Google, Microsoft form new A.I. group to develop safety standards ahead of policymakers
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, speaks during an interview in Redmond, Washington, March 15, 2023.
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Four leading artificial intelligence companies launched a new industry group on Wednesday to identify best safety practices and promote the technology’s use toward great societal challenges.
The new group underscores how, until policymakers come up with new rules, the industry will likely need to continue to police themselves.
Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI said the new Frontier Model Forum had four key goals, which Google outlined in a blog post:
1. Advancing AI safety research to promote responsible development of frontier models, minimize risks, and enable independent, standardized evaluations of capabilities and safety.
2. Identifying best practices for the responsible development and deployment of frontier models, helping the public understand the nature, capabilities, limitations, and impact of the technology.
3. Collaborating with policymakers, academics, civil society and companies to share knowledge about trust and safety risks.
4. Supporting efforts to develop applications that can help meet society’s greatest challenges, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, early cancer detection and prevention, and combating cyber threats.
Organizations that meet several criteria can join the group. Those include developing or deploying frontier models, or “large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, and can perform a wide variety of tasks,” Google said in its blog post. They also must show a commitment to safety “through technical and institutional approaches.”
The group said in the coming months, it would create an advisory board of diverse backgrounds to guide its priorities. The founding companies will consult civil society as it comes up with its governance design and funding.
The effort comes as policymakers weigh what appropriate guardrails on the technology could look like, without hindering innovation and ceding the country’s position in the AI race.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has been spearheading an effort to create an AI legislative framework, while many other bills tackling specific slices of the technology’s impact have already been introduced. The White House has also been hosting meetings with industry leaders and AI experts and recently announced that leading companies agreed to a voluntary pledge for developing AI safely.
WATCH: How A.I. could impact jobs of outsourced coders in India
Intel snapped a losing streak of six straight quarterly losses and returned to profitability in the third quarter.
In its first earnings report since the Trump administration acquired a 10% stake in the company, the U.S. chipmaker posted strong revenue, noting robust demand for chips that it expects to continue into 2026.
Client computing revenue, which includes chips for PCs and laptops, grew 5% year over year, benefiting from PC market stabilization and artificial intelligence PC prospects.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a call with analysts Thursday that artificial intelligence “is a strong foundation for sustainable long-term growth as we execute.”
The chip strength and demand were bright spots, but there were areas of concern as well, with the company’s foundry business still needing a big break.
Here are three takeaways from the chipmaker’s Q3 report:
Cash flow
“We significantly improved our cash position and liquidity in Q3, a key focus for me since becoming CEO in March,” Tan said on a call with analysts Thursday.
Intel landed an $8.9 billion investment from the U.S. government in August, along with $2 billion from Softbank, but has not yet received the $5 billion tied to a deal with Nvidia. The company expects that deal to close by the end of Q4.
With all of those transactions completed, plus the Altera sale, Intel will have $35 billion in cash on hand, CFO David Zinser told CNBC.
The U.S. government is the company’s biggest shareholder, and Intel stock is up more than 50% since Aug. 22, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the deal.
“Like any shareholder, we have to keep in touch with them,” Zinser said of the U.S. stake. “We don’t tell them how the numbers are going before the quarter. We generally talk to them like Fidelity,” another Intel shareholder.
Intel 3-month stock chart.
Foundry
The firm’s foundry remains a work in progress.
Revenue fell 2% over the year before, and it has yet to land a major customer.
Intel now has two fabs running 18A nodes, which are designed for AI and high-performance computing applications.
“We are making steady progress on Intel 18A,” Tan said of its latest chip technology. “We are on track to bring Panther Lake to market this year.”
Zinser said the more advanced 14A nodes won’t be put in supply until the company has “real firm demand.”
Old stuff still selling
Zinser said the company’s older chipmaking processes, or nodes, have continued to do well, “and that was probably the part that was more unexpected.”
Zinser said the chipmaker met some of the central processing unit (CPU) demand with inventory on hand, but they will be behind in Q1, “probably Q2 and maybe in Q3.”
The supply crunch has been with older Intel 10 and 7 manufacturing technologies.
Many customers are opting for less advanced hardware to refresh their operating systems, demonstrating enterprises aren’t waiting for cutting-edge chips when proven technology gets the job done.
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