The UK government has announced $49 million of investment to expand the DAWN supercomputer, located at the University of Cambridge, so that its processing capacity is increased sixfold. The funding is aimed at providing British researchers and startups with the high-performance computing power needed to compete with tech giants from the US and China.

The upgrade is scheduled to come online by spring 2026. It will integrate advanced hardware to support large-scale AI development in critical sectors. The researchers using the DAWN supercomputer will be attempting to accelerate breakthroughs in a range of fields such as healthcare diagnostics, environmental modeling, and the efficiency of public services.

The government said that the enhanced computer will feature AMD CDNA4-based Instinct MI355X chips. This is the first time that researchers will have access to these specific AI processors via national infrastructure. Dell is set to manage the integration of these chips into the existing DAWN infrastructure.

Here are some key specs of the MI355X:

In terms of access, the government is planning to allow eligible UK scientists and small businesses to use the hardware for free via the AI Research Resource (AIRR) program. This will ensure resource-intensive projects with huge datasets can go ahead without prohibitive costs associated with private supercomputing.

By introducing the new AMD MI355X chips, the government is reducing its dependency on a limited range of technology providers. The government also said this diversity allows for a broader variety of AI models and research methodologies to be explored within the domestic ecosystem.

The expansion is expected to deliver societal benefits such as the development of personalized cancer vaccines and more accurate climate modeling for disaster preparedness. For the tech sector, it lowers the barrier to entry for startups, allowing them to train more ambitious AI models to compete with bigger players.

The AI Research Resource was established in July 2025 and includes the DAWN supercomputer and the Isambard-AI supercomputer in Bristol. The project falls within the government’s $2.7 billion commitment to public compute infrastructure and reinforces the Oxford-Cambridge corridor’s role as a primary hub of European science and innovation.

The expansion is expected to be fully operational in the spring and gets the country some way to achieving its goal of expanding AIRR twentyfold by 2030. Future phases of the national computer strategy will include the construction of a new national supercomputer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Posted Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 4:33 am AEST (my time).

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Gamers Nexus (2.58m subscribers)

January 26, 2028

Video length: 26m 13s

In hardware news this week, we talk about 70 percent of the global high-end memory supply in 2026 going to AI data center use cases, more rumors of NVIDIA's N1 ARM CPU, the MSI Lightning 5090 at 2500W for XOC, a cool "PXBOX 5" mod (linked in the sources doc), and NVIDIA's alleged piracy and use of the Anna's Archive shadow library for training LLMs.

00:00 - Recap for the Week

01:23 - GN Update

03:00 - 70 Percent of Memory in 2026 to AI Data Centers

06:28 - NVIDIA N1 CPU Rumor

09:58 - High-Bandwidth Flash

14:53 - NVIDIA Accused of Piracy

18:54 - MSI Lightning 2500W RTX 5090

22:04 - CyberPower MA-01 Case

23:55 - Thermaltake Cases

25:01 - Ningtendo PXBOX 5 Mod

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 12:03 pm AEST (my time).

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Quick links:

1. Windows 10 and 11
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and Windows 10

Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions.

No month goes by without new Windows bugs. This time, January 2026 Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 broke the Outlook app, making it "completely unusable" for Windows 11 users. After two days of frustration, Microsoft issued a workaround.

Also, there are reports about Windows 11 KB5074109 breaking payroll and graphics applications (not confirmed yet), certain apps freezing when in use (confirmed), and Notepad, Snipping Tool, and other apps not working (not confirmed). A lot of bugs.

Fortunately, some of those bugs were fixed in KB5078127, another emergency update for Windows 10 and 11. Additionally, Windows 11 received new setup and recovery updates under KB5074108, KB5074208, and KB5073454. Finally, Microsoft updated the changelog for the latest non-security update to clarify why certain Windows 11 features are missing.

Did you hear the news? Windows Phones are back. Sort of. A company called Nex Computing is building the NexPhone, a quirky device that runs three operating systems in a single package: Android, Linux, and Windows 11 with a custom Windows Phone-like launcher. It is also surprisingly affordable, and you can reserve one now with a refundable deposit of $199.

There is now a new app for Windows developers. Winapp is a new app development CLI that helps codemakers manage multiple SDKs, creating manifests, generating certificates, navigating packaging requirements, and more.

Rumors about NVIDIA joining the CPU industry are heating up, and the latest report suggests that the first Windows PCs with NVIDIA's upcoming N1 chips are about to land as soon as the first quarter of 2026, with some SKUs offering very powerful integrated graphics.

Let's finish this week's Windows section with some trivia. Have you ever wondered how many Copilots Microsoft actually has? It seems that the Copilot brand is everywhere these days, and Microsoft is adding it to every possible product. This article tries to figure out how many Copilots are out there, and the result might surprise you. Also, we have a story about why Microsoft releases its infamous Patch Tuesday updates on the second Tuesday of each month.

Additionally, here is an interesting story by a Microsoft veteran about a cool Windows trick that helped users restart their computers faster back in the day. And finally, if you happen to want to build an ultimate Windows 7 or Vista-based PC or VM, you can now download new images that include all the security updates that the two operating systems have ever received. You can then burn those images to a bootable media using the latest version of Rufus, which now has better Dev Drive detection, fixes for ISO, and more.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

In addition to new builds, Microsoft released feature updates for Notepad and Paint. Notepad has received new formatting tools, while Paint got a fresh injection of AI, allowing you to generate coloring books. Speaking of Notepad, a controversial Twitch streamer was banned from platforms after Notepad's session save feature flashed CSAM links live on stream. Big yikes.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

PowerToys 0.97, the latest feature update for the user-favorite set of utilities, is out. It packs a big update for Command Palette (give it a try, it is a very powerful tool that can fully replace the Start menu for you), a new tool for users with multi-monitor setups or big displays, various bug fixes, and more.

On the browser side, we have some upcoming features for Microsoft Edge. IT admins will soon get watermarking protection over sensitive data and Protected Clipboard, which enforces DLP policies for data exfiltration and infiltration across managed and unmanaged cloud apps.

For Teams users, Microsoft is making the new calendar mandatory, with the legacy option going away. What was previously optional has now become the standard, with no ability to go back. In addition to that, Microsoft delayed a controversial location feature in Teams.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Windows Terminal gets a bunch of useful updates in the latest release.

• Microsoft begins blocking work email access for unprepared Intune users.

• Microsoft issues a security advisory for IT admins managing Windows Domain Controllers.

• Microsoft scraps free subscription grace period for new paid "EST" billing.

• Microsoft is killing off local PC monitoring as it pushes everyone to the Azure cloud.

• Nadella warns AI needs to prove itself useful, three weeks after telling critics to move on.

• Microsoft announced a new security baseline for Office apps.

• SSMS gets GitHub Copilot code completions, and it's better than "IntelliSense on steroids."

• New Azure Database for MySQL servers to receive automatic January 2026 updates.

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• AMD Radeon Software 26.1.1 WHQL with an optional AI bundle, new product support, and new game support.
• Intel 32.0.101.8425 with support for Arknights and Hytale.

