logo
DoD taps Musk's xAI, OpenAI, Google for national security AI

DoD taps Musk's xAI, OpenAI, Google for national security AI

Canada News.Net16-07-2025
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded major AI contracts to leading American firms, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI, as part of an effort to deepen its use of advanced artificial intelligence tools across defense operations.
The contracts, each with a ceiling of US$200 million, aim to develop agentic AI workflows to address critical national security challenges, according to the Department's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office.
"Establishing these partnerships will broaden DoD use of and experience in frontier AI capabilities and increase the ability of these companies to understand and address critical national security needs," the office said.
OpenAI was previously named as one of the first recipients in June. At the time, the Pentagon said the maker of ChatGPT would "develop prototype frontier AI capabilities" that could support both warfighting and enterprise domains.
These efforts align with a broader government strategy to foster a competitive and secure U.S. AI ecosystem. In April, the White House's Office of Management and Budget released new guidance directing federal agencies to ensure that the public benefits from a vibrant domestic AI market.
The contracts mark a significant expansion in federal engagement with cutting-edge AI firms, especially as geopolitical tensions and evolving battlefield technologies increase the demand for real-time, autonomous decision-making tools.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

5 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Long Term
5 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Long Term

Globe and Mail

time2 hours ago

  • Globe and Mail

5 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Long Term

Key Points Alphabet's AI strengths are being overlooked by the market. Amazon is using AI behind the scenes to become more efficient and drive growth. Meta Platforms and Pinterest are both using AI to drive advertising revenue growth. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › The artificial intelligence (AI) boom continues to drive growth and transform industries, but it's not just infrastructure players that are benefiting. Some of the best long-term opportunities are with companies deploying AI behind the scenes. Let's look at five brilliant AI-related growth stocks to buy and hold for the long haul. 1. Alphabet Investors continue to underestimate Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), as they worry about AI disrupting its search business. But that view ignores what Google, its major component, actually does. This is a company built around content discovery -- not just traditional search -- and it's integrating AI into tools billions of people already use. And no other company is better at monetizing that content discovery through advertising than Alphabet. Its search data and digital ad network just cannot be matched. The Chrome browser and Android operating system give it unmatched distribution; Chrome is the default search engine on the majority of devices, giving it a huge built-in advantage. And a recent Oppenheimer survey revealed that users found Google Search's new AI Mode more helpful than not only traditional search but also ChatGPT. YouTube remains the world's largest ad-supported streaming platform. Google Cloud, Alphabet's cloud computing unit, is growing fast, helping companies build, train, and run AI models. Google is also becoming a chip leader. Its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are helping to power AI development, while its Willow quantum computing chip may be a future growth driver. And Alphabet subsidiary Waymo is expanding its robotaxi footprint. Taken altogether, Alphabet is one of the most innovative companies in the world, and one you want to own. 2. Amazon Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is using AI to become even more dominant. While it's best known for e-commerce and cloud computing, the company's behind-the-scenes work is where the real long-term value is being built. On the logistics and warehouse side, Amazon is using AI to determine where to store inventory, create more efficient delivery routes, and even navigate hard-to-find drop-off points. Its robotics division just passed 1 million deployed units, and some of its AI-powered robots can detect damaged products or even repair themselves. Amazon also created a new AI model called DeepFleet that coordinates its entire robot fleet to help boost throughput. The company's largest and fastest-growing business is Amazon Web Services (AWS). It helps customers build AI models and apps with tools like Bedrock and SageMaker, and then has them run those programs on its infrastructure. It's also developed custom AI chips that give it a cost advantage, and continues to invest in AI infrastructure to meet rising demand. Overall, Amazon is well positioned for an increasingly AI-focused world. 