Bezos launches Prometheus AI, China blocks Meta's Manus acquisition

Jeff Bezos has launched Prometheus, a new industrial AI startup aiming to create an 'artificial general engineer'—an AI system capable of designing and building physical objects autonomously. The company raised $12 billion in funding, valuing it at $41 billion, signaling strong investor confidence in applied AI. Meanwhile, Chinese regulators have dramatically intensified tech enforcement, blocking Meta's $500M acquisition of Chinese AI startup Manus and admonishing e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com over anti-competitive practices. This marks an end to a period of relative regulatory restraint.

Google is suing a Chinese cybercriminal network accused of using its Gemini AI to generate scam content targeting Americans. The lawsuit highlights the growing threat of AI-powered fraud, a topic highlighted in MIT Technology Review's '10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now.' Separately, Anthropic faced user backlash over its safety-first Fable model, which refused many valid requests. The company has since backtracked on some policies. Ukraine's defense AI chief predicts a new paradigm of warfare where AI systems unify into a single battlefield network, potentially including AI chatbots for targeting decisions.