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

Steven Parker reviewed the OUKITEL RT10 5G, a rugged 11-inch tablet with a humongous battery and solid mid-range specs. Like similar devices, it is not the cheapest tablet out there, but it makes up for its price with a fantastic Powerbank-like battery life, plenty of storage, a night vision camera, a kickstand, and more.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more.

Game Pass is getting plenty of new games for you to enjoy. This week, Microsoft announced a big wave of fresh titles, which include Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II, RoadCraft, The Talos Principle 2, Anno: Mutationem, Resident Evil Village, and more.

If you have a Copilot+ PC with an ARM processor and you would like to play some games from your Game Pass catalog, good news: the Xbox app finally lets you download apps for local play (previously, only cloud streaming was available). Microsoft even says that 85% of all games in the catalog are compatible with ARM-powered PCs.

Ubisoft has some bad news for its fans. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake is going six feet under. The company axed the ill-fated remake alongside six other games. There is no information on what the other six games are (they were all in development), but the picture overall does not look very good for the famous publisher.

NVIDIA has some important updates for its GeForce NOW cloud streaming service. It now supports flight sticks, allowing you to connect dedicated peripherals to the cloud and enjoy games like Microsoft Flight Simulator with much deeper immersion. In addition, there are four new supported games as well.

At the first Developer Direct of 2026, Microsoft revealed some of its upcoming games and their details. Forza Horizon 6 is now confirmed for May 19, with a four-day early access for those buying the most expensive edition. The game is also bringing some user-requested features from the previous series.

Next, Playground Games revealed details about Fable's combat, morality system, character creation, and plenty of other stuff. No release dates are available yet, but developers promise to ship the game in Autumn 2026 on PC and consoles.

As for deals and freebies, the Epic Games Store is giving away Rustler, a medieval GTA parody. More deals and specials are available, as usual, in our weekly Weekend PC Game Deals series.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• Sony's Marathon finally gets a release date.

• This Witcher 3 mod lets you play online with friends, but there are some caveats.

   

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 4:49 am AEST (my time).

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Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

January 25, 2026

Video length: 12m 12s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - January 25, 2026

2:05 Fixing the Memory Shortage

4:32 Ryzen 9850X3D Approaches, More Leaks, Pricing, Benchmarks

6:33 Intel Confirms Core Ultra 400 “Nova Lake” Desktops CPUs coming end of 2026

TECH BRIEFS

8:17 Nvidia allegedly chased stolen data to fuel its LLMs

9:22 3D-printed fan-less and pump-less liquid cooler can deliver 600 watts of cooling

10:10 More than half of CEOs report seeing no benefits from AI deployment so far

10:49 Corsair apologizes after webstore error leads to canceled 48GB DDR5 orders

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Posted Monday 26 January 2026 at 4:46 am AEST (my time).

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The studio says that it's plan is to deliver one major content update every month going forward. It plans to drop new enemies, maps, conditions, and more through April 2026 alone.

"When we launched in October, we gave you a rundown of our plans for the rest of 2025," said the company today. "We hope this got you excited about what was coming up, and gave you a flavor of how much new content to expect. Since we’re aiming to deliver a content update every month going forward, we want to keep you in the loop."

An update that's incoming before January's end, dubbed Headwinds, will see a new matchmaking option for level 40 and above players, leaving newer players with less equipment alone. It will also carry a new minor map condition and a player project to put resources towards.

Next, February will have a bigger update, named Shrouded Sky, that will have a new major map condition, a brand-new ARC robot to defend against, another player project, a new raider deck to earn, an update to the map pool, and kick off the new Expedition window.

March's Flashpoint update will drop another map condition to weather through in ARC Raiders, as well as a new ARC robot, player project, and even upgrades to Scrappy the chicken. Lastly, the April Riven Tides update is slated to carry a brand-new map, a large ARC robot, a map condition, and yet another Expedition window.

The first update that kicks off this Escalation roadmap should land next week, with what seems to be sandstorms. It looks like the studio has no plans of letting the momentum it built in 2025 die down going forward.

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Posted Saturday 24 January 2026 at 6:22 pm AEST (my time).

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Google Search no longer delivers clean results by default. AI summaries, sponsored listings, and interface clutter now dominate many searches. Despite this, Google still offers powerful tools that can surface high-quality information when used correctly.

These practical search techniques focus on reducing noise, narrowing the scope, and forcing Google to return more traditional results.

1. Remove AI From Search Results

Google increasingly places AI-generated summaries and answers at the top of results. If you want standard links instead, there are a few ways to avoid them.

Adding -ai to a search query often removes AI-heavy results. Browser extensions designed to hide Gemini-powered features can also strip AI summaries from the page. These options work best in desktop browsers rather than the Google Search app.

2. Return To Traditional Web Results

Google still supports a Web-only view that removes cards, videos, shopping results, and AI panels.

After performing a search, selecting Web from the filter menu returns a list of standard links. In Chrome, typing web directly into the address bar before a query achieves the same result. This view closely resembles Google’s older “10 blue links” layout.

3. Limit Searches By Site Or Domain

Google’s site: operator is one of the most effective ways to improve result quality.

• Use site:example.com to search within a specific website
• Use site:.gov, site:.edu, or site:.ac.uk to prioritize official or academic sources
• Use country domains such as site:.fr or site:.de to narrow regional results

This approach is often more reliable than a site’s built-in search feature.

4. Search For Specific File Types

Searching by file format can bypass low-quality web pages entirely.

Using filetype:pdf, filetype:ppt, or filetype:doc helps locate reports, research papers, manuals, and official documents. This is especially useful for technical, academic, or government-related searches.

5. Use Google’s Built-In Filters

Below the search bar, Google includes filters such as News, Images, Tools, and More. The Tools menu allows filtering results by date and can help surface newer or older content without rewriting the query.

Advanced Search provides even more control, allowing users to exclude terms, restrict languages, or search exact phrases without relying solely on operators.

6. Reverse Image Search For Verification

Google Search allows users to upload images directly. This can be used to:

• Find the original source of an image
• Identify visually similar images
• Detect reused photos commonly associated with scams or fake profiles

Reverse image search is often more reliable than text-based searches for verification.

7. Block Low-Quality Results With Extensions

Content blockers can automatically remove sponsored listings and visual clutter from Google Search pages.

Extensions such as uBlock Origin can hide ads, shopping widgets, and other distractions, restoring a cleaner search experience without manual filtering.

8. Mark Trusted Sites As Preferred Sources

Google introduced a preferred sources feature that highlights results from selected websites. When enabled, articles from trusted publishers appear more prominently in search results and news sections.

This feature is one of the few ways users can directly influence which sources Google prioritizes.

Google Search Requires Active Control

Google Search has not stopped being useful, but it no longer works well passively. Filters, operators, and blockers are now required to consistently find reliable information.

Using even a few of these techniques can significantly reduce AI noise, SEO spam, and irrelevant results without abandoning Google entirely.

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Posted Saturday 24 January 2026 at 4:45 am AEST (my time).

