Author: TechBrunch

President-elect Donald Trump announced that Hussein Sajwani, the Emirati billionaire businessman who founded real estate development giant DAMAC Properties, will invest $20 billion in new data centers across the United States. The first phase of the multi-year investment will fund data centers in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, Trump said at a news conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago home. The data center mainly supports AI and cloud technology. “We have been waiting for years to increase our investment in the United States,” Sajwani said. “We are looking to invest $20 billion, [potentially] More than that. ”…

According to The Information, Employer.com has offered to acquire Level, a fintech startup that abruptly shut down last week after failing to find a buyer. But Revel is still mulling over the proposal, Matt Charney, the company's Employer.com CMO, told TechCrunch. “It's a legal thing,” he said. UPDATE: Sources close to the deal say other details beyond the legal are currently being worked out. Founded in 2018 by early Square employee Paul Aaron, Level is known to have raised $30.8 million in funding from prominent investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures. In April 2021, the startup announced…

As Peacock continues to lag behind entertainment industry giants like Netflix, TikTok and YouTube, the streaming service is adopting a similar strategy to its rivals with two new initiatives: mini-games and short-form vertical video feeds. I'm doing it. The company announced these experiments Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Peacock will begin piloting the new feature on its iOS and Android apps this month, followed by a broader rollout later this spring. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch during early testing that some users will see both games and vertical video playlists, some will see one or the…

The UK is moving forward with plans to make the creation of sexually explicit “deepfake” images a specific crime. Deepfakes refer to manipulated media (often video or audio) created using AI to make it appear as if someone is saying or doing something they did not actually do. Britain already criminalized the sharing and threat of sharing sexually explicit deepfake content under its Online Safety Act, which came into force last year. However, content creation itself is not covered. That's why the Ministry of Justice today announced plans to make existing rules more comprehensive, including those who make them, regardless…

When Valeria Kogan earned her Ph.D. in 2017 and enrolled in a program in bioinformatics, a scientific field that uses computers and software to analyze biological data, she realized that her career had always been I imagined it to be in the fields of mathematics, medicine, or biology. But after the first AI boom in the late 2010s, she found an interesting opportunity in an area she hadn't considered before: agriculture. Kogan (pictured above, center) told TechCrunch that when he was approached by a friend of a friend, a tomato grower, who was looking for someone to understand AI and…

At CES 2025, German Bionic unveiled Apogee Ultra, a new robotic exoskeleton that the company claims is “the world's strongest.” What did the system do to earn such a prestigious title? It provides dynamic lift assist of up to 80 pounds. This means that a 70-pound payload feels like 9 to 11 pounds of strain on the lifter's lower back. In addition to lift assistance, Apogee Ultra also provides walking assistance, making a 10-mile trip feel like 8 miles. The company is targeting industries such as baggage handling and construction, as well as nursing care, which require workers to get…

At CES 2025, German Bionic unveiled Apogee Ultra, a new robotic exoskeleton that the company claims is “the world's strongest.” What did the system do to earn such a prestigious title? It provides dynamic lift assist of up to 80 pounds. This means that a 70 pound payload will feel like 9 to 11 pounds to the lifter's hips. In addition to lift assistance, Apogee Ultra also provides walking assistance, making a 10-mile trip feel like 8 miles. The company is targeting industries such as baggage handling and construction, as well as nursing care, which require workers to get up…

Nvidia Founder and CEO Jensen Huang gave a wide-ranging talk at CES 2025, detailing everything from Nvidia's next set of GPUs, plans to embrace the next era of robotics and automotive innovation, and the launch of its own AI world model. I explained. And before ending his keynote, Huang had one more thing to reveal about Project Digits. Nvidia has scaled down its Grace Blackwell hardware platform to fit into consumer devices, making research and data science-oriented chips more accessible to students and researchers. You'll still have to pay $3,000 for these machines, but they'll be available from “top partners”…

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations agency that defines international operational standards for civil aviation, confirmed it was investigating the cybersecurity incident. In a statement issued on Monday, ICAO said it is “actively investigating reports of possible information security incidents allegedly linked to threat actors known to have targeted international organizations.” . This follows a January 5 post on a popular hacking forum in which an individual claimed to have accessed 42,000 ICAO documents containing personal information. A sample of the allegedly stolen data posted on the forum, seen by TechCrunch, included names, dates of birth, home…

Kombucha, a fermented tea that has been around for thousands of years and was once considered a niche health drink, is currently experiencing a surge in popularity as more consumers seek out gut-friendly drinks. However, this carbonated drink isn't necessarily cheap, and home-brewing can be tedious, very complicated, and time-consuming. Additionally, the necessary supplies take up a considerable amount of space, making homebrewing impractical for many people. At CES 2025, San Francisco-based hardware startup Kombu announced a home kombucha brewer that aims to combine all the essential steps of the DIY brewing process while reducing the challenges of typical setup.…