NerdNews

Nvidia is increasing its efforts to support AI startups in India through partnerships with early-stage venture firms like Activate, aiming to cultivate relationships with future customers in the growing developer market. The company is expanding its local ecosystem ties, including partnerships with venture firms and AI Grants India, to identify and fund AI startups.

Google's AI systems and proactive security measures helped prevent 1.75 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in 2025, a decrease from 2.36 million in 2024. The company's investments in AI and real-time defenses have raised the bar for the Google Play ecosystem, reducing paths for bad actors to enter.

YouTube's conversational AI tool is now available on smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices, allowing users to ask questions about content without leaving the video they're watching. The feature offers suggested questions and supports English, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.

OpenAI is reportedly finalizing a $100 billion deal at a valuation of over $850 billion. The company is burning through cash as it inches toward profitability and has started testing ads in ChatGPT for free users. Investors such as Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia, and Microsoft are contributing to the funding.

Reliance Industries unveiled a $110 billion plan to build AI computing infrastructure in India over the next seven years, including gigawatt-scale data centers and a nationwide edge computing network. The investment aims to support India's technological self-reliance and reduce the cost of AI services.

A panel discussion on modern data architectures, covering topics such as data engineering, data platforms, and the role of data engineers. The panelists emphasize the importance of software engineering skills in data engineering and the need for a modular architecture to facilitate flexibility and scalability.

Researchers at OX Security discovered four vulnerabilities in popular integrated development environment (IDE) extensions, including two high-severity and one critical, affecting Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and its forks, Cursor and Windsurf. The vulnerabilities can lead to data exfiltration and arbitrary code execution. Despite responsible disclosure, the maintainers of the affected extensions have not responded or patched the vulnerabilities.

Google has launched Lyria 3, a music generation model that can create 30-second songs. The model is available in the Gemini app and can generate songs in multiple languages. It improves on previous models by generating its own lyrics and giving users more control over elements of the song.

OpenClaw, a viral agentic AI tool, has raised security concerns among tech companies due to its unpredictability and potential for privacy breaches. As a result, companies like Meta are restricting its use, while others are exploring ways to make it more secure. OpenClaw requires basic software engineering knowledge to set up and can take control of a user's computer, interacting with other apps to assist with tasks.

Unity's new AI tool allows developers to generate full casual games from simple text prompts, potentially democratizing game creation and streamlining the development process. The tool, set to enter beta at the Game Developers Conference in March, aims to bridge the gap between concept and playable game, but raises questions about quality, originality, and workflow integration.

Google has announced Gemini 3.1 Pro, an updated AI model that promises better problem-solving and reasoning capabilities. The new model has shown improvements in benchmarks such as Humanity's Last Exam and ARC-AGI-2, and will be available in preview for developers and consumers today.

T-Labs and Qunnect have demonstrated the commercial viability of quantum networking by teleporting qubits over 30km of optical fibre, achieving an average accuracy of 90%. This breakthrough has the potential to enable secure communication and create a building block for Europe's technological sovereignty.

Cisco and Qunnect have demonstrated entanglement-swapping over deployed metro-scale fibre using a commercial quantum networking system, achieving record swapping rates and paving the way for practical quantum networks and distributed quantum computing.

Ericsson has announced partnerships with Microsoft and AWS to enhance enterprise 5G capabilities. The partnership with Microsoft aims to simplify laptop management for enterprises, while the collaboration with AWS focuses on network optimization using Agentic AI. Ericsson has also launched a new research facility in Japan to drive innovation in 5G and open network architectures.

Reload, an AI workforce management platform, has raised $2.275 million and launched its first AI product, Epic. Epic serves as an architect alongside other coding agents, defining a product's requirements and constraints, and reminding agents what they are building and why. The platform aims to provide visibility, coordination, and oversight for AI employees, allowing companies to manage their AI agents across teams and departments.

Meta is shifting its focus from VR to mobile for its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform. The company will explicitly separate its Quest VR platform from its Worlds platform and focus on making Worlds 'almost exclusively mobile'. This change is intended to help Meta compete with platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, which offer user-generated experiences on mobile devices.

A recent study by MIT CSAIL found that AI agents are being deployed at a rapid pace, but many lack safety frameworks and transparency, making them potentially vulnerable to exploits and misuses. The study analyzed 30 prominent AI agents and found that only half have published safety or trust frameworks, and one in three have no safety framework documentation whatsoever.

Tesla's Cybercab is a concept car with no steering wheel or pedals, while the Robotaxi is a regular Tesla Model Y with a steering wheel and pedals, used for autonomous taxi services. The Cybercab is set to start production in April, but its launch and adoption may face hurdles due to regulatory issues and concerns over safety.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has published a strategy to make the UK a global leader in AI by 2031, focusing on explainable AI, human-in-the-loop systems, and sustainable models. The plan includes investing in AI research, providing access to shared assets, and supporting innovators and universities.

Amari AI, founded by former Google and LinkedIn engineers, uses AI to automate customs paperwork and help brokers navigate trade chaos caused by Trump's policies. The startup has raised $4.5 million and has already helped move $15 billion of goods.