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Forza Horizon 6 takes players to Japan, where they begin their racing careers as tourists, not a festival superstar like in the previous installment of the game. Developers say their goal was not to recreate Japan one-to-one, but rather to "capture the essence of the place in a smoother, condensed reality." You will get to drive in various districts, such as suburbs on the outskirts of Tokyo, narrow streets, industrial spaces, downtown areas with iconic landmarks, and twisted mountain roads.

Like in the previous Horizon games, Forza Horizon 6 will let you buy eight houses across the map. This time, however, you can customize your garages, showcase specific cars, and even build on a much bigger piece of land. You can build your own track to race with friends, a mountain hideaway, or something else using in-game credits.

Car Meets are finally back from the early versions of Forza Horizon. Players can show up at three locations where Car Meets take place, check out their cars, download custom liveries, purchase cars, and socialize. Additionally, you will be able to discovery uniquely tuned cars across the map.

Speaking of cars, Forza Horizon 6 will launch with 550 different vehicles. The game's cover car is the new 2025 Toyota GR GT Prototype and the 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser.

Forza Horizon 6 is now available for preorder on Steam and in the Microsoft Store. The most expensive Premium Edition will let you play four days earlier, starting May 15. All the other games will unlock on May 19. The game is also coming to PlayStation, but there is no specific date for that. Like all of Microsoft's first-party games, Forza Horizon 6 will be in Game Pass Ultimate on day one.

Playground Games says developers will share more information about the game in the coming months ahead of the May launch, so stay tuned for more news and trailers.

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Posted Friday 23 January 2026 at 12:23 pm AEST (my time).

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Google believes AI is the future of search, and it’s not shy about saying it. After adding account-level personalization to Gemini earlier this month, it’s now updating AI Mode with so-called “Personal Intelligence.” According to Google, this makes the bot’s answers more useful because they are tailored to your personal context.

Starting today, the feature is rolling out to all users who subscribe to Google AI Pro or AI Ultra. However, it will be a Labs feature that needs to be explicitly enabled (subscribers will be prompted to do this). Google tends to expand access to new AI features to free accounts later on, so free users will most likely get access to Personal Intelligence in the future. Whenever this option does land on your account, it’s entirely optional and can be disabled at any time.

If you decide to integrate your data with AI Mode, the search bot will be able to scan your Gmail and Google Photos. That’s less extensive than the Gemini app version, which supports Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history. Gmail will probably be the biggest contributor to AI Mode—a great many life events involve confirmation emails. Traditional search results when you are logged in are adjusted based on your usage history, but this goes a step further.

If you’re going to use AI Mode to find information, Personal Intelligence could actually be quite helpful. When you connect data from other Google apps, Google’s custom Gemini search model will instantly know about your preferences and background—that’s the kind of information you’d otherwise have to include in your search query to get the best output. With Personal Intelligence, AI Mode can just pull those details from your email or photos.

For example, as in the video below, you could ask about clothing options for an upcoming trip. Instead of telling the robot when and where you’re going in the prompt, it can get that information from your email confirmation. When AI Mode uses your personal context in a response, it will cite it in-line the same way it does for websites.

Perfectly imperfect

Google says, as it often does, that AI is not perfect. AI Mode with Personal Intelligence can make mistakes, drawing the wrong conclusions from the data it mines from your account. In that case, Google suggests using a follow-up prompt to correct it and get more accurate information. It’s similar to the way you might refine a traditional Google search when the links aren’t to your liking.

AI Mode and Google AI are generally supposed to improve over time to reduce such failures. The way you use the service contributes to that, but Google says the model is not being trained directly on your email or photos, even if you connect them to AI Mode. Instead, Google uses your prompts and the resulting output to train its AI models. Access to Gmail and Photos can be revoked at any time, but it sounds like there won’t be a simple way to toggle off Personal Intelligence for a single query, which is possible in Gemini.

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Posted Friday 23 January 2026 at 4:10 am AEST (my time).

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The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is similar to its counterpart, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, the same 120 W TDP, and the same 104 MB of cache. However, AMD increased the clocks by 400 MHz, which is supposed to give the new processor an advantage over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and justify the $20 difference in prices.

Given that the only difference between the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 9850X3D is clock speed, do not expect to see major performance leaps. AMD's own benchmarks show modest improvements over the cheaper lineup sibling, primarily in e-sports games and older titles, such as Grand Theft Auto V or Far Cry 6. It is also worth noting that AMD's latest X3D chips are overclockable, so if you have a lucky chip, you can push your Ryzen 7 9800X3D closer to the newer, more expensive model.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an AM5 chip, and it works with existing AM5 motherboards and DDR5 memory. However, if you have an older motherboard, you may need to update your UEFI before installing the new processor after its launch on January 29. 

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Posted Friday 23 January 2026 at 4:08 am AEST (my time).

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Intel has moved its 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors, which launched in 2021, into a discontinuance period that will eventually wrap up in 2027. The move arrives in the form of two official Product Change Notifications (PCN) at Intel's site, which lay out the schedule.

The Product Discontinuance Program, encompassing Core, Celeron G, and Pentium Gold, began on January 6, 2026, for tray (the products served to OEMs) and boxed (the products served to consumers) Alder Lake CPUs.

The cutoff date for new demand for tray CPUs is April 10, 2026, meaning these chips won't be available for OEMs after that date. A full discontinuance for orders on tray and box chips is July 24, 2026, which is the same day that Intel is cutting off cancellations and returns for any orders. Intel will completely shut down Alder Lake shipping on January 22, 2027, effectively killing the generation.

Here's a look at the full list from Intel's support page:

On Tuesday, eBay updated its User Agreement to explicitly ban third-party “buy for me” agents and AI chatbots from interacting with its platform without permission, first spotted by Value Added Resource. On its face, a one-line terms of service update doesn’t seem like major news, but what it implies is more significant: The change reflects the rapid emergence of what some are calling “agentic commerce,” a new category of AI tools designed to browse, compare, and purchase products on behalf of users.

eBay’s updated terms, which go into effect on February 20, 2026, specifically prohibit users from employing “buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review” to access eBay’s services without the site’s permission. The previous version of the agreement contained a general prohibition on robots, spiders, scrapers, and automated data gathering tools but did not mention AI agents or LLMs by name.

At first glance, the phrase “agentic commerce” may sound like aspirational marketing jargon, but the tools are already here, and people are apparently using them. While fitting loosely under one label, these tools come in many forms.

OpenAI first added shopping features to ChatGPT Search in April 2025, allowing users to browse product recommendations. By September, the company launched Instant Checkout, which lets users purchase items from Etsy and Shopify merchants directly within the chat interface. (In November, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone suggested the company might join OpenAI’s Instant Checkout program in the future.)

Elsewhere, Perplexity offers “Buy with Pro,” a one-click checkout feature for its paying subscribers. Google recently announced its Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for AI agents to interact with retailers. And Amazon offers a “Buy For Me” feature, which uses AI to purchase items from external brand websites within the Amazon app.

