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Thinking Machines releases first AI model

16 July 2026 at 09:35

Thinking Machines Lab unveiled its first AI model more than a year after former OpenAI executive Mira Murati (pictured) founded the start-up, moving it from research previews to a full launch.

The Inkling model is designed to reason natively across text, images and audio, while balancing cost against performance through variable, adjustable effort.

Thinking Machines stated the model is trained to exhibit safe behaviour across all modalities.

The company noted Inkling is a mixture-of-experts transformer with 975 billion total parameters and 41 billion active parameters, supporting a context window of up to 1 million tokens.

Thinking Machines described it as the first in a family of models of varying sizes.

Rather than chasing state-of-the-art performance in a single domain, Thinking Machines said it trained Inkling for solid capabilities across agentic tasks, reasoning, coding, instruction-following, factuality, vision and audio, positioning it as a foundation model for future releases.

The company acknowledged Inkling is not the most performant model available today, closed or open.

Inkling is open-weight, meaning developers can download and customise the model without access to training data or source code.

It is available for fine-tuning on Tinker, Thinking Machines’ developer platform, alongside a so-called Inkling Playground for testing the model directly.

Bloomberg reported Thinking Machines is not aiming to monetise the model itself; the company currently generates revenue through Tinker, which it sells to customers including hedge fund Bridgewater Associates for financial-task fine-tuning.

The news outlet noted Murati’s company raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation last year and was reportedly in talks over a larger subsequent round, though it added several employees have since departed for firms including Meta Platforms and OpenAI.

Bloomberg also reported the launch could help fill a gap in the US open model market, as Meta shifts focus on proprietary offerings and rising AI spending pushes some users toward freely available Chinese models.

Thinking Machines was founded in early 2025 by Murati and a host of other former OpenAI employees, with the company initially focused on collaboration between the technology and people.

The post Thinking Machines releases first AI model appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Anthropic plans investor meetings as IPO looms

16 July 2026 at 09:33

Anthropic is reportedly seeking to meet with investors ahead of a potential mega-IPO, as the company prepares to join a wave of AI-driven stock market debuts.

Bloomberg reported the banks leading the offering are scheduling meetings between investors and the Claude chatbot maker in the coming weeks, citing people familiar with the matter. The news outlet previously stated Anthropic is considering an IPO as soon as October.

Deliberations remain ongoing and details including timing could still change, Bloomberg stated.

Moving ahead on the timeline would put Anthropic ahead of rival OpenAI, which is now eyeing a debut in 2027 after earlier targeting 2026.

The news site noted an IPO in October would also see Anthropic list before DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company which has been steadily gaining market share.

DeepSeek is reportedly preparing its own IPO and could file this year.

Bloomberg stated Anthropic is working with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase on its IPO.

The AI player is also navigating uncertainty tied to its relationship with the Trump administration, which briefly imposed foreign access restrictions on two of Anthropic’s top models.

Anthropic separately sued the US Department of War after it declared the company posed a risk to the nation’s supply chain.

The company was valued at $965 billion following a funding round in May, making it one of the world’s largest private companies and pushing its valuation past OpenAI’s for the first time.

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Bell edges closer to D2D service launch

16 July 2026 at 09:33

Bell Canada completed construction of its first sovereign direct-to-device (D2D) satellite ground station, a milestone in a strategy to offer connectivity beyond the reach of its traditional wireless network.

The facility in the province of Quebec connects with AST SpaceMobile satellites, with testing underway as the operator works to build the infrastructure required to provide D2D services.

Bell stated the companies completed integration testing covering “text messaging, broadband data connectivity”, and voice and video calls.

Video streaming, IoT and public alert tests are scheduled for the coming weeks.

The milestone builds on demonstrations Bell and AST SpaceMobile ran in 2025.

In addition to connecting customers in rural or remote locations, Bell stated the service is expected to support use cases including emergency response, environmental monitoring, resource development, energy production and transportation.

The company is continuing to build ground station infrastructure elsewhere in Canada, with additional sites under construction in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Bell explained the facilities would provide nationwide D2D coverage while ensuring customer traffic runs through domestic infrastructure and data remains sovereign.

EVP and CTO Mark McDonald said the ground infrastructure “is designed to support a full suite of D2D capabilities including messaging, data connectivity, voice calling and video streaming”.

