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RFK Jr. has big plans for your food. Here are the facts.
May 2, 2025
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Washington Post
20 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Meta invests $14.3B in AI firm Scale and recruits its CEO for 'superintelligence' team
Meta is making a $14.3 billion investment in artificial intelligence company Scale and recruiting its CEO Alexandr Wang to join a team developing 'superintelligence' at the tech giant. The deal announced Thursday reflects a push by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to revive AI efforts at the parent company of Facebook and Instagram as it faces tough competition from rivals such as Google and OpenAI. Meta announced what it called a 'strategic partnership and investment' with Scale late Thursday. Scale said the $14.3 billion investment puts its market value at over $29 billion. Scale said it will remain an independent company but the agreement will 'substantially expand Scale and Meta's commercial relationship.' Meta will hold a 49% stake in the startup. Wang, though leaving for Meta with a small group of other Scale employees, will remain on Scale's board of directors. Replacing him is a new interim Scale CEO Jason Droege, who was previously the company's chief strategy officer and had past executive roles at Uber Eats and Axon. Zuckerberg's increasing focus on the abstract idea of 'superintelligence' — which rival companies call artificial general intelligence, or AGI — is the latest pivot for a tech leader who in 2021 went all-in on the idea of the metaverse, changing the company's name and investing billions into advancing virtual reality and related technology. It won't be the first time since ChatGPT's 2022 debut sparked an AI arms race that a big tech company has gobbled up talent and products at innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them. Microsoft hired key staff from startup Inflection AI, including co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, who now runs Microsoft's AI division . Google pulled in the leaders of AI chatbot company while Amazon made a deal with San Francisco-based Adept that sent its CEO and key employees to the e-commerce giant. Amazon also got a license to Adept's AI systems and datasets. Wang was a 19-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he and co-founder Lucy Guo started Scale in 2016. They won influential backing that summer from the startup incubator Y Combinator, which was led at the time by Sam Altman, now the CEO of OpenAI. Wang dropped out of MIT, following a trajectory similar to that of Zuckerberg, who quit Harvard University to start Facebook more than a decade earlier. Scale's pitch was to supply the human labor needed to improve AI systems, hiring workers to draw boxes around a pedestrian or a dog in a street photo so that self-driving cars could better predict what's in front of them. General Motors and Toyota have been among Scale's customers. What Scale offered to AI developers was a more tailored version of Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which had long been a go-to service for matching freelance workers with temporary online jobs. More recently, the growing commercialization of AI large language models — the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama — brought a new market for Scale's annotation teams. The company claims to service 'every leading large language model,' including from Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft, by helping to fine tune their training data and test their performance. It's not clear what the Meta deal will mean for Scale's other customers. Wang has also sought to build close relationships with the U.S. government, winning military contracts to supply AI tools to the Pentagon and attending President Donald Trump's inauguration. The head of Trump's science and technology office, Michael Kratsios, was an executive at Scale for the four years between Trump's first and second terms. Meta has also begun providing AI services to the federal government. Meta has taken a different approach to AI than many of its rivals, releasing its flagship Llama system for free as an open-source product that enables people to use and modify some of its key components. Meta says more than a billion people use its AI products each month, but it's also widely seen as lagging behind competitors such as OpenAI and Google in encouraging consumer use of large language models, also known as LLMs. It hasn't yet released its purportedly most advanced model, Llama 4 Behemoth, despite previewing it in April as 'one of the smartest LLMs in the world and our most powerful yet.' Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, who in 2019 was a winner of computer science's top prize for his pioneering AI work, has expressed skepticism about the tech industry's current focus on large language models. 'How do we build AI systems that understand the physical world, that have persistent memory, that can reason and can plan?' LeCun asked at a French tech conference last year. These are all characteristics of intelligent behavior that large language models 'basically cannot do, or they can only do them in a very superficial, approximate way,' LeCun said. Instead, he emphasized Meta's interest in 'tracing a path towards human-level AI systems, or perhaps even superhuman.' When he returned to France's annual VivaTech conference again on Wednesday, LeCun dodged a question about the pending Scale deal but said his AI research team's plan has 'always been to reach human intelligence and go beyond it.' 'It's just that now we have a clearer vision for how to accomplish this,' he said. LeCun co-founded Meta's AI research division more than a decade ago with Rob Fergus, a fellow professor at New York University. Fergus later left for Google but returned to Meta last month after a 5-year absence to run the research lab, replacing longtime director Joelle Pineau . Fergus wrote on LinkedIn last month that Meta's commitment to long-term AI research 'remains unwavering' and described the work as 'building human-level experiences that transform the way we interact with technology.'