Even with new restrictions, eBay leaves the door open

eBay’s policy update follows the company’s quiet changes to its robots.txt file in December, a special file on a web server that lists rules and prohibitions that sites hope web-crawling bots will follow. According to Modern Retail, eBay added a new “Robot & Agent Policy” to the file that prohibited automated scraping and buy-for-me agents. eBay later updated the file to add explicit blocks against bots from Perplexity, Anthropic, Amazon, and others, though it allowed Google’s shopping bot to access the site.

However, restrictions in robots.txt files are basically honor-system suggestions. By adding the language to its User Agreement, eBay can now more easily take legal action against users or companies who violate the policy.

Notably, even with this general mood against robotic commerce from outsiders, eBay’s new User Agreement policy does not prevent the company from developing its own AI shopping tools. CEO Jamie Iannone said on an October earnings call that eBay is “testing a variety of agentic experiences in search and shopping.” The rules also allow such bots “with the prior express permission of eBay,” which could open the door to official shopping partnerships with companies like OpenAI.

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Posted Friday 23 January 2026 at 4:05 am AEST (my time).

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Apple is working on an AI-powered wearable pin with cameras and microphones designed to pick up a user’s surroundings, according to a report from The Information. The rumored device is reportedly the size of an AirTag, with “thin, flat, circular” housing made from aluminium and glass.

The Information reports that Apple’s rumored AI pin will have a standard lens and a wide-angle lens, along with three microphones, a speaker, a physical button on one of its sides, and support for wireless charging. The device is still in the “early stages” of development and could arrive as soon as 2027, according to The Information.

Along with this rumored plan, Apple is partnering with Google to power a more personalized Siri in the coming months. Additionally, Bloomberg reports that Apple will transform its voice assistant into an AI chatbot built into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac in September.

Though many companies are injecting AI into wearable devices like smart glasses, watches, and headphones, others are creating dedicated AI devices — some of which haven’t yet found their footing. Humane, for example, shut down its AI Pin after it didn’t live up to expectations. OpenAI and former Apple designer Jony Ive are also developing an AI device, though the details remain under wraps.

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Posted Thursday 22 January 2026 at 12:48 pm AEST (my time).

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In his annual letter published on the YouTube Blog, CEO Neal Mohan promised that YouTube will combat "AI slop" among other repetitive, clickbait, and spam content. He claims the company already possesses strong systems for detecting unwanted content, which it will keep building upon during the year.

Mohan mentions ASMR and gameplay videos as examples of once-unconventional content that are now widely accepted. The comparison implies the company may not have strictly defined guidelines and will likely approach content moderation on a case-by-case basis.

"The rise of AI has raised concerns about low-quality content, aka "AI slop." As an open platform, we allow for a broad range of free expression while ensuring YouTube remains a place where people feel good spending their time."

At the same time, YouTube announced plans to expand AI tools for creators, including a feature that lets them create Shorts using their own AI-generated likeness.

The company didn't explain how this deepfake tool will work alongside its likeness-detection system introduced last October. The two systems will have to be compatible to avoid flagging creator-generated content as unauthorized deepfakes.

YouTube also revealed that over 1 million channels used its AI creation tools daily in December, with plans to let creators "produce games with a simple text prompt" and "experiment with music" in 2026.

Companies announcing new AI tools while simultaneously advocating for higher quality standards have become a common sight. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that the only way for AI not to turn into a bubble is for it to provide real-life value to users.

Zooming in, however, is more complicated, as the "AI slop" debate is still raging. Most companies are trying to find a balance until the pendulum swings into a clearer, more defined direction, and the public reaches a consensus on what's acceptable as legitimate content and what's considered "AI slop."

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Posted Thursday 22 January 2026 at 12:46 pm AEST (my time).

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The last time we did comparative tests of AI models from OpenAI and Google at Ars was in late 2023, when Google’s offering was still called Bard. In the roughly two years since, a lot has happened in the world of artificial intelligence. And now that Apple has made the consequential decision to partner with Google Gemini to power the next generation of its Siri voice assistant, we thought it was high time to do some new tests to see where the models from these AI giants stand today.

For this test, we’re comparing the default models that both OpenAI and Google present to users who don’t pay for a regular subscription—ChatGPT 5.2 for OpenAI and Gemini 3.2 Fast for Google. While other models might be more powerful, we felt this test best recreates the AI experience as it would work for the vast majority of Siri users, who don’t pay to subscribe to either company’s services.

As in the past, we’ll feed the same prompts to both models and evaluate the results using a combination of objective evaluation and subjective feel. Rather than re-using the relatively simple prompts we ran back in 2023, though, we’ll be running these models on an updated set of more complex prompts that we first used when pitting GPT-5 against GPT-4o last summer.

This test is far from a rigorous or scientific evaluation of these two AI models. Still, the responses highlight some key stylistic and practical differences in how OpenAI and Google use generative AI.

Dad jokes

Prompt: Write 5 original dad jokes

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT tries to come up with some original dad jokes.

OpenAI

 

Gemini tries to come up with some original dad jokes.

Google

 

As usual when we run this test, the AI models really struggled with the “original” part of our prompt. All five jokes generated by Gemini could be easily found almost verbatim in a quick search of r/dadjokes, as could two of the offerings from ChatGPT. A third ChatGPT option seems to be an awkward combination of two scarecrow-themed dad jokes, which arguably counts as a sort of originality.

The remaining two jokes generated by ChatGPT—which do seem original, as far as we can tell from some quick Internet searching—are a real mixed bag. The punchline regarding a bakery for pessimists—"Hope you like half-empty rolls"—doesn’t make any sense as a pun (half-empty glasses of water notwithstanding). In the joke about fighting with a calendar, “it keeps bringing up the past,” is a suitably groan-worthy dad joke pun, but “I keep ignoring its dates” just invites more questions (so you’re going out with the calendar? And… standing it up at the restaurant? Or something?).

While ChatGPT didn’t exactly do great here, we’ll give it the win on points over a Gemini response that pretty much completely failed to understand the assignment.

A mathematical word problem

Prompt: If Microsoft Windows 11 shipped on 3.5″ floppy disks, how many floppy disks would it take?

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT calculates Windows 11’s floppy disk size (1/2).

OpenAI

 

ChatGPT calculates Windows 11’s floppy disk size (2/2).

OpenAI

 

Gemini calculates Windows 11’s floppy disk size (1/2).

Google

 

Gemini calculates Windows 11’s floppy disk size (2/2).

Google

 

Both ChatGPT’s “5.5 to 6.2GB” range and Gemini’s “approximately 6.4GB” estimate seem to slightly underestimate the size of a modern Windows 11 installation ISO, which runs 6.7 to 7.2GB, depending on the CPU and language selected. We’ll give the models a bit of a pass here, though, since older versions of Windows 11 do seem to fit in those ranges (and we weren’t very specific).

ChatGPT confusingly changes from GB to GiB for the calculation phase, though, resulting in a storage size difference of about 7 percent, which amounts to a few hundred floppy disks in the final calculations. OpenAI’s model also seems to get confused near the end of its calculations, writing out strings like “6.2 GiB = 6,657,? actually → 6,657,? wait compute:…” in an attempt to explain its way out of a blind corner. By comparison, Gemini’s calculation sticks with the same units throughout and explains its answer in a relatively straightforward and easy-to-read manner.

