Author: Advanced AI Editor

Google is the latest AI service provider to court users in higher education. Starting today, college students in the US can sign up for Google’s One AI Premium plan for free, shirking the usual $20 monthly subscription fee until June 30th, 2026.Applicants will need to sign up before the deal expires on June 30th, 2025 according to Google spokesperson Alex Joseph, and will need a valid .edu email address for verification. He told The Verge that students will be emailed toward the end of their plan, “so you will have plenty of time to cancel.”The plan includes 2TB of cloud…

Researchers from Stanford University early today published the latest edition of their annual AI Index Report, detailing the growing influence of artificial intelligence technologies on our society and the global economy. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, known as Stanford HAI, has been publishing its annual reports on the state of the AI industry since 2017. This year’s edition, the eighth, is the “most comprehensive” report to date, spanning more than 430 pages. The authors say it’s arriving at a critical juncture as the influence of AI across society rapidly accelerates with the emergence of increasingly capable and sophisticated…

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly set a goal for the company to reach 500 million Gemini users before the end of 2025. Rolling out new models may help the company get there, but you know what else helps? Giving away premium features for free. Google has announced today that it’s giving all US college students free access to Gemini Advanced, and not just for a month or two—the offer is good for a full year of service. With Gemini Advanced, you get access to the more capable Pro models, as well as unlimited use of the Deep Research tool…

Unpacking Q4 Earnings: IBM (NYSE:IBM) In The Context Of Other IT Services & Consulting Stocks The end of an earnings season can be a great time to discover new stocks and assess how companies are handling the current business environment. Let’s take a look at how IBM (NYSE:IBM) and the rest of the it services & consulting stocks fared in Q4. IT Services & Consulting companies stand to benefit from increasing enterprise demand for digital transformation, AI-driven automation, and cybersecurity resilience. Many enterprises can’t attack these topics alone and need IT services and consulting on everything from technical advice to…

An MIT student has sued the federal government over its abrupt termination of her international student record in a federal database managed by the Department of Homeland Security.The student, an MIT senior set to graduate in May, learned her record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, was abruptly deleted in early April, putting her at risk of detainment by immigration enforcement agents.Several dozen international students in Massachusetts, and over a thousand nationwide, had their visas revoked and SEVIS records expunged by the federal government in recent days. The reason behind the moves remain unclear, and federal…

AsianFin — The global venture capital (VC) transaction volumes plunged in the first quarter of 2025, according to global research institutions Crunchbase and PitchBook-NVCA.Despite a decline in overall deal volume, artificial intelligence (AI) investments have experienced the most robust quarter in the first quarter of 2025 since mid-2022.Global VC transactions in Q1 2025 reached 7,551 deals, a 32% year-over-year decline, as per PitchBook. However, the total transaction value surged to $126.3 billion, representing a 53.46% increase compared to the same period in 2024.AI and machine learning led the charge, with 2,101 transactions worth $73.1 billion, making up 57.87% of the…

The Global Payments Company logo seen displayed on a smartphone.Igor Golovniov | LightRocket | Getty ImagesGlobal Payments shares tumbled 17% on Thursday after the company said it’s buying Worldpay for more than $24 billion while simultaneously selling its Issuer Solutions business to Fidelity National Information Services. The company said that in acquiring Worldpay, which FIS had purchased in 2019 before later selling a majority stake, it’s expanding its reach and will be able to serve over 6 million customers across more than 175 countries, enabling $3.7 trillion in annual payment volume. In selling its Issuer Solutions unit to FIS for…

US tech giants continue to post double-digit revenue growth. Here’s how big tech is positioning itself for the future through AI investments, M&A, humanoid robotics development, and more. Big tech companies — Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia — earned nearly $2T in aggregate revenue in 2024, up 15% from 2023.  They already dwarf the private tech sector — surpassing the combined value of all 1,200+ unicorns by a factor of 3 — and after a period of layoffs, they’re back to hiring, with 2024 headcount growing an average of 7% YoY. Now, they’re betting big on AI…

Eleven new companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in March, adding around $16 billion in value to the board. Another $200 billion in value was added via up rounds for companies already on the board, and March was a strong exit month for unicorn companies. Let’s dive in. Exits In total, seven companies — collectively valued at around $48 billion as private companies — left the board last month via IPOs or M&A deals. They include New Jersey-based CoreWeave, an AI datacenter provider that was last valued at $23 billion as a private company in 2024. It went public at around…

Spexi Geospatial is launching the LayerDrone Foundation and its decentralized network aimed at encouraging a community of amateur drone pilots to capture ultra-high resolution Earth imagery. Launched a year ago, Spexi said its reward-driven pilots have captured over 10 million images across 2.3 million acres of Earth, and now it’s going to further incentivize them through the LayerDrone Network, a decentralized network that can enable next-generation spatial AI applications ranging from disaster response to autonomous vehicle training. “We set out to create a new drone platform to socialize drone pilots,” said Bill Lakeland, CEO of Spexi, in an interview with…