3. Meta Platforms Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) owns one of the world's most valuable digital advertising businesses, and AI is making it better. Its Llama models are driving more engagement across Facebook and Instagram, boosting user time spent on the apps. That gives Meta more ad inventory to sell. It's also using AI to help advertisers create better campaigns and target potential customers, which is increasing demand and leading to higher ad prices. But Meta's growth story is just getting started. The company is only now beginning to serve ads on WhatsApp, which has over 3 billion users. It's also rolling out ads on Threads, its new social platform, which had 350 million users at the end of the first quarter. With two massive platforms still early in their monetization cycles and AI continuing to drive performance, Meta looks like a long-term winner in the AI-powered digital economy. But the company is not stopping there. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is spending aggressively to poach top AI talent. This is all part of an effort to -- as Zuckerberg says -- "deliver personal superintelligence to everyone in the world." If it's successful, Meta could become the top AI stock to own. 4. Pinterest Meta isn't the only social media company using AI to drive growth. Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) has been using AI to evolve into a more shoppable and advertiser-friendly platform. The company has built a multimodal model that understands both images and text, allowing for better personalization and powering new features like visual search. Users can now click on items within images and shop for similar products directly, making Pinterest far more transactional and more attractive to both users and advertisers. It's also working to simplify advertising on its platform. Performance+, its new AI-powered ad product, automates everything from campaign creation to targeting and bidding. That makes the platform easier to use for advertisers and helps them save time and drive better outcomes. Pinterest has a global user base that has historically been undermonetized, especially compared to those of its peers. But with AI improving engagement, search, and ad performance, the company has a big opportunity to start to close that gap. If it can continue executing on its vision of merging content discovery with commerce, Pinterest could be a breakout growth story over the long term. 5. Toast Toast (NYSE: TOST) has become one of the leading software platforms for the restaurant industry. What started as simply a point-of-sale system is now a full-stack software platform that helps restaurants streamline operations and drive more sales. Its newest tools -- like the AI-powered intelligence engine ToastIQ and the agent and assistant Sous Chef -- are designed to help restaurants make better decisions in real time. Meanwhile, the company said a restaurant piloting its new menu upsell tool saw average order volume increase by 6%, while another restaurant group testing its new AI-powered advertising tool saw more than a "10x return on ad spend" with Google Ads. Toast directly benefits from its customers' success, earning a cut of sales through payment processing. That creates a strong alignment between the business and its customers, so the company continues to innovate to help drive restaurant sales. Toast added 6,000 new locations in Q1 and now serves more than 140,000 restaurants. It's also expanding into chains like Applebee's and Topgolf, as well as adjacent verticals like hotel food service and retailers. It's slowly expanding overseas as well. Toast's pace of innovation and expanding customer base give it a long runway of growth. This makes it a growth stock you want to own for the long term. Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now? Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $636,774!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,942!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,040% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025

