Dutch government commits 70 million euros for AI factory
AMSTERDAM :The Dutch government on Friday pledged 70 million euros ($82.03 million) for the construction of an AI factory in the northern city of Groningen.
The government has also applied for European Union co-financing of another 70 million euros for the plant, it said in a statement, adding to the 60 million the Groningen regional administration plans to contribute.
($1 = 0.8533 euros)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
China's humanoid robots generate more football excitement than their human counterparts
BEIJING: While China's men's football team hasn't generated much excitement in recent years, humanoid robot teams have won over fans in Beijing based more on the AI technology involved than any athletic prowess shown. Four teams of humanoid robots faced off in fully autonomous 3-on-3 football matches powered entirely by artificial intelligence on Saturday (Jun 28) night in China's capital in what was touted as a first in China and a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, set to take place in Beijing. According to the organisers, a key aspect of the match was that all the participating robots operated fully autonomously using AI-driven strategies without any human intervention or supervision. Equipped with advanced visual sensors, the robots were able to identify the ball and navigate the field with agility They were also designed to stand up on their own after falling. However, during the match several still had to be carried off the field on stretchers by staff, adding to the realism of the experience. China is stepping up efforts to develop AI-powered humanoid robots, using sports competitions like marathons, boxing, and football as a real-world proving ground. Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, the company that supplied the robot players, said sports competitions offer the ideal testing ground for humanoid robots, helping to accelerate the development of both algorithms and integrated hardware-software systems. He also emphasised safety as a core concern in the application of humanoid robots. 'In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe,' Cheng said. 'For example, a robot and a human could play a match where winning doesn't matter, but real offensive and defensive interactions take place. That would help audiences build trust and understand that robots are safe.' Booster Robotics provided the hardware for all four university teams, while each school's research team developed and embedded their own algorithms for perception, decision-making, player formations, and passing strategies—including variables such as speed, force, and direction, according to Cheng. In the final match, Tsinghua University's THU Robotics defeated the China Agricultural University's Mountain Sea team with a score of 5–3 to win the championship. Mr Wu, a supporter of Tsinghua, celebrated their victory while also praising the competition. 'They (THU) did really well,' he said. 'But the Mountain Sea team (of Agricultural University) was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises.'
Straits Times
4 hours ago
- Straits Times
AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators
For now, deceptive behaviours only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models. PHOTO: REUTERS AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators NEW YORK - The world's most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviours - lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI's o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: more than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to deploy increasingly powerful models continues at breakneck speed. This deceptive behaviour appears linked to the emergence of 'reasoning' models - AI systems that work through problems step-by-step rather than generating instant responses. According to Professor Simon Goldstein, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, these newer models are particularly prone to such troubling outbursts. 'O1 was the first large model where we saw this kind of behaviour,' explained Mr Marius Hobbhahn, head of Apollo Research, which specializes in testing major AI systems. These models sometimes simulate 'alignment' - appearing to follow instructions while secretly pursuing different objectives. 'Strategic kind of deception' For now, this deceptive behaviour only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models with extreme scenarios. But as Mr Michael Chen from evaluation organization METR warned, 'It's an open question whether future, more capable models will have a tendency towards honesty or deception.' The concerning behaviour goes far beyond typical AI 'hallucinations' or simple mistakes. Mr Hobbhahn insisted that despite constant pressure-testing by users, 'what we're observing is a real phenomenon. We're not making anything up'. Users report that models are 'lying to them and making up evidence', according to Apollo Research's co-founder. 'This is not just hallucinations. There's a very strategic kind of deception.' The challenge is compounded by limited research resources. While companies like Anthropic and OpenAI do engage external firms like Apollo to study their systems, researchers say more transparency is needed. As Mr Chen noted, greater access 'for AI safety research would enable better understanding and mitigation of deception'. Another handicap: the research world and non-profits 'have orders of magnitude less compute resources than AI companies. This is very limiting,' noted Mr Mantas Mazeika from the Centre for AI Safety (CAIS). No rules Current regulations are not designed for these new problems. The European Union's AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving. In the United States, the Trump administration shows little interest in urgent AI regulation, and Congress may even prohibit states from creating their own AI rules. Mr Goldstein believes the issue will become more prominent as AI agents - autonomous tools capable of performing complex human tasks - become widespread. 