For the past two years, generative AI has largely competed on what it can create. At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Kunlun Tech Chairman and CEO Fang Han argued that the next phase will be defined by what AI can understand and do in simulated and physical environments. Calling 2026 the “first year…
China is using the global AI race to make a broader argument about how the technology should be governed: advanced AI should not become the exclusive property of a handful of countries or companies. In a commentary published by People’s Daily around the 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC), Beijing positioned open-source models, international cooperation and…
Kirin Holdings is moving generative AI beyond document automation and search with an experiment that places AI agents directly inside the scientific research process. Working with Japanese AI consulting firm GenerativeX, Kirin has begun deploying an AI-native research environment in selected research divisions, designed to support everything from hypothesis generation and literature searches to brainstorming,…
The race to make autonomous vehicles smarter is creating a new hardware problem: AI systems must deliver increasingly complex decisions in real time without consuming the power budget of a general-purpose data-center accelerator. TIER IV is addressing that challenge through a Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) research program, where it is developing a software-defined…
Synchrony is giving its artificial intelligence program a dedicated executive owner as financial institutions move from AI experimentation toward enterprise-wide deployment. The consumer financial services company has appointed Nimrod Barak as Chief AI Officer, effective June 30, 2026, putting him in charge of the company’s AI strategy, governance and implementation as it expands agentic AI…
