Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldGoogle will heavily discount cloud computing services for the US government, as the Trump administration pressures technology groups to slash prices on long-standing, lucrative contracts.The agreement comes after Oracle last week cut a deal with the government, including a 75 per cent discount on some software contracts for a limited period and “substantial discounts” on its wider cloud computing contracts.Google’s cloud contract is likely “to land in a similar spot”, according to a senior official at the General Services Administration…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Here we go again. That must have been the first thought on the minds of many Tesla shareholders this week as Elon Musk waded back into the political fray, declaring his intention to launch a third party to rival the Republicans and Democrats.It is less than two months since Musk’s moonlighting for Donald Trump’s administration led a group of Tesla shareholders to call for their chief executive to devote at least 40 hours a week to his day job, and the latest…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute and adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law SchoolLast month, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that requires verification of a user’s age when visiting websites with pornographic content. It joins the UK’s Online Safety Act and Australia’s ban on social media use by under 16s as the latest measure aimed at keeping young people safe online.While protecting children is the well-intentioned motivation for these laws,…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The EU has unveiled its code of practice for general purpose artificial intelligence, pushing ahead with its landmark regulation despite fierce lobbying from the US government and Big Tech groups. The final version of the code, which helps explain rules that are due to come into effect next month for powerful AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, includes copyright protections for creators and potential independent risk assessments for the most advanced systems.The EU’s decision to push forward with its…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is co-founder, chair and CEO of SalesforceThe techno-atheists like to tell a joke.They imagine the moment AI fully awakens and is asked, “Is there a God?” To which the AI replies: “There is now.”The joke is more than just a punchline. It’s a warning that reveals something deeper: the fear that as AI begins to match human intelligence, it will no longer be a tool for humanity but our replacement.AI is the most transformative technology in our lifetime, and we face…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Techworld is abuzz with how artificial intelligence agents are going to augment, if not replace, humans in the workplace. But the present-day reality of agentic AI falls well short of the future promise. What happened when the research lab Anthropic prompted an AI agent to run a simple automated shop? It lost money, hallucinated a fictitious bank account and underwent an “identity crisis”. The world’s shopkeepers can rest easy — at least for now.Anthropic has developed some of the world’s most capable generative…

Amazon is weighing another multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic to deepen a strategic alliance that the tech companies believe will provide an edge in the global competition to profit from artificial intelligence.The Seattle-based cloud and ecommerce group has discussed plans to extend beyond the $8bn it has already ploughed into the San Francisco-based AI model builder, according to multiple people with knowledge of the talks. A new deal would further a relationship that — according to interviews with more than a dozen Amazon and Anthropic executives, board members and investors — has become vital to both their futures. The investment will…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Having just passed his 45th anniversary, which is ancient in gaming years, you might expect Pac-Man to be considering retirement. Perhaps he has finally buried the hatchet with his ghost nemeses. Maybe he spends his days with his wife, trundling around a nice hedge maze in the country on a mobility scooter.But game characters don’t get to retire. And judging by the yellow guy’s latest game, he is going in the opposite direction. The first hint that Pac-Man has gone feral is…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Kraken, named for a giant cephalopod, is the stuff of myth. Can a software platform of the same name bring forth riches from the deep? Octopus Energy, its current owner, hopes so.Octopus plans to spin off its technology arm, which powers the utility’s back-office functions, as a separate entity with a valuation of perhaps $10bn. That looks rich: Octopus itself, including Kraken, was valued at $1bn less than that in a fundraising last year. It would imply a multiple of 50-odd times…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Aerospace & Defence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Europe is just a few years away from being able to deploy fighter jets without human pilots, the continent’s most valuable defence start-up has said after completing two test flights.Helsing, the drone maker and artificial intelligence company, allowed its software to take control of a Gripen E fighter jet made by the Swedish arms maker Saab in two exercises over the Baltic Sea in May and June.Stephanie Lingemann, senior director of the company’s air division, said the experiments — during which…