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The EU has approved an €8.1bn state aid package to boost the development of chips, aiming to strengthen the bloc’s microelectronics and comms sector. The subsidy falls under the framework of “Important Projects of Common European Interest” (IPCEI) — an initiative that provides easier access to public funds. The IPCEI will undertake 68 projects across 14 member states: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the...

This article features an interview with Lila Ibrahim, COO of Google DeepMind. Ibrahim will be speaking at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 15 & 16 in Amsterdam. If you want to experience the event (and say hi to our editorial team!), we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code READ-TNW-25 and get a 25% discount on your business...

Global livestock contributes 14.5% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions. Our food systems need a significant revamp, not to say a revolution, if we are to have any chance of feeding a growing population while also making sure there is still a planet that is worth populating at all.  Some of that revamping is happening in the lab, with cell biology taking centre stage....

British startup Hilo — co-founded by Andy Palmer, often referred to as the ‘godfather’ of EVs — has launched a new e-scooter crammed with high-tech safety features, in a bid to tackle the sector’s poor safety rep.  The e-scooter, dubbed Hilo One, is equipped with the same kind of collision warning tech found in cars. Using computer vision AI, the e-scooter alerts the riders...

This article is by Alex Pasykov, CEO and founder of dating apps Hily and Taimi, who will be speaking at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 15 & 16 in Amsterdam. If you want to experience the event (and say hi to our editorial team!), we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code READ-TNW-25 and get a 25% discount...

By travelling on modern day cruise ships, we inevitably leave our (carbon) footprint behind, in an ironic twist of fate destroying the very nature we have come so far to admire. That could soon change, at least along the magnificent fjord landscape of Norway. Weeks before its 130th anniversary, cruise company Hurtigruten has revealed the concept design for its very first zero-emission ship.  Cruise...

DeepMind has applied its mastery of games to a more serious business: the foundations of computer science. The Google subsidiary today unveiled AlphaDev, an AI system that discovers new fundamental algorithms. According to DeepMind, the algorithms it’s unearthed surpass those honed by human experts over decades.  The London-based lab has grand ambitions for the project. As demand for computation grows and silicon chips approach their...

The European floods of 2021, which affected large areas of Germany and Belgium, took the lives of 209 people and cost over €30bn in damages. Catastrophic floods like these are becoming more and more common as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.  While there is no easy fix for preventing floods, there are ways we can prepare for them....

As a lover of good food, but someone who dislikes cooking, I’ve always fantasised about having a robot chef at home. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at the University of Cambridge, my dream may soon come true. The research team has succeeded in training a robot to watch cooking videos, learn from them, and then recreate dishes. “We wanted to see whether...

Work can be pretty stressful these days: globally tech workers have had to deal with the effects of the pandemic, adjust to remote work—and handle all those more recent return-to-office mandates—in addition to dealing with fears of redundancy in an environment that has seen hundreds of thousands of sector layoffs since mid-2022. It’s not surprising that workers are feeling the strain. Forty-four percent of...

This article features an interview with Nick Foster, former Head of Design for Google X. Foster will be speaking at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 15 & 16 in Amsterdam. If you want to experience the event (and say hi to our editorial team!), we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code READ-TNW-25 and get a 25% discount...

European tech startups will see a 38% investment drop in 2023 compared to 2022 levels, the latest report by Atomico finds. Specifically, startups are expected to raise $51bn in funding — down from $83bn in 2022 and $106bn in 2021. But Europe isn’t alone in navigating a tough year for tech. The US and China are also looking at a 49% investment decrease in...

This article features an interview with Lubomila Jordanova, founder and CEO at Plan A. Jordanova will be speaking at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 15 & 16 in Amsterdam. If you want to experience the event (and say hi to our editorial team!), we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code READ-TNW-25 and get a 25% discount on your business pass...

The EU is pushing big tech to apply a new method for tackling AI disinformation: labels. The bloc wants online platforms to mark any AI-generated photos, videos, and text, a top official announced on Monday. “The labelling should be done now — immediately,” said European Commission Vice President Vera Jourová, per DW. The request was made amid explosive growth in synthetic media. ChatGPT has...

There’s a lot of buzz around generative AI’s potential to push productivity into hyperspeed, from quickly spitting out lines of code for developers to text and image tools that allow marketing teams to produce new campaigns faster. But one area where it can really make a direct and measurable impact for your customers is by adopting it within your support and customer experience teams....

Blockchain is frequently derided as a solution in search of a problem. But buried beneath the crypto scams and Web3 utopianism hide some intriguing use cases. Some of the most powerful applications are in traceability. When embedded in supply chains, blockchain can track the entire product lifecycle, from origin to consumption. As the tech provides permanent, indelible, and unalterable records, extensive data about items and...

Green hydrogen will almost certainly play a key role in the energy transition, but it does come with a number of inherent challenges. It’s highly flammable and must be stored at high pressures or cryogenic temperatures, which makes hydrogen storage and transport complex and expensive. A student team at Eindhoven University of Technology, called SOLID, is trying to solve this problem by using small...

LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA, ketamine, DMT… it’s a suspicious product line for a legitimate business — and psychedelics startups know it. With that in mind, it’s unsurprising that the sector are wary of the stereotypes around hallucinogens. “What the industry really needs is the most boring person in the room to be presenting the topic,” says Clara Burtenshaw, co-founder of Neo Kuma Ventures, Europe’s...

Apple is a sector definer. While the company rarely creates entirely new products, its hardware ends up being the baseline other devices are measured by. You only need to look at how the iPod, iPhone, and iPad defined what people expect from MP3 players, phones, and tablets. Now, Apple is hoping it can repeat this trick with an entirely new product: its rumoured VR/AR...

A group of international researchers has shed further light on genetic variants responsible for human diseases by analysing primate DNA data with a novel AI algorithm. Initially, the scientists sequenced over 800 individual samples from 233 species of non-human primates representing all 16 families, from lemurs to gorillas. To interpret the data, they developed a new algorithm: PrimateAI-3D. PrimateAI-3D is built on deep-learning language...

The European Commission launched a new initiative this week to help 100 deep tech startups become unicorns, as the bloc looks to accelerate growth in green and digital technologies.  “We will identify one hundred of Europe’s future tech champions, engage them, and provide them with support on their scaleup journey,” said EU tech chief Margrethe Vestager, who announced the EIC Scale Up 100 initiative...

This article features an interview with Alberto Prado, Head of R&D Digital and Partnerships at Unilever. Prado will be speaking at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 15 & 16 in Amsterdam. If you want to experience the event (and say hi to our editorial team!), we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code READ-TNW-25 and get a 25%...

Sam Altman’s turbulent relationship with European regulators has taken two more turns. The OpenAI CEO is reportedly set for further talks with the EU — and a new HQ on the continent. Altman last sparked an uproar after criticising the EU’s AI Act. The 38-year-old threatened to withdraw OpenAI’s services over plans for the landmark legislation, which would force his company to comply with extra obligations. ...

Here’s the thing, it doesn’t take long for an outsized ego to manifest itself in the workplace. Everything is self-referential. Any topic leads back to wonderful them. One of my clients was offered a job recently that would pay roughly twice what she’s earning now. She nailed the interview, so I figured all she had to do was read and sign the contract. I...