XLA, short for Accelerated Linear Algebra, is a compiler designed to optimize tensor computations used by machine learning frameworks. It can combine operations, remove redundant work, plan memory use, and generate efficient code for CPUs, GPUs, and specialized accelerators. These transformations may reduce training time, inference latency, and memory overhead without changing the model’s intended mathematics. Benefits vary by workload, shapes, framework integration, and hardware, and compilation itself adds time that may not help short-lived jobs. Numerical behavior can also differ slightly because operations are reordered or fused. Teams benchmark complete applications, verify accuracy, and retain fallback paths when an optimization is unsupported or unstable.
OpenAI has invested in Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup founded by CEO Sam Altman, as part of a $250 million seed round valuing the company at $850 million.
Beyond major product launches, CES 2026 is highlighting a wave of unconventional AI-powered devices, from holographic assistants to robotic pets and smart kitchen tools. The gadgets reflect how artificial intelligence is moving into niche consumer applications.
Google released a major upgrade to its Gemini Deep Research agent, giving developers access to advanced autonomous research capabilities through the Interactions API. The company also introduced DeepSearchQA, a benchmark for evaluating multi-step web research agents.
Google introduced the Titans architecture and the MIRAS framework to enable AI models to handle massive contexts and update their internal memory while running, improving performance in long-sequence tasks.
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever says the era of scaling compute and data as the main driver of AI progress is ending, arguing that meaningful advances now depend on true scientific breakthroughs and solving AI’s poor generalization.
Voice AI startup Wispr has secured another $25M in funding as its Flow dictation app surges in enterprise adoption and user retention, bringing total capital raised to $81M.
Google has released Gemini 3, its most powerful AI model yet, offering advanced multimodal reasoning, coding capabilities, and agentic planning tools across multiple platforms.
OpenAI has announced a strategic partnership with Broadcom to design and deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators, expanding its hardware ecosystem beyond Nvidia and AMD.
Google Cloud and Figma have launched an expanded partnership to embed Google’s generative AI models – including Gemini 2.5 Flash and Imagen 4 – directly into Figma’s design tools, reducing latency and accelerating creative workflows.