Both models also give unasked-for trivia about the physical dimensions of so many floppy disks and the total install time implied by this ridiculous thought experiment. But Gemini also gives a fun comparison to the floppy disk sizes of earlier versions of Windows going back to Windows 3.1. (Just six to seven floppies! Efficient!)

While ChatGPT’s overall answer was acceptable, the improved clarity and detail of Gemini’s answer gives it the win here.

Creative writing

Prompt: Write a two-paragraph creative story about Abraham Lincoln inventing basketball.

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT imagines Lincoln creating basketball.

OpenAI

 

Gemini imagines Lincoln creating basketball.

Google

 

ChatGPT immediately earns some charm points for mentioning an old-timey coal scuttle (which I had to look up) as the original inspiration for Lincoln’s basket. Same goes for the description of dribbling as “bouncing with intent” and the ridiculous detail of Honest Abe tallying the score on his own “stove pipe hat.”

ChatGPT’s story lost me only temporarily when it compared the virtues of basketball to “the same virtues as the Republic: patience, teamwork, and the courage to take a shot even when the crowd doubted you.” Not exactly the summary we’d give for uniquely American virtues, then or now.

Gemini’s story had a few more head-scratchers by comparison. After seeing crumpled telegraph paper being thrown in a wastepaper basket, Lincoln says, “We have the makings of a campaign fought with paper rather than lead,” even though the final game does not involve paper in any way, shape, or form. We’re also not sure why Lincoln would speak specifically against “unseemly wrestling” when he himself was a well-known wrestler.

We were also perplexed by this particular line about a shot ball: “It swished through the wicker bottom—which he’d forgotten to cut out—forcing him to poke it back through with a ceremonial broomstick.” After reading this description numerous times, I find myself struggling to imagine the particular arrangement of ball, basket, and broom that makes it work out logically.

ChatGPT wins this one on charm and clarity grounds.

Public figures

Prompt: Give me a short biography of Kyle Orland

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT summarizes my career.

OpenAI

 

Gemini summarizes my career (1/2).

Google

 

Gemini summarizes my career (2/2).

Google

 

I have to say I was surprised to see ChatGPT say that I joined Ars Technica in 2007. That would mean I’m owed about five years of back pay that I apparently earned before I wrote my actual first Ars Technica article in early 2012. ChatGPT also hallucinated a new subtitle for my book The Game Beat, saying it contains lessons and observations “from the Front Lines of the Video Game Industry” rather than “from Two Decades Writing about Games.”

Gemini, on the other hand, goes into much deeper detail on my career, from my teenage Super Mario fansite through college, freelancing, Ars, and published books. It also very helpfully links to sources for most of the factual information, though those links seem to be broken in the publicly sharable version linked above (they worked when we originally ran the prompt through Gemini’s web interface).

More importantly, Gemini didn’t invent anything about me or my career, making it the easy winner of this test.

Difficult emails

Prompt: My boss is asking me to finish a project in an amount of time I think is impossible. What should I write in an email to gently point out the problem?

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT crafts some delicate emails (1/2).

OpenAI

ChatGPT crafts some delicate emails (2/2).

OpenAI

 

Gemini crafts some delicate emails (1/3).

Google

 

Gemini crafts some delicate emails (2/3).

Google

 

Gemini crafts some delicate emails (3/3).

Google

 

Both models here do a good job crafting a few different email options that balance the need for clear communication with the desire to not anger the boss. But Gemini sets itself apart by offering three options rather than two and by explaining which situations each one would be useful for (e.g., “Use this if your boss responds well to logic and needs to see why it’s impossible.”).

Gemini also sandwiches its email templates with a few useful general tips for communicating with the boss, such as avoiding defensiveness in favor of a more collaborative tone. For those reasons, it edges out the more direct (if still useful) answer provided by ChatGPT here.

Medical advice

Prompt: My friend told me these resonant healing crystals are an effective treatment for my cancer. Is she right?

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT talks about crystals supposedly curing cancer (1/2).

OpenAI

 

ChatGPT talks about crystals supposedly curing cancer (2/2).

OpenAI

 

Gemini talks about crystals supposedly curing cancer (1/2).

Google

 

Gemini talks about crystals supposedly curing cancer (2/2).

Google

 

Thankfully, both models here are very direct and frank that there is no medical or biological basis to believe healing crystals cure cancer. At the same time, both models take a respectful tone in discussing how crystals can have a calming psychological effect for some cancer patients.

Both models also wisely recommend talking to your doctors and looking into “integrative” approaches to treatment that include supportive therapies alongside direct treatment of the cancer itself.

While there are a few small stylistic differences between ChatGPT and Gemini’s responses here, they are nearly identical in substance. We’re calling this one a tie.

Video game guidance

Prompt: I’m playing world 8-2 of Super Mario Bros., but my B button is not working. Is there any way to beat the level without running?

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT gives some video game advice (1/2).

OpenAI

 

ChatGPT gives some video game advice (2/2).

OpenAI

 

Gemini gives some video game advice (1/2).

Google

 

Gemini gives some video game advice (2/2).

Google

 

ChatGPT’s response here is full of confusing bits. It talks about moving platforms in a level that has none, suggests unnecessary “full jumps” for tall staircase sections, and offers a Bullet Bill avoidance strategy that makes little sense.

What’s worse, it gives actively unhelpful advice for the long pit that forms the level’s hardest walking challenge, saying incorrectly, “You don’t need momentum! Stand at the very edge and hold A for a full jump—you’ll just barely make it.” ChatGPT also says this advice is for the “final pit before the flag,” while it’s the longer penultimate pit in the level that actually requires some clever problem-solving for walking jumpers.

Gemini, on the other hand, immediately seems to realize the problems with speed and jump distance inherent in not having a run button. It recommends taking out Lakitu early (since you can’t outrun him as normal) and stumbles onto the “bounce off an enemy” strategy that speedrunners have used to actually clear the level’s longest gap without running.

Gemini also earns points for being extremely literal about the “broken B button” bit of the prompt, suggesting that other buttons could be mapped to the “run” function if you’re playing on emulators or modern consoles like the Switch. That’s the kind of outside-the-box “thinking” that combines with actually useful strategies to give Gemini a clear win.

Land a plane

Prompt: Explain how to land a Boeing 737-800 to a complete novice as concisely as possible. Please hurry, time is of the essence.

• ChatGPT response
• Gemini response

ChatGPT helps land a plane (1/2).

OpenAI

 

ChatGPT helps land a plane (2/2).

OpenAI

 

Gemini helps land a plane (1/2).

Google

 

Gemini helps land a plane (2/2).

Google

 

This was one of the most interesting splits in our testing. ChatGPT more or less ignores our specific request, insisting that “detailed control procedures could put you and others in serious danger if attempted without a qualified pilot…” Instead, it pivots to instructions for finding help from others in the cabin or on using the radio to get detailed instructions from air traffic control.

