Kuwait Wealth Fund Joins Microsoft-Backed $30 Billion AI Venture
Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund is joining a Microsoft Corp.-backed initiative to bankroll $30 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure globally, as the oil-rich Gulf nation looks to tap into the booming sector.
The Kuwait Investment Authority will become the first non-founder financial anchor in the AI Infrastructure Partnership, according to a statement on Tuesday that didn't disclose any financial commitment. Microsoft, Abu Dhabi's MGX and BlackRock Inc. had in March added Elon Musk's xAI and chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to the initiative.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How airlines are managing the risk of missile threats and airspace closures
Airlines are facing an increasing burden on operations and profitability due to the rise in global conflict zones, industry executives have warned. Carriers are struggling with the threat from missiles and drones, airspace closures, location spoofing, and the risk of passenger flights being shot down. These challenges are leading to increased costs and loss of market share due to flight cancellations and expensive, last-minute re-routings, forcing the industry, which prides itself on its safety performance, to also invest more in data and security planning as a result. "Flight planning in this kind of environment is extremely difficult … The airline industry thrives on predictability, and the absence of this will always drive greater cost," said Guy Murray, who leads aviation security at European carrier TUI Airlines. With increasing airspace closures around Russia and Ukraine, throughout the Middle East, between India and Pakistan and in parts of Africa, airlines are left with fewer route options. "Compared to five years ago, more than half of the countries being overflown on a typical Europe-Asia flight would now need to be carefully reviewed before each flight," said Mark Zee, founder of OPSGROUP, a membership-based organisation that shares flight risk information. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East since October 2023 has led to commercial aviation sharing the skies with short-notice barrages of drones and missiles across major flight paths, some of which were reportedly close enough to be seen by pilots and passengers. Russian airports, including in Moscow, are now regularly shut down for brief periods due to drone activity, while interference with navigation systems, known as GPS spoofing or jamming, is surging around political fault lines worldwide. When hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan last month, the neighbours blocked each other's aircraft from their respective airspace. "Airspace should not be used as a retaliatory tool, but it is," Nick Careen, International Air Transport Association (IATA) senior vice president for operations, safety and security, told reporters at the airline body's annual meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday. Isidre Porqueras, chief operating officer at Indian carrier IndiGo, said the recent diversions were undoing efforts to reduce emissions and increase airline efficiencies. Finances aside, civil aviation's worst-case scenario is a plane being hit, accidentally or intentionally, by weaponry. In December, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. The plane was accidentally shot down by Russian air defences, according to Azerbaijan's president and Reuters sources. In October, a cargo plane was shot down in Sudan, killing five people. Six commercial aircraft have been shot down, with three near-misses since 2001, according to aviation risk consultancy Osprey Flight Solutions. Governments need to share information more effectively to keep civil aviation secure as conflict zones proliferate, IATA Director General Willie Walsh said this week. Safety statistics used by the commercial aviation industry show a steady decline in accidents over the past two decades, but these do not include security-related incidents such as being hit by weaponry. IATA said in February that accidents and incidents related to conflict zones were a top concern for aviation safety, requiring urgent global coordination. Each airline decides where to travel based on a patchwork of government notices, security advisers, and information-sharing between carriers and states, leading to divergent policies. The closure of Russian airspace to most Western carriers since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022 put them at a cost disadvantage compared to airlines from places like China, India and the Middle East that continue to take shorter northern routes that need less fuel and fewer crew. Shifting risk calculations means Singapore Airlines flight SQ326 from Singapore to Amsterdam has used three different routes into Europe in just over a year, Flightradar24 tracking data shows. When reciprocal missile and drone attacks broke out between Iran and Israel in April 2024, it started crossing previously avoided Afghanistan instead of Iran. Last month, its route shifted again to avoid Pakistan's airspace as conflict escalated between India and Pakistan. Flight SQ326 now reaches Europe via the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Singapore Airlines did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Pilots and flight attendants are also worried about how the patchwork of shifting risk might impact their safety. "IATA says airlines should decide if it's safe to fly over conflict zones, not regulators. But history shows commercial pressures can cloud those decisions," said Paul Reuter, vice president of the European Cockpit Association, which represents pilots. Flight crews typically have the right to refuse a trip due to concerns about airspace, whether over weather or conflict zones, IATA security head Careen said. "Most airlines, in fact, I would say the vast majority of them, do not want crew on an aircraft if they don't feel comfortable flying," he said.
Bloomberg
36 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Israel-Backed Gaza Aid Group Suspends Operations for Second Day
An Israel- and US-backed mechanism to distribute food in Gaza suspended operations for a second day following a series of deadly incidents near its sites that drew international criticism. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a Swiss-based nonprofit, launched in Gaza last week following a months-long Israeli blockade of the territory, and says it has handed out enough food staples for millions of meals. But the roll-out has been dogged by overcrowding and at least one incident in which Israeli forces, citing a security threat, fired toward Palestinians headed to a GHF aid center.
Forbes
41 minutes ago
- Forbes
FDA's New AI Tool Cuts Review Time From 3 Days To 6 Minutes
AI at the FDA getty The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this week that it deployed a generative AI tool called ELSA (Evidence-based Learning System Assistant), across its organization. After a low-profile pilot that delivered measurable gains, the system is now in use by staff across the agency, several weeks ahead of its original schedule. Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA's commissioner, shared a major outcome. A review task that once took two or three days now takes six minutes. 'Today, we met our goal ahead of schedule and under budget,' said Makary. 'What took one scientific reviewer two to three days [before] The FDA has thousands of reviewers, analysts, and inspectors who deal with massive volumes of unstructured data such as clinical trial documents, safety reports, inspection records. Automating any meaningful portion of that stack creates outsized returns. ELSA helps FDA teams speed up several essential tasks. Staff are already using it to summarize adverse event data for safety assessments, compare drug labels, generate basic code for nonclinical database setup, and identify priority sites for inspections, among other tasks. This last item, using data to rank where inspectors should go, could have a real-world impact on how the FDA oversees the drug and food supply chain and impacts on how the FDA delivers its services. Importantly, however, the tool isn't making autonomous decisions without a human in the loop. The system prepares information so that experts can decide faster. It cuts through the routine, not the judgment. One of the biggest questions about AI systems in the public sector revolves around the use of data and third party AI systems. Makary addressed this directly by saying that 'All information stays within the agency. The AI models are not being trained on data submitted by the industry.' That's a sharp contrast to the AI approaches being taken in the private sector, where many large language models have faced criticism over training on proprietary or user-submitted content. In the enterprise world, this has created mounting demand for "air-gapped" AI solutions that keep data locked inside the company. That makes the FDA's model different from many corporate tools, which often rely on open or external data sources. The agency isn't building a public-facing product. It's building a controlled internal system, one that helps it do its job better. Federal departments have been slow to move past AI experimentation. The Department of Veterans Affairs has started testing predictive tools to manage appointments. The SEC has explored market surveillance AI for years. But few have pushed into full and widespread production. The federal government has thousands of employees processing huge volumes of information, most of it unstructured sitting in documents, files, and even paper. That means AI is being focused most on operational and process-oriented activities. It's shaping up to be a key piece of how agencies process data, make recommendations, and act. Makary put it simply that ELSA is just the beginning for AI adoption within the FDA. 'Today's rollout of ELSA will be the first of many initiatives to come,' he said. 'This is how we'll better serve the American people.'