Business Wire
27 minutes ago
- Business Wire
xFusion Unveils Breakthrough High-Performance Computing Innovations at ISC 2025
HAMBURG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- xFusion International Pte. Ltd (xFusion) showcased its latest advancements in high-performance computing (HPC) and sustainable intelligent computing solutions at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) 2025, held from June 10 to 13 in Hamburg, Germany. As a global leader in HPC and computing infrastructure, xFusion highlighted its commitment to empowering industries and institutions with cutting-edge technologies that accelerate innovation and digital transformation. Revolutionizing Computing with Innovative Solutions At the Vendor Roadmap Session on June 12, Arthur Wang, Director of xFusion Computing Solution, delivered a compelling keynote titled "Innovative Computing with xFusion." Arthur emphasized the increasing demand for computing power in the age of AI and intelligent agents, as well as xFusion's role in addressing these challenges. "The rise of intelligent agents has triggered an explosive demand for computing power. At xFusion, we are tackling this challenge head-on by pioneering advancements in HPC and intelligent computing technologies. From our FusionServer V8 series to our FusionPoD liquid-cooled cabinets, we are providing sustainable, efficient, and high-performance solutions to empower industries and institutions globally," said Arthur Wang. Pioneering Green and Sustainable Data Centers At exhibition booth, xFusion is demonstrating the deep integration of its computing technology with industry applications, drawing significant attention from attendees. To support the green and sustainable development of its customers' businesses, xFusion is leading the way with its FusionPoD rack-scale server. Designed for efficiency and energy savings, this system features an open architecture compatible with diverse computing power. Key features include: High-Density: Supports up to 144 CPUs per cabinet. Intelligent O&M: A tri-bus design for power, network, and liquid enables blind mating, improving O&M efficiency and supporting future robotic, unmanned operations. 100% Liquid Cooling: A native cold-plate liquid-cooling design, paired with a passive water-cooled rear door, achieves a pPUE as low as 1.06 and has earned the world's first TÜV SÜD certification for this technology. Recently, xFusion partnered with Global Switch to rapidly deploy a liquid-cooled node at its Hong Kong data center, meeting stringent low-carbon requirements while delivering significant cost and efficiency benefits to the customer. Accelerating HPC Application and Digital Transformation The FusionOne HPC solution provides a viable path for industries such as scientific research and manufacturing simulation. Through deep hardware-software integration, the solution has been successfully deployed at institutions like the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC), Istanbul Technical University, and Technische Universität Ilmenau to meet their growing research and educational demands. To further accelerate enterprise digital transformation, xFusion offers: FusionOne DFS (Distributed File System): A high-performance storage solution delivers unparalleled throughput, scalability, and efficiency for modern workloads. With up to 220GB/s read bandwidth, 125GB/s write bandwidth, and 5,700K IOPS, it handles massive workloads effortlessly. FusionOne DFS achieves 94.1% EC utilization, offering flexibility and reliability for the AI and HPC era. FusionOne AI: A solution accelerates AI application deployment by combining computing, model, and application into a seamless, one-stop platform. Featuring open integration with third-party AI tools like LLaMA and Hugging Face, it simplifies GenAI deployment. Achieve 35% higher computing utilization with innovative GPU virtualization, including 1% GPU slicing for precise resource allocation. Built for scalability, FusionOne AI supports diverse workloads, from edge to cluster environments, ensuring smooth evolution and compatibility with mainstream CPUs and GPUs. Driving the Era of Intelligent Computing As the era of intelligent agents dawns, AI is fundamentally reshaping computing infrastructure. xFusion is seizing this opportunity to innovate on foundational technologies, collaborate with global partners, and accelerate the application of high-performance computing across all industries, ensuring that intelligent computing