Google DeepMind unveiled AlphaGenome 2, which predicts the effects of DNA variants for a specific cell type. On TenK10K it captured causal variants in 30% of cases, versus 16% for earlier tools, by DeepMind’s own evaluation.
IBM unveiled the third generation of its Nighthawk quantum processor, r3, targeting 10,000 quantum operations on 520 qubits, and plans to link two chips into a 1,040-qubit system in 2027. All figures are IBM’s own targets.
The bipartisan Commission on U.S. Quantum Primacy released its first preliminary report, proposing a national quantum foundry, NIST-led benchmarks and a faster post-quantum cryptography transition, but left budget figures to a final report in 2027.
Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2.5, an AI model for robots, saying success rates rose 30–100% across some 200 tasks, kitting tests at Mercedes-Benz plants hit 96%, and jailbreak resistance reached 99.5%.
Google unveiled Gemini 4 Carbon, a large language model optimized for long, complex agentic workflows that topped major coding and automation benchmarks at less than half the task cost of competing models.
The UK Ministry of Defence is spending £90 million on Atlantic Net, an uncrewed anti-submarine surveillance network in the North Atlantic. Ocean Infinity will run the vessels, sensors and AI as a service, with operations targeted for 2027.
Google DeepMind says its AI agent system AlphaProof Code formally verified the core code of the Signal cryptographic protocol in about four weeks, with human experts re-reviewing only about 1% of the codebase.
Diraq has begun running a silicon spin quantum computer at an Equinix data center in Sydney. The 8-qubit system draws under 20 kW and targets 256 qubits within a year, but no accuracy metrics have been released.
Anthropic released Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2, cutting the price to $8 per million input tokens and scoring 49.1% on an agentic coding benchmark.
The Royal Navy has launched one-way attack drones from the deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth for the first time, testing a hybrid carrier air wing that pairs F-35B jets with expendable and surveillance drones.
Physical Superintelligence (PSI) claims it proved the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture, open since 2008, using an unreleased Anthropic model. It cites Lean verification, but peer review has yet to take place.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has apologized for a past affair with a woman U.S. intelligence suspects of ties to China’s Ministry of State Security, as scrutiny grows over the alleged diversion of $4.8 billion in Nvidia GPUs via Megaspeed.
Caltech’s ASTRA system has autonomously assembled part of a reflector antenna’s framework in low Earth orbit, the first structure built in orbit without astronauts. The feat is a milestone for DARPA’s NOM4D program and a step toward giant space solar power plants and telescopes.
At Euronaval 2026, the French Navy presented four next-generation SSBNs, the aircraft carrier France Libre due for delivery in 2038, and a counter-drone program developed in two months.
China’s photonic quantum computer Jiuzhang 4.0 has won a World Internet Conference Leading Science and Technology Award. We look at what its 3,050-photon experiment means, the classical-algorithm debate and its limits.
IonQ reported third-quarter revenue of $173.8 million and Quantinuum $9.1 million. We compare how acquisitions and error-correction performance set the two listed quantum companies apart.
D-Wave has improved its Stride hybrid solver. The company says it beat the previous version’s 120-second solutions in 15 seconds and came within 0.02% of the best solution on traveling salesman problems with up to 10,000 locations.
After the US midterms, the science community’s key issues are the Dec. 12 funding deadline, the direction of the House Science Committee and probes into NSF and DOE grant terminations. We summarize them from AIP reporting.
