Author: GT

Open-source AI development took centre stage at Huawei Connect 2025 last week, with Huawei laying out implementation timelines and the technical specifics around making its entire AI software stack publicly available by year-end.The announcements came with context that matters to developers: frank acknowledgement of past friction, specific commitments about what components will be released, and details about how the software will integrate with existing workflows and operating systems.Developer friction acknowledgedEric Xu, Huawei’s Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chairman, opened his keynote with unusual candour about challenges developers have faced with Ascend infrastructure. Referencing the impact of DeepSeek-R1’s release earlier this year,…

Polars, the Amsterdam-based company behind the popular open source project of the same name, has raised €18 million (about $21 million) in a Series A round led by Accel, with participation from Bain Capital Partners and angel investors. But while raising this kind of money is the dream of many developers, its creator Ritchie Vink didn’t set out to do so. It all started as a pet project during COVID. Frustrated with the limitations of Pandas, a tool for organizing and working with data tables, Vink decided to build a better query engine in Rust. Fast-forward five years, and Polars…

Adopting AI at scale can be difficult. Enterprises around the world are discovering the pace of AI deployment is frustratingly slow as they face implementation, integration, and customisation challenges. Generative AI is undoubtedly powerful, but it can be complex, particularly for businesses starting from scratch.To help organisations overcome the hurdles associated with AI adoption, Reply has introduced ‘Prebuilt’ AI apps designed to reduce the time, technical expertise, and risk required to deploy AI solutions.Prebuilt AI Apps aim to streamline a business’s access to information, boost operational efficiency via smart conversational interfaces and automated workflows, and improve the quality of decision-making.…

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle. The news was first reported by Wired, which cited an email sent to Sunshine’s shareholders. Dazzle is setting out to build an AI personal assistant, the report cited anonymous sources as saying, and added that all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company. Almost all of Sunshine’s investors, who include Norwest Venture Partners, Felicis Partners, and SV Angel, have signed off on the deal, Wired cited the sources as saying. Originally…

The Disrupt Stage, only at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is where tech’s biggest bets get made — live and unfiltered. It’s where startup dreams turn into $100,000 wins in Startup Battlefield, and where the industry’s power players reveal what’s next.  This year, we’re bringing Alphabet’s moonshot chief Astro Teller, Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone, and Khosla Ventures’ Vinod Khosla (never one to mince words) to the stage. Sequoia’s Roelof Botha will dig into the future of venture, buzzy Slate Auto is dropping its first fully customizable electric truck, and Phia’s headline-making founders, including Phoebe Gates, are taking us inside one of the hottest new commerce startups on the scene. If you want the headlines before they hit the wire, you’ll find them here.   And stay tuned, we’re not done yet. The final reveal of what’s to come on the Disrupt…

The U.K. government has confirmed it will guarantee a commercial bank loan of £1.5 billion ($2 billion) for car-making giant Jaguar Land Rover after a hack forced the company to shut down its production lines and left downstream suppliers at risk of bankruptcy. In a statement on Sunday, U.K. ministers said that the government-backed loan will “bolster JLR’s cash reserves so it can support its supply chain which has been greatly impacted by the shutdown.”  JLR will have five years to pay back the loan.  Companies across the U.K. that supply parts and products to JLR, many of which are…

Making democracy work isn’t easy, as recent events have made clear. Some critics would argue that technology is making it worse. But one startup is hoping that AI could help bridge some differences instead of widen them. “I had an a-ha moment one day when I realized people are asking AI to explain something like they’re five years old,” Tomy Lorsch, co-founder and CEO of ComplexChaos, told TechCrunch. “What if we use it as a facilitator to help people understand each other and find common ground?” He and co-founder Maya Ben Dror are developing tools to help people arrive at…

You read that right. From today through October 3, we’re offering an exclusive deal just for founders and investors at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Founder Bundle Passes: Groups of 4–9 founders save 15%. Investor Bundle Passes: Groups of 4–9 investors save 20% (up from 15%). Round up your founder community or investor network, spread the news on all channels, and secure your bundle passes now — these group savings are only available for a limited time. Register your group before Friday, October 3, at 11:59 p.m. PT. What to expect at Disrupt 2025 Image Credits:TechCrunch Experience three full days at San…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, brings founders, investors, and innovators together to explore the future of technology. One fireside chat you won’t want to miss is with Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood and founder and CEO of Aetherflux, a U.S. aerospace company delivering energy to Earth through space solar power. He’ll sit front and center on the Space Stage to dive into his experience transforming sectors and the challenges and opportunities along the way. Register here to save up to $444 on your ticket and to join one of the leaders in the startup…

The social network Bluesky will begin verifying users’ ages in the state of Ohio to comply with new regulations, starting on Monday, September 29. The company — which offers an open and decentralized competitor to X and Threads — says it will enable the Kids Web Services’ (KWS) age verification solution in the state. This is the same solution that Bluesky is already using in South Dakota and Wyoming to comply with similar laws. Bluesky announced the move in Ohio on Sunday via its Bluesky Safety account, and in an update to last month’s blog post about the matter. The…