and digital energy can better serve everyone. "At xFusion, we believe in combining cutting-edge technology with sustainability to create a smarter, more efficient future. Our three consecutive year participation at ISC 2025 underscores our commitment to driving the evolution of HPC and AI. In the future, xFusion will continue to innovate with partners through our xLAB, reshaping infrastructure to help enterprises in their digital and intelligent transformation and unlock the true value of computing," said Arthur Wang. About xFusion xFusion International Pte. Ltd. is a leading global provider of computing infrastructure and services. Driven by the vision "Let Computing Serve You Better," xFusion focuses on creating value for its customers and partners, accelerating digital transformation across a wide range of industries. Headquartered in Singapore, xFusion has a substantial global presence, including 9 research centers, 7 regional offices, and 6 Global Technical Assistance Centers (GTACs). xFusion's commitment to providing innovative computing solutions has enabled it to serve over 10,000 customers in more than 100 countries and regions, including the telecom, finance, internet, transportation, and energy sectors.
CBS News
27 minutes ago
- CBS News
Chicago area marshmallow maker exchanges kitchen space for opportunities for people with disabilities
This is a story about marshmallows, but a fluff piece it is not. It is the story about a simple idea cooked up in a Chicago area kitchen, which became a recipe not only for business success, but for inclusion for people with disabilities. Lissa Levy of Skokie is a food stylist, presenting food for video, photography, and marketing. She was also recently elected as a Skokie village trustee. And some years back, Levy started up a side hustle in the form of Elle's Marshmallows — which makes gourmet artisan marshmallows inspired by a variety of culinary traditions. The array of tantalizing flavors include honey rosemary, Irish cream, coconut, spiked hazelnut, and Hawaiian coffee — among many others. Her spiked infusions steadily grew until business reached a boiling point. "I had a whole section of my basement that was all dedicated to marshmallow equipment storage," said Levy. "So every time I cooked, I'd be running equipment up and down the stairs." Meanwhile, a local organization had some needs of its own. The Skokie nonprofit Shore Community Services is committed to inclusive living for people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities — and serves 20 communities, including Skokie, Evanston, Morton Grove, and Chicago's North Side. Shore sometimes has a tough time finding employment for its clients. "It's gotten easier in that I think more people are aware of people with disabilities," said Shore vocational services chief Anni Braverman. "Sometimes it's harder, because more and more jobs want people to be able to do everything." Someone at Shore whipped up a solution about six months ago — the organization would offer a food entrepreneur free use of its kitchen. In exchange, the small business owner would hire Shore clients. Levy was that entrepreneur, and Elle's Marshmallows was that small business. Janie Walcoff, a Shore client, gets $15 an hour to package up Elle's Marshmallows. When asked what her favorite part about the job was, Walcoff said, "Money." Walcoff's beauty work is seen by more customers than ever before. "This is actually my first year selling at Skokie Farmers' Market," Levy said. Levy said expanding had been difficult, if not impossible, for Elle's Marshmallows — because food safety rules limited what she could make and sell from her home. The much bigger space at Shore where Levy and Walcoff now work together is a commercial-grade kitchen. That designation matters. "It allows me to sell to other businesses," Levy said. "It allows me to sell across state lines." Sales have easily quadrupled, Levy said. "I really couldn't have asked for a better situation," she said. Neither could Walcoff. She says the difference between her last job bagging groceries and her current one with Elle's Marshmallows is night and day. They both get a lot out of the moments they share together, in what amounts to a sweet win-win scenario. "It's just joyful!" Levy said. Shore is looking for more small business owners to trade jobs for kitchen space. The nonprofit is also busy renovating a job training center in Morton Grove that helps people with disabilities prepare for employment.
