded the federal government’s authority to use offensive cyber capabilities against transnational criminal organizations, marking a significant shift from a largely defensive cybersecurity posture to a more proactive strategy. The new national security memorandum authorizes federal agencies to oversee cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations directed at foreign cyber-enabled criminal organizations responsible for ransomware attacks, financial fraud, phishing, extortion, and other cybercrimes targeting Americans. The directive also establishes a framework allowing qualified private-sector cybersecurity firms to participate in government-directed operations under strict federal oversight. Supporters argue the initiative acknowledges the reality that sophisticated criminal organizations increasingly…

Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a valuable diagnostic aid for patients suffering from rare and difficult-to-identify medical conditions, reducing what has traditionally been years-long searches for answers. The technology is helping detect subtle patterns that may escape even experienced physicians, including genetic syndromes and complex disorders such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Cases highlighted in recent reporting demonstrate that AI-powered tools can identify conditions that are later confirmed through conventional genetic testing and clinical evaluation. While researchers continue to find that AI can outperform physicians in certain diagnostic exercises involving rare diseases, medical experts emphasize that these systems remain…