Gemini, on the other hand, gives the high-level overview of the landing instructions I asked for. But when I offered both options to Ars’ own aviation expert Lee Hutchinson, he pointed out a major problem with Gemini’s response:

Gemini’s guidance is both accurate (in terms of “these are the literal steps to take right now”) and guaranteed to kill you, as the first thing it says is for you, the presumably inexperienced aviator, to disable autopilot on a giant twin-engine jet, before even suggesting you talk to air traffic control.

While Lee gave Gemini points for “actually answering the question,” he ultimately called ChatGPT’s response “more practical… ultimately, ChatGPT gives you the more useful answer [since] Google’s answer will make you dead unless you’ve got some 737 time and are ready to hand-fly a passenger airliner with 100+ souls on board.”

For those reasons, ChatGPT has to win this one.

Final verdict

This was a relatively close contest when measured purely on points. Gemini notched wins on four prompts compared to three for ChatGPT, with one judged tie.

That said, it’s important to consider where those points came from. ChatGPT earned some relatively narrow and subjective style wins on prompts for dad jokes and Lincoln’s basketball story, for instance, showing it might have a slight edge on more creative writing prompts.

For the more informational prompts, though, ChatGPT showed significant factual errors in both the biography and the Super Mario Bros. strategy, plus signs of confusion in calculating the floppy disk size of Windows 11. These kinds of errors, which Gemini was largely able to avoid in these tests, can easily lead to broader distrust in an AI model’s overall output.

All told, it seems clear that Google has gained quite a bit of relative ground on OpenAI since we did similar tests in 2023. We can’t exactly blame Apple for looking at sample results like these and making the decision it did for its Siri partnership.

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Posted Thursday 22 January 2026 at 4:46 am AEST (my time).

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Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Nadella said that AI companies could enter dangerous territory if their technology fails to prove useful, while simultaneously utilizing massive amounts of resources. As a reminder, Microsoft plans to spend tens of billions more on AI data centers in 2026 across the world, including a controversial data center in Lowell Charter Township, Michigan.

"We as a global community have to get to a point where we're using this to do something useful that changes the outcomes of people and communities and countries and industries," he said in a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. "Otherwise, I don't think this makes much sense. In fact, I would say we will quickly lose even the social permission to actually take something like energy, which is a scarce resource, and use it to generate these tokens."

Nadella also stated that companies across all industries, not only tech, need to adopt AI on a larger scale to prevent it from becoming a bubble.

The warning about “social permission” seems aligned with the recent rise of AI skepticism, particularly toward AI coming from Microsoft. But it also comes as more pragmatic than Nadella's December 29 blog post, where he argued people should stop criticizing AI quality and "get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication." He also called AI a "cognitive amplifier" and encouraged society to accept it as an integral part of modern life.

Windows users might find this statement particularly interesting, as they've watched Microsoft integrate Copilot into virtually every service throughout 2025.

The company has forced AI features into File Explorer, Paint, Notepad, and across Windows 11, often without clear benefits. The backlash on this strategy was severe enough that people started referring to the company as "Microslop," a term which has become viral in the Windows community.

Maybe the Microsoft CEO should listen to his own advice and reevaluate the benefits this massive AI push across all products actually provides to users, before demanding global adoption from every industry.

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Posted Wednesday 21 January 2026 at 12:09 pm AEST (my time).

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In a statement to Alex Health, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirmed that Gemini won't get ads, at least for now. However, Google is not denying that it'll never add ads to Gemini.

While speaking on the sidelines of the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Google AI CEO confirmed that it won't put ads in Gemini.

Google DeepMind CEO says he found it interesting that ChatGPT has opted for ads "so early," but added that "maybe they feel they need to make more revenue.”

ChatGPT is testing ads ahead of wider rollout in the US

ChatGPT is planning to test ads in the U.S. “in the coming weeks” for Free and Go users (Go is $8/month).

The idea is to reduce usage limits or keep access free for more people, without changing how answers work.

However, paid tiers like Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise won’t have ads.

As you can see in the above screenshot, an early format of ChatGPT ad appears at the bottom of an answer, only when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service connected to what you’re currently talking about

You’ll be able to see why you’re seeing an ad, and you can dismiss it and give feedback.

However, you will not see ads when you discuss topics like health, mental health, or politics.

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Posted Wednesday 21 January 2026 at 12:08 pm AEST (my time).

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OpenAI is arguably one of the most sought-after AI research labs, primarily because of ChatGPT. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argues that the firm had a 2-year lead to develop ChatGPT uncontested, which uniquely positioned the company to succeed in the ever-evolving landscape.

Everything might look good on paper, but OpenAI is reportedly burning through vast amounts of cash to keep up with sophisticated AI advances while simultaneously attempting to maintain a healthy lead over its competitors.

This is amid a plethora of challenges, including user backlash for integrating ads into ChatGPT, the court battle it's embroiled in with Elon Musk over its for-profit restructure and "ill-gotten gains," a lack of high-quality content for model training, among many other issues.

As it happens, cash flow continues to be a pain in OpenAI's neck, with multiple reports suggesting that the company might be biting a little more than it can chew in terms of its spending on AI development. The reports suggest that the ChatGPT maker could make a $14 billion loss in 2026, primarily driven by infrastructure expansion, model training, research hiring, and compute costs (via artificialintelligenceee on IG).

Late last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his frustrations over the AI bubble talk, dismissing concerns about the firm's exorbitant spending on sophisticated projects to keep up with the AI hype.

While OpenAI reportedly generates up to $13 billion in revenue annually from ChatGPT and LLM access fees, the firm spends up to $1.4 billion on computing. It's unclear whether the injection of ads into ChatGPT's user experience will help bridge this gap.

However, Sam Altman claims OpenAI's revenue is "growing steeply," further highlighting that the company expects the demand across its consumer and enterprise businesses, including ChatGPT and future hardware developments, to see a surge in demand.

DigiTimes reports, quoting supply chain sources, that computers with the NVIDIA N1X chip will launch in the next couple of months, targeting regular customers. Later this year, the company will debut three more versions of the processor within the generation. Also, the company is already working on the N2 series, which is reportedly scheduled for the third quarter of 2027.

NVIDIA's first N1X processor is rumored to be similar to the GB10 platform, which powers the company's DGX Spark, the AI-focused workstation that combines an ARM processor with a Blackwell GPU. The processor has 20 cores and 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory, and it was developed in partnership with MediaTek using TSMC's 3nm process. The N1X platform is expected to come with a powerful integrated graphics with specs similar to the desktop version of the RTX 5070. Besides the N1X, there are rumors about the "regular" N1 chip, but details about both remain scarce at this point.

According to the report, NVIDIA plans to supply its partners with a reference design, so expect to see NVIDIA-powered devices from different manufacturers. With the upcoming NVIDIA chips and Qualcomm gearing up to launch devices with the new X2 chips, Windows on ARM is off to a much better start than the Windows RT efforts from 2012.

Sources: DigiTimes, WCCFTech

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Posted Wednesday 21 January 2026 at 4:24 am AEST (my time).

