The White House's executive order barring state regulation of AI (see 2512110068) isn't likely to stop states, Goodwin AI and data lawyers wrote last week. The order directs federal agencies to condition access to discretionary grants on a state's commitment not to enforce "onerous" AI laws, but it gives scant guidance on which state laws are onerous and conflict with the administration's policy principles, the lawyers argued.
The global AI market is expected to grow from $273.6 billion this year to an estimated $5.26 trillion by 2035, an annual growth rate of 30.84% over that period, ResearchAndMarkets.com said Wednesday. “As industries increasingly recognize the potential of AI, there is a significant surge in demand, spurred by industrial automation and IoT proliferation,” it said.
AT&T is starting to use “agentic” AI across its business, Chief Data Officer Andy Markus blogged Thursday. The use of AI autonomous assistants will be important “to the next wave of AI innovation,” which is beginning now, Markus wrote. AT&T is already testing how AI agents “can bring value directly to our customers. Now, we’re expanding how we build agentic AI tools for our employees, putting more power directly in the hands of our teams to build custom AI agents with an update to our internal Ask AT&T tool.”
Improving the U.S. internet infrastructure is vital to beating China for AI dominance, NCTA President Cory Gardner wrote Monday in an op-ed for Fox News. While the U.S. focuses on innovation and debates regulation, the Chinese Communist Party "is building internet infrastructure to leapfrog the U.S." He pointed to China increasingly challenging the U.S. with advances in Wi-Fi, which is the primary technology used to access AI.
As the demands that AI will place on wireless networks become a growing concern (see 2510070039), 75% of U.S. adults reported using an AI system in the past six months, “signaling a major shift in how consumers interact with technology,” according to a new survey by Dallas-based Joe Youngblood SEO & Digital Marketing Consulting. A third of those surveyed said they are heavy users of AI. “AI adoption now mirrors the classic technology diffusion curve,” the firm said. “What started as experimentation is now a habit. Americans are using AI to cook dinner, fix grammar, entertain themselves, and even get fitness advice. Businesses need to recognize that AI isn’t a novelty anymore -- it’s mainstream.”
Security company Palo Alto Networks announced Wednesday an agreement to buy Israeli identity security provider CyberArk for $25 billion in cash and stock. Palo Alto Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora said on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street that the deal will strengthen his company's ability to prevent AI-based identity theft, noting that about 88% of ransomware attacks are driven by credential theft, and “identity is an unsolved problem.” Palo Alto viewed CyberArk as the “strongest player” in the space, he said.
Motorola Solutions announced Thursday it’s introducing “AI nutrition labels” to provide “clear, concise information” about how AI is used by safety and security technologies it offers customers. “The initiative is a first for public safety and enterprise security products, helping people understand a product’s core AI ‘ingredients,’ just as food nutrition labels were born from a desire to understand dietary intake,” the company said.
More than half of respondents (53%) in a new survey believe AI workloads will place the largest demand on data center interconnect (DCI) infrastructure over the next two to three years, Ciena said Monday. Cloud computing and big data analytics were seen as the next largest drivers of demand. To meet the surge in AI demand, “43% of new data center facilities are expected to be dedicated to AI workloads,” Ciena said. “AI workloads are reshaping the entire data center landscape, from infrastructure builds to bandwidth demand," said Jurgen Hatheier, Ciena's international chief technology officer. "Historically, network traffic has grown at a rate of 20-30% per year. AI is set to accelerate this growth significantly, meaning operators are rethinking their architectures and planning for how they can meet this demand sustainably."
The Bureau of Industry and Security's upcoming export controls on advanced AI semiconductors will introduce hurdles that could push U.S. allies closer to China, a technology think tank and a semiconductor industry group said this week. Both the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Semiconductor Industry Association urged President Joe Biden's administration to reverse course. ITIF said it should “immediately” rethink the "overdesigned, yet underinformed" restrictions, which are expected to be published as an interim final rule before Biden leaves office. SIA, "deeply concerned by the unprecedented scope and complexity" of the potential regulation, asked the government to instead issue the restrictions as a proposed rule -- which would allow for industry feedback and possible revisions without a set effective date -- or allow the new Trump administration to decide how to move forward.
Generative AI registered significant advances in 2024, with real-world applications, Nvidia Chief Scientist Bill Dally said in a year-end blog post. AI can generate “not just images and text, but 3D models, music and sounds,” he wrote. Developers also have better control, meaning realistic human motion and the ability “to generate sequences of images with consistent subjects.” The use of generative AI “has resulted in high-resolution weather forecasts that are more accurate than conventional numerical weather models,” Dally said: “AI models have given us the ability to accurately predict how blood glucose levels respond to different foods. Embodied generative AI is being used to develop autonomous vehicles and robots.”