Author: Jaxon Bennett

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is professor of computer science at the Université de Montreal and founder of Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute Mila Lack of internal deliberation abilities — thinking, in other words — has long been considered one of the main weaknesses of artificial intelligence. The scale of a recent advance in this by ChatGPT creator OpenAI is a point of debate within the scientific community. But it leads many of my expert colleagues and I to believe that there is a chance that we are…

Jack Naidoo began his career in apartheid South Africa. “I experienced some really horrible cases of racism,” he says of his early working years. Now, he is a leader of people and communities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at technology conglomerate Cisco.Naidoo shared these early experiences with a senior colleague through Cisco’s so-called proximity initiative. This encourages all the company’s leaders to reach out to a colleague whose identity and background differ from their own. The one-to-one conversations are an opportunity to understand the impact of different lived experiences — whether of race, sexuality, disability or otherwise —…

This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to receive the newsletter every weekday. Explore all of our newsletters hereIn today’s newsletter: Chinese tech groups expand into Silicon Valley Singapore oil trader sentenced to lengthy jail termVietnam’s vulnerability to potential Trump tariffsGood morning. China’s biggest tech groups are building artificial intelligence teams in Silicon Valley, hoping to poach staff from US rivals who could help them make up ground in the race to profit from generative AI.Alibaba, ByteDance and Meituan have been expanding their offices in California in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.British Airways’ passengers were hit by widespread disruption on Monday after the airline suffered a fresh IT failure. The carrier said its flights were suffering from delays and it was “working to resolve a technical issue with some of our systems”.Passengers around the world reported major hold-ups as the problems swept through BA’s operations, including leaving some planes unable to take off because of issues communicating with the carrier’s base at London Heathrow.Other customers complained of problems accessing the BA app, while…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.China’s biggest technology groups are building artificial intelligence teams in Silicon Valley, seeking to hire top US talent despite Washington’s efforts to curb the country’s development of the cutting-edge technology.Alibaba, ByteDance and Meituan have been expanding their offices in California in recent months, seeking to poach staff from rival US groups who could help them make up ground in the race to profit from generative AI.The push comes despite US efforts to stymie their work. Chinese groups have been hit by a…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The internet economy is all about free labour. Facebook, Snap, Pinterest and peers lay on forums, games and videos at no cost. In return, billions of users contribute posts, likes, photos and social connections — which tech groups then use to sell advertising. Presto: free stuff is spun into gold.Reddit might be the hottest riff on that theme. The thematic message board company co-founded by Steve Huffman is one of the best-performing initial public offerings of 2024. Its shares have quadrupled since…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Samsung shares rose more than 5 per cent on Monday in response to a Won10tn ($7.2bn) share buyback plan aimed at boosting its stock, which had fallen to four-year lows last week.The world’s largest maker of memory chips and smartphones announced after Friday’s market close it would buy back stock to “boost its shareholder value” over the next year, including spending Won3tn for share cancellations over the next three months. Investors hope the buybacks — Samsung’s first since 2017 — will help…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.When your company’s cyber security team contacts you personally, it is rarely for a positive reason. In my case, it was to inform me I would no longer be able to access my work emails from my phone. Apparently my device — a second-hand model I bought several years ago — was so old it had become a security risk.This has simply meant checking my work emails less — many would think hardly a sacrifice. But not all workers without company phones…

Chinese smartphone manufacturers are intensifying efforts to gain a stronger foothold in Europe and sell higher-margin premium devices, with one of the world’s fastest-growing brands aiming to more than double its market share on the continent in the next three years.Shenzhen-based Realme, which has increased European sales by 275 per cent from 2020 to last year, according to analysts, says it is targeting a market share of more than 10 per cent in the next three to five years, up from 4 per cent.Currently the continent’s fourth biggest supplier, the handset maker became the fastest ever to reach 100mn global…

Xavier Niel, one of Europe’s top technology investors, believes the region can succeed in creating leading artificial intelligence companies even without the billions in capital raised by US competitors — as long as founders are not tempted to cash out too early. “I think we can create big things with a few hundred million euros,” the French billionaire who made his fortune in telecoms with operator Iliad and now invests broadly in start-ups. This includes backing Paris-based AI group Mistral which has soared to a €6bn valuation within a year of being founded.“Europe can create competitive AI models today,” he…