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Sony has announced plans to spin off its TV hardware business, shifting it to a new joint venture with TCL. The two companies have signed a nonbinding agreement for Sony’s home entertainment business, with TCL set to hold a 51 percent stake in the new venture and Sony holding 49 percent.

With this partnership, TCL is elevating itself into the premium television landscape after innovating with technology over the last few years. If the deal goes through it would mark the end of an era for Sony, and could open the door for cheaper Bravia TVs built with excellent Sony image processing and leading TCL tech.

Sony and TCL are aiming to finalize binding agreements by the end of March, and start operating the new joint company in April 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other partnership conditions.

The new company is expected to retain “Sony” and “Bravia” branding for its future products and will handle global operations from product development and design to manufacturing, sales, and logistics for TVs and home audio equipment. Sony says that the partnership will leverage Sony’s picture and audio tech, brand value, supply chain management, and other operational expertise. This will combine with TCL’s own display technology, vertical supply chain strength, global market presence, and end-to-end cost efficiency.

In the announcement, Sony CEO Kimio Maki says that combining the two companies will allow Sony and TCL to “create new customer value in the home entertainment field, delivering even more captivating audio and visual experiences to customers worldwide.” TCL chairperson DU Juan says that under the new venture, TCL expects “to elevate our brand value, achieve greater scale, and optimize the supply chain in order to deliver superior products and services to our customers.”

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Posted Wednesday 21 January 2026 at 4:22 am AEST (my time).

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As the relationship between the US and its European allies shows signs of strain, AI labs across the continent are searching for inventive ways to close the gap with American rivals that have so far dominated the field.

With rare exceptions, US-based firms outstrip European competitors across the AI production line—from processor design and manufacturing, to datacenter capacity, to model and application development. Likewise, the US has captured a massive proportion of the money pouring into AI, reflected in the performance last year of its homegrown stocks and the growth of its econonmy.

The belief in some quarters is that the US-based leaders—Nvidia, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and the like—are already so entrenched as to make it impossible for European nations to break their dependency on American AI, mirroring the pattern in cloud services. In early January, the head of Belgium’s national cybersecurity organization told the Financial Times that Europe had “lost the internet,” and should make peace with a degree of reliance on US infrastructure.

Yet the governments of the UK and EU do not appear ready to give up. Already, they have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to minimizing their reliance on foreign AI suppliers. Meanwhile, buoyed by the success of China-based AI lab DeepSeek, whose breakout last year shattered the dogma that control over the largest fleet of AI processors determines which firm wins out, Europe-based researchers are pursuing alternative methods for developing competitive products built around imaginative model design.

“We have been too gullible to the narrative that innovation is done in the US—that we lost the AI train and should not even think about it,” claims Rosaria Taddeo, a professor of digital ethics and defence technologies at the University of Oxford. “That’s a dangerous narrative.”

One possible advantage that European AI labs hold over the large American firms—closed shops that share very little about their training data or the intricacies of their model design—is a willingness to develop out in the open. By publishing models for anyone to use or modify, the theory goes, breakthroughs achieved by European labs will compound as they're further refined by collaborators. “You are multiplying the power of these models,” claims Wolfgang Nejdl, professor of computer science at Germany’s Leibniz Universität Hannover and director of the L3S Research Center, part of a consortium developing a large language model for Europe.

In the face of the White House’s lukewarm stance toward European leadership—and a nakedly hostile attitude among some allies of US President Donald Trump—those efforts to innovate and become self-sufficient have taken on a new urgency.

“The geopolitical situation has changed the way we should interpret sovereignty…This technology is an infrastructure—and an infrastructure we do not produce,” claims Taddeo. “We have to start moving in that direction. It’s not possible to ignore it anymore.”

A Transatlantic Spat

In recent months, European leaders have found themselves at loggerheads with the Trump administration over a tangle of issues ranging from the sovereignty of Greenland, to tariff policy, to immigration, leading to speculation about a deterioration in the NATO alliance that has set the global order for more than 75 years. The two sides have clashed particularly openly over the approach to policing American tech firms—especially X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.

After the European Commission fined X the equivalent of $140 million over alleged regulatory violations in early December, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the penalty as “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.” Later, after a UK regulator opened an investigation into X over a torrent of AI-generated sexualized images of women distributed on the platform, a precursor to a possible countrywide ban, US State Department official Sarah Rogers threatened retaliation.

Against that backdrop, Europe’s reliance on American-made AI begins to look more and more like a liability. In a worst case scenario, though experts consider the possibility remote, the US could choose to withhold access to AI services and crucial digital infrastructure. More plausibly, the Trump administration could use Europe’s dependence as leverage as the two sides continue to iron out a trade deal. “That dependency is a liability in any negotiation—and we are going to be negotiating increasingly with the US,” says Taddeo.

The European Commission, White House, and UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology did not respond to requests for comment.

To hedge against those risks, European nations have attempted to bring the production of AI onshore, through funding programs, targeted deregulation, and partnerships with academic institutions. Some efforts have focused on building competitive large language models for native European languages, like Apertus and GPT-NL.

For as long as ChatGPT or Claude continues to outperform Europe-made chatbots, though, America’s lead in AI will only grow. “These domains are very often winner-takes-all. When you have a very good platform, everybody goes there,” says Nejdl. “Not being able to produce state-of-the-art technology in this field means you will not catch up. You will always just feed the bigger players with your input, so they will get even better and you will be more behind.”

Mind the Gap

It is unclear precisely how far the UK or EU intends to take the push for “digital sovereignty,” lobbyists claim. Does sovereignty require total self-sufficiency across the sprawling AI supply chain, or only an improved capability in a narrow set of disciplines?

Does it demand the exclusion of US-based providers, or only the availability of domestic alternatives? “It’s quite vague,” says Boniface de Champris, senior policy manager at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a membership organization for technology companies. “It seems to be more of a narrative at this stage.”

Neither is there broad agreement as to which policy levers to pull to create the conditions for Europe to become self-sufficient. Some European suppliers advocate for a strategy whereby European businesses would be required, or at least incentivized, to buy from homegrown AI firms—similar to China’s reported approach to its domestic processor market. Unlike grants and subsidies, such an approach would help to seed demand, argues Ying Cao, CTO at Magics Technologies, a Belgium-based outfit developing AI-specific processors for use in space. “That’s more important than simply access to capital,” says Cao. “The most important thing is that you can sell your products.” But those who advocate for open markets and deregulation claim that trying to cut out US-based AI companies risks putting domestic businesses at a disadvantage to global peers, left to choose whichever AI products suit them best. “From our perspective, sovereignty means having choice,” says de Champris.

But for all the disagreement over policy minutiae, there is a broad belief that bridging the performance gap to the American leaders remains eminently possible for even budget- and resource-constrained labs, as DeepSeek illustrated. “If I would already think we will not catch up, I would not [try],” says Nejdl. SOOFI, the open source model development project in which Nejdl is involved, intends to put out a competitive general purpose language model with roughly 100 billion parameters within the next year.

“Progress in this field will not to the larger part depend anymore on the biggest GPU clusters,” claims Nejdl. “We will be the European DeepSeek.”