'I don't think there's much awareness yet,' he said. All this is taking place in a context of fierce competition. Even companies that position themselves as safety-focused, like Amazon-backed Anthropic, are 'constantly trying to beat OpenAI and release the newest model,' said Mr Goldstein. This breakneck pace leaves little time for thorough safety testing and corrections. 'Right now, capabilities are moving faster than understanding and safety,' Mr Hobbhahn acknowledged, 'but we're still in a position where we could turn it around'. Researchers are exploring various approaches to address these challenges. Some advocate for 'interpretability' - an emerging field focused on understanding how AI models work internally, though experts like CAIS director Dan Hendrycks remain skeptical of this approach. Market forces may also provide some pressure for solutions. As Mr Mazeika pointed out, AI's deceptive behaviour 'could hinder adoption if it's very prevalent, which creates a strong incentive for companies to solve it'. Mr Goldstein suggested more radical approaches, including using the courts to hold AI companies accountable through lawsuits when their systems cause harm. He even proposed 'holding AI agents legally responsible' for accidents or crimes - a concept that would fundamentally change how we think about AI accountability. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
CNA
10 hours ago
- CNA
Commentary: China's AI dragons risk choking each other
TOKYO: It's a story that has played out many times in the history of China's tech sector. Notoriously fierce competition means that whenever a new craze comes along, scores of rivals emerge ready to pounce. Firms are then locked in a race to the bottom when it comes to pricing. The food delivery wars forced out smaller players over the years and led bubble tea – another consumer fad fallen prey – to be sold this month for as little as 1.68 yuan (less than US$0.25). A similar cutthroat market has left behind a trail of zombie cars in the electric vehicle sector. Now the same forces are in full swing in the booming artificial intelligence industry. The stakes could not be higher. The government is betting that the technology will uplift swaths of the economy. Eager to not be left behind, AI startups, including the so-called Little Dragons, are awash with funding, and even the Big Tech companies like Alibaba are going all-in. INTENSE COMPETITION For now, AI firms in China are focused on the tech industry's classic playbook: scaling up userbases and racing for market share. But a key difference this time around is that nobody has actually cracked the key to getting consumers to pay. DeepSeek and open-sourcing breakthroughs have made some headway in cutting down on costs, but eventually something will have to give. It has all undoubtedly spurred a vibrant innovation ecosystem and the widespread adoption of AI applications. But it has also forced players to slash prices and even offer services for free, making the industry's path to monetisation uncertain. The intense competition means the biggest risk for Chinese AI firms may not be Washington's chip curbs or other external factors, but each other. It represents a stark contrast to the dominance of a few large players in Silicon Valley. For example, China's top 10 global AI chatbots generated just US$1 million in revenue from Apple's iOS app store in the last 12 months ending in May, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts wrote in a note last week. Most of this came from Baidu's Ernie Bot, which stopped charging consumers in March. By contrast, OpenAI's ChatGPT bot alone garnered iOS revenue of $669 million in the same period. The dilemma has been simmering for a while. At a tech conference last year, Baidu CEO Robin Li criticised the abundance of AI models in China, complaining of a 'significant waste of resources, particularly computing power'. At the same conference, the CEO of MiniMax, one of the Little Dragons, predicted a major consolidation on the horizon. NOBODY WILLING TO BACK OUT OF THE RAT RACE An industry concentration would help ameliorate some of the pressures. But instead, the release of DeepSeek's market-moving reasoning model earlier this year has only spurred fresh pandemonium. Nobody seems willing to back out of the rat race anytime soon. There were more than 3,700 registered generative AI tools operating in China, according to one analysis of government registration data as of April, and cyberspace administrators were approving roughly 250 to 300 new products per month. Not all will survive. Some firms may be tempted to seek growth abroad. But geopolitical realities may get in the way of making it in overseas markets, where consumers have shown more willingness to pay for AI services. Already, countries from Australia to Italy are restricting the use of DeepSeek or banning it on government devices. There was brief hope that the rise of AI agents would offer a way to differentiate a company's products, but even this has already become a crowded field. This puts the Little Dragons at higher risk. Tech giants like Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent have more resources to play the long game, especially in a sector marked by high costs for chips and computing resources. Official support and insatiable hype remains a strong propellant of China's AI sector. A former top official predicted earlier this week that the nation is on the cusp of generating more than 100 DeepSeek-like breakthroughs. But in the long run, it seems just as likely to produce at least a hundred zombie chatbots or AI agents.