Biohacker who injected his son's blood wants to sell his anti-aging business to build a new religion
Biohacker who injected his son's blood wants to sell his anti-aging business to build a new religion

Edmonton Journal

time2 hours ago

  • Edmonton Journal

Biohacker who injected his son's blood wants to sell his anti-aging business to build a new religion

Tech entrepreneur and longevity crusader Bryan Johnson is thinking of ditching his 'pain-in-the-ass' anti-aging nutrition and supplements company to focus on his 'Don't Die' movement, a community of likeminded biohackers 'united in defeating all causes of human and planetary death.' Article content In a lengthy interview with Wired, the 47-year-old California multimillionaire said he is 'so close' to shutting down or selling Blueprint, a wellness company devoted to 'maximally slowing' aging and reversing aging that's already occurred. Article content Article content 'I've been talking to people about this. I don't need the money, and it's a pain-in-the-ass company,' Johnson told Wired's Katie Drummond. Article content Article content Johnson said Blueprint evolved from his own personal search for a clean, low-in-heavy-metals protein powder into a business venture that was just 'trying to do people a solid. The problem is now people see the business and give me less credibility on the philosophy side. I will not make that trade off … So yeah, I don't want it.' Article content Here's what to know about Johnson, Blueprint, his new religion and why he believes a crude AI copy of Bryan already exists. Article content Johnson, who told Wired he grew up poor ('My mom made my clothes') and remained so until he was 34, made a vast sum after selling his mobile payment processing platform to PayPal for a reported US$800 million, according to Fortune. Article content The self-described most measured human on the planet, Johnson takes 40 odd vitamins and supplements daily as well as hundreds of daily measurements of his heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and other body organs so that they may 'speak for themselves what they need to be in their ideal state.' Article content In 2023, Johnson, his then 17-year-old son and Johnson's father participated in a multi-generational plasma exchange. Johnson received plasma from a litre of blood siphoned from his son at a Texas spa in the hope his son's blood would make him younger. Article content The plasma swap apparently had a null effect: In January, Johnson posted on X that he was no longer injecting his son's blood and had 'upgraded' to another controversial plasma protocol. Article content I am no longer injecting my son's blood. I've upgraded to something else: total plasma exchange. Steps: 1. Take out all blood from body 2. Separate plasma from blood 3. Replace plasma with 5% albumin & IVIG Here's my bag of plasma. Who wants it? 🧵 — Bryan Johnson (@bryan_johnson) January 28, 2025 Article content Johnson eats all the day's food before noon and sticks to a strict high-fibre, 'veggies and legumes,' no alcohol, no sugar diet that makes him feel sharper while avoiding 'post meal dead zones,' he's shared on X. Article content Last year, in a therapy dubbed 'Project Baby Face,' Johnson attempted to restore volume he's lost on his face from a calorie-reduced diet with fat injections in his temple, cheeks and chin. He didn't have enough of is own body fat so he used donor fat. It didn't go well: 'Immediately following the injections, my face began to blow up,' Johnson posted on Instagram. 'And then it got worse, and worse, and worse until I couldn't even see,' a severe allergic reaction. Article content What is Project Blueprint? Article content Johnson has explained how, In 2021, 'I endeavoured to figure out proximity to longevity escape velocity. How far away are we from one year of chronological time passing and one staying the same age biologically? I called this Project Blueprint.'

Analysts Offer Insights on Financial Companies: Charles Schwab (SCHW), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and US Bancorp (USB)
Analysts Offer Insights on Financial Companies: Charles Schwab (SCHW), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and US Bancorp (USB)

Globe and Mail

time3 hours ago

  • Globe and Mail

Analysts Offer Insights on Financial Companies: Charles Schwab (SCHW), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and US Bancorp (USB)

There's a lot to be optimistic about in the Financial sector as 3 analysts just weighed in on Charles Schwab (SCHW – Research Report), Riot Platforms (RIOT – Research Report) and US Bancorp (USB – Research Report) with bullish sentiments. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Charles Schwab (SCHW) In a report released today, William Katz from TD Cowen maintained a Buy rating on Charles Schwab, with a price target of $129.00. The company's shares closed last Thursday at $96.50. According to Katz is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 14.2% and a 68.4% success rate. Katz covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Apollo Global Management, Bridge Investment Group, and Raymond James Financial. ;'> Charles Schwab has an analyst consensus of Strong Buy, with a price target consensus of $103.64, representing an 8.9% upside. In a report issued on July 10, Barclays also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a $106.00 price target. Riot Platforms (RIOT) Compass Point analyst Joe Flynn maintained a Buy rating on Riot Platforms today and set a price target of $18.00. The company's shares closed last Thursday at $14.69, close to its 52-week high of $15.87. According to Flynn is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 41.0% and a 68.5% success rate. Flynn covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Applied Digital Corporation, Marathon Digital Holdings, and Galaxy Digital. ;'> Currently, the analyst consensus on Riot Platforms is a Strong Buy with an average price target of $16.80, a 16.9% upside from current levels. In a report issued on July 21, Piper Sandler also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a $18.00 price target. US Bancorp (USB) In a report released today, Steven Alexopoulos from TD Cowen maintained a Buy rating on US Bancorp, with a price target of $59.00. The company's shares closed last Thursday at $46.06. According to Alexopoulos is a 3-star analyst with an average return of 1.3% and a 53.9% success rate. Alexopoulos covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Pinnacle Financial Partners, First Citizens BancShares, and Texas Capital Bancshares. ;'> Currently, the analyst consensus on US Bancorp is a Moderate Buy with an average price target of $53.68, implying a 16.1% upside from current levels. In a report issued on July 13, Bank of America Securities also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a $54.00 price target.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store