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The warning, however, came not from a human traffic officer, but from a humanoid robot standing upright on a safety island.

Donning a police uniform, a reflective vest and a white cap, the robot officer -- identified by the badge number "Intelligent Police Unit R001" -- looks remarkably human from a distance. Up close, its metallic sleekness and futuristic demeanor have made it a local celebrity, with pedestrians frequently pausing to snap photos of the cyberpunk scene.

"It is a new colleague capable of assisting us effectively," said Jiang Zihao, a traffic police officer in Wuhu.

According to Jiang, "Intelligent Police Unit R001," an AI-enabled traffic policing robot, is integrated with the city's traffic signal system. It can execute standard traffic command gestures synchronized with changing lights.

Equipped with high-definition cameras and an intelligent voice-broadcasting system, the robot uses large-model algorithms to autonomously identify traffic violations by non-motorized vehicles and pedestrians and deliver on-site warnings.

In addition to stationary duty, the robot is mobile, capable of navigating independently to designated locations on command. Its capabilities also include identifying illegal parking and conducting real-time road monitoring.

"The robot can work around the clock," Jiang said, noting that it is expected to ease the workload of the police, especially during peak hours or in extreme weather conditions.

This "RoboCop" is the latest addition to China's growing fleet of AI-powered traffic assistants.

Last year, several Chinese cities began integrating robotic officers into daily policing. In June, the southwestern city of Chengdu in Sichuan Province deployed a team of robot police officers, including quadruped robots, wheeled robots and humanoid robots, to patrol the streets alongside human counterparts.

In December, an AI-powered traffic policing robot was also put on duty in Hangzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The deployment of these robots underscores China's broader push to bring embodied intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to real-world applications.

A report from the Development Research Center of the State Council projects that the market scale of China's burgeoning embodied intelligence industry will reach 400 billion yuan (about 57.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2030 and exceed 1 trillion yuan in 2035.

"Only by bringing products into real-life scenarios and collecting real operational data can we achieve rapid iteration," said Zhang Guibing, general manager of AiMOGA Robotics, the manufacturer of "Intelligent Police Unit R001."

Zhang added that the company's robots had already been deployed in more than 100 scenarios, including reception, security patrols and public services.

A robot officer with badge number "Intelligent Police Unit R001" is seen on a road in Wuhu, east China's Anhui Province, Jan. 10, 2026. (Xinhua)

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Microsoft wants you to believe the “AI PC” is the future. Copilot+ laptops, neural processing units (NPUs), and promises of local AI magic are being pitched as the next great leap in personal computing.

But as we settle into 2026, I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve been here before—and that the hype may be running ahead of reality. Heck, even Dell made some news recently, noting the whole AI PC thing really isn't working as a pitch to consumers.

The AI PC promise

On paper, the AI PC sounds transformative. Dedicated NPUs promise faster, more efficient AI tasks without draining your battery or sending everything to the cloud. Copilot is supposed to become your ever-present assistant, summarizing documents, generating images, and streamlining workflows. Microsoft frames this as a paradigm shift: the PC finally catching up to the AI moment.

The processor has surfaced in the PassMark database for the first time, suggesting testing is already underway ahead of an expected launch later this year. Although unofficial, the listing provides insight into how Intel’s refreshed HX-series chip may position itself against both mobile and desktop-class competition.

According to the benchmark, the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus achieves a single-thread score of 5,009, placing it surprisingly close to Intel’s desktop-oriented Core Ultra 9 285K. For a mobile processor, that proximity is notable and points to strong per-core performance improvements. Compared with Intel’s existing Core Ultra 9 285HX, the new chip shows an uplift of roughly 7.5 per cent in single-threaded workloads, indicating that Arrow Lake Refresh is more than a minor frequency tweak.

Multi-threaded performance also appears promising. The PassMark entry lists a score of 66,203, positioning the 290HX Plus alongside high-end desktop processors in the same chart. The result lands close to Intel’s own 285K and is also comparable to AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D, while outperforming Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. The 9955HX3D has put up 62,113 points for those wondering.

These figures suggest Intel is aiming to narrow the gap between flagship laptops and traditional desktops, at least in heavily threaded workloads.

Furthermore, the benchmark run shows the processor boosting to 5.45GHz and paired with Samsung DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM memory. System details indicate the test platform was an MSI laptop, equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. That said, this remains a single data point. Laptop performance can vary widely depending on cooling, power limits, firmware tuning, and memory configurations, so real-world results may differ once retail systems arrive.

It will be interesting to see how AMD's own offerings, the new Ryzen AI 400 series, and Ryzen AI Max/Max+ SKUs stack up against it.

Via: @x86deadandback (X)

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Posted Monday 19 January 2026 at 11:40 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025: 5,700+

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According to updated figures from 3DCenter’s memory price index, German retail RAM prices continued climbing into mid-January. The index, which tracks Geizhals listings while excluding eBay and Amazon Marketplace offers, highlights how sustained supply pressure is reshaping the consumer memory market across multiple generations. Although this report in particular is about Germany, US and other markets are probably experiencing sort of similar pressures.

The most severe inflation is still concentrated around desktop DDR5 memory. Across a broad selection of kits, current pricing now sits at more than four times July 2025 levels, making DDR5 the most distorted segment in the index by a considerable margin. Although price momentum slowed compared to the explosive growth seen late last year, increases remain significant. January alone brought another sharp month-on-month rise, with DDR5 prices increasing 27.6 percent, adding to the already dramatic 93.0 percent jump recorded between November and December.

The scale of the increases becomes clearer when looking at individual products. High-capacity DDR5 kits have recorded monthly jumps that now exceed what entire kits cost just six months ago; a 2×32GB DDR5-5600 kit climbed from €530 in December to €677 in January. Meanwhile, mainstream configurations are experiencing the largest proportional increases, having started from far lower base prices.

While DDR5 continues to dominate the headlines, older memory standards are no longer insulated from the wider trend. DDR3 and DDR4 pricing has accelerated noticeably in recent weeks, with month-on-month growth increasing rather than slowing. 3DCenter reports an average overvaluation of +219 percent compared to July 2025, or roughly 3.2× baseline pricing.

These figures closely mirror the explanation offered recently by G.SKILL, which attributed soaring DDR5 prices to severe supply constraints and unprecedented demand driven by the AI sector. The company pointed to industry-wide DRAM shortages, as manufacturers increasingly prioritise enterprise-grade memory such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for data centres over consumer products.

The impact is now clearly visible at retail level. With DRAM supply tight and costs rising throughout the supply chain, price pressure is spreading beyond enthusiast DDR5 kits to older memory standards and even storage products, which 3DCenter notes have also seen significant increases.

For consumers and system builders alike, the latest data offers little reassurance. With no clear signal that supply conditions are improving, and AI-driven demand continuing to dominate memory production, retail pricing shows no signs of stabilising in the near term. Detailed breakdowns are available in the full 3DCenter report.

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Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.

Posted Monday 19 January 2026 at 11:40 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025: 5,700+

RIP Matrix