AST SpaceMobile CCO Chris Ivory pointed to Canada’s geography as a driver for the project, explaining the work with Bell would provide seamless connectivity “beyond the reach of traditional terrestrial networks”.

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Trump sets up AI threat coordination group

15 July 2026 at 11:49

The US government launched a cybersecurity coordination group allowing AI developers and service providers a formal way to work together to respond to threats emerging from the technology.

The White House stated it, along with the Department of the Treasury, Homeland Security, Department of War and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency worked closely with industry partners to detect threats faster and develop a rapid and prioritised response to cyber vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure sectors.

The group, called Gold Eagle, has been spearheaded by President Donald Trump as part of his vision to secure and accelerate American AI innovation.

It was first revealed as part of Trump’s executive order in June to promote advanced AI innovation and security, which includes plans for the release of a new operational model for cyber defence.

The model aims to tap into frontier AI capabilities to continue advancing faster than adversaries, reduce duplicative scanning efforts and “deliver prioritised and actionable threat and remediation information to defenders” across the government and private sector.

The White House statement explained Gold Eagle will help government and industry collectively identify risks, prioritise action and strengthen the resilience of systems that power the economy, national security and daily life.

Companies involved in the coordination group were not disclosed.

Trump’s administration has taken a hands-on approach to AI regulation.

In May it unveiled a legislative framework to create uniform security and safety guardrails. This followed another executive order at the end of 2025 to secure control of AI regulation away from individual states.

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New York puts mega data centres on ice

14 July 2026 at 16:37

New York made history by becoming the first US state to halt the construction of massive new data centres, imposing a one-year moratorium as concerns escalate over the environmental and financial toll of the AI boom.

The moratorium, outlined in an executive order signed by Governor Kathy Hochul (pictured), targets hyperscale operations by halting discretionary environmental permits for new facilities requiring 50 megawatts or more of power.

The rapid expansion of facilities housing thousands of computer servers has triggered intense community and political backlash across the US.

“This pause will remain in place for up to one year while New York establishes the strongest possible framework to protect our community’s guardrails to reduce the risk to our energy grid, minimize land disruption, noise pollution, and protect our natural resources, especially our water supply,” Hochul stated during a press conference. “We’re going to explore having hyperscale data centres pay into a larger fund to support our grid statewide.

“We need to invest in this, help defray costs, reduce bills for our rate payers,” she added. “We expect this process, which we already launched, to be completed within the year.

Once the policy is in place, the freeze will be reviewed and lifted, Hochul stated.

She also said the data centres should only be built in areas which want them and “they will never be exempt from local zoning, local approvals”.

Local populations are increasingly concerned the energy-hungry centres by companies including Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Oracle are inflating residential utility bills, straining electricity grids and consuming millions of gallons of water for cooling.

Hochul framed the aggressive intervention as a necessary protective measure for state residents, stating as data centre development threatens to hike utility bills and deplete natural resources, it is her responsibility to act.

She noted labour organisations will have a seat at the AI data centre discussions “so projects can include wage standards and labour agreements and prioritise local hiring”.

To further rein in the sector, Hochul announced plans to pursue legislation to repeal lucrative sales tax exemptions currently enjoyed by hyperscale data centre operators.

“New Yorkers work hard and, on my watch, their tax dollars will not be used to benefit these large firms, these centres.”

Reuters reported Hochul directed state officials to develop a Generic Environmental Impact Statement. The comprehensive assessment will establish consistent operating and environmental standards for new facilities while examining the overall footprint of data centre construction and operation across the state.

The construction ban will be lifted once the rigorous regulatory guidelines are finalised.

The news outlet reported state lawmakers recently passed a bill targeting data centres consuming 20 megawatts or more of power, representing a wider scope than the governor’s executive order.

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What is the oldest American object ever launched into space?

6 July 2026 at 20:57

Did you know that the space shuttle once launched the Statue of Liberty into space?

In fact, there were two "Lady Liberties" on board Discovery when it lifted off on its fourth flight in April 1985. To be fair, each statue was only 15 inches tall (38.1 centimeters), but they were also each made of copper that was removed from the full-size statue during its then-still-ongoing restoration.

After the weeklong STS-51D mission was over, one of the space-flown statues was placed on display, and the other was melted down to create copper seals, which were then sold to the public by the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Centennial Commission.

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