Volkswagen, like other car giants, are pushing heavily into AI to boost their technology credentials and make their cars smarter.
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German automaker Volkswagen has established its own artificial intelligence lab, the company said Wednesday, reflecting growing ambitions from the car industry to adopt the buzzy technology.
In a press release, Volkswagen said that its new AI lab will serve as a “globally networked competence center and incubator” to produce proofs of concept in the field of the tech surrounding automotive innovations.
AI labs are research and development hubs for exploring AI breakthroughs. Common examples of such labs are those of OpenAI, which Microsoft has backed with billions of dollars of funds, and Google’s DeepMind, which the Alphabet-owned tech giant acquired in 2014.
Volkswagen claimed it would bring its lab’s AI innovations to its own vehicles to make them smarter.
“We want to offer our customers genuine added value with artificial intelligence. We aim to link external digital ecosystems with the vehicle, creating an even better product experience,” says Oliver Blume, CEO of the Volkswagen Group and Porsche AG.
“Collaboration with technology companies is crucially important for us. In [the] future, we intend to simplify cooperation in organizational and cultural terms.”
Volkswagen isn’t planning on manufacturing any production models of its own, but the company intends to hold talks with partners about licensing its proprietary AI technology for use in their vehicles. Volkswagen did not name any potential partner.
The carmaker said some of the AI solutions pursued by the lab will deal with optimizing electric vehicle charging, predictive maintenance for cars, and linking vehicles with customers’ homes through internet-connected devices.
The company also said it would explore AI uses to enable in-car voice recognition.
The announcement comes as other car firms are pushing heavily into artificial intelligence to boost their technology credentials and make their cars smarter.
French carmaker DS automobiles began integrating ChatGPT into its vehicles late last year. Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft started testing in-car ChatGPT support as early as June 2023. Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD, meanwhile, launched an AI-powered smart car system to better compete with rivals on advanced technologies, such as automated parking.
Reducing reliance on tech giants
Volkswagen’s AI lab launch echoed the ambition of established technology companies that have set up or invested in their own artificial intelligence research units.The move could see Volkswagen become more independent, reducing its reliance on external AI software from technology giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon.
Volkswagen has already extended its work on AI, most recently announcing that it would integrate ChatGPT in its cars at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. As part of that, the automaker was relying on OpenAI as a technological partner, rather than depending on its own proprietary technology.
By creating an AI lab, Volkswagen will be able to determine its own future in terms of what kinds of AI uses it adopts — though it has a steep hill to climb to compete with the caliber of AI technologies coming out of already advanced AI labs.
A person walks by a sign for Micron Technology headquarters in San Jose, California, on June 25, 2025.
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Micron reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue on Tuesday as well as a robust forecast for the current quarter.
The stock rose in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with the LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $3.03, adjusted, vs. $2.86 expected
Revenue: $11.32 billion vs. $11.22 billion expected
Micron said revenue in the current period, its fiscal first quarter, will be about $12.5 billion, versus the $11.94 billion average analyst estimate per LSEG.
The company said it had $3.2 billion, or $2.83 per share in net income, versus $887 million, or 79 cents in the year-ago period.
Micron shares have nearly doubled so far in 2025. The company makes memory and storage, which are important components for computers. Micron has been one of the winners of the artificial intelligence boom. That’s because high-end AI chips like those made by Nvidia require increasing amounts of high-tech memory called high-bandwidth memory, which Micron makes.
“As the only U.S.-based memory manufacturer, Micron is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the AI opportunity ahead,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in a statement.
Overall company revenue rose 46% on a year-over-year basis during the quarter.
Micron’s largest unit, which sells memory for cloud providers, reported $4.54 billion in sales during the quarter, more than tripling on a year-over-year basis.
However, the company’s core data center business unit saw sales decline 22% on an annual basis to $1.57 billion in revenue.
Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday said it will soon allow previously banned accounts to apply for reinstatement, rolling back a policy that had treated violations as permanent.
The change applies to channels removed for posting Covid-19 or election-related misinformation, according to a letter fromAlphabet lawyer Daniel Donovan to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. Previously, those types of offenses carried lifetime bans.
“Today, YouTube’s Community Guidelines allow for a wider range of content regarding Covid and elections integrity,” Donovan wrote.
YouTube wrote on X that it will be a limited pilot project open to a subset of creators as well as channels that were terminated under policies the company has since retired. YouTube also said its new reinstatement program will launch soon.
Among channels previously banned under those rules were some associated with Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s not yet clear whether those channels will be reinstated.
This move follows mounting Republican pressure on tech companies to reverse Biden-era speech policies on vaccine and political misinformation. In March, Rep. Jordan subpoenaed Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, alleging YouTube was a “direct participant in the federal government’s censorship regime.”
In 2021, YouTube said it would remove content that spread misinformation about all approved vaccines.
Donovan wrote that during the pandemic, senior Biden administration officials pressed the company to remove certain Covid-related videos that did not technically violate YouTube’s policies.
In the letter, Donovan said this pressure was “unacceptable and wrong.”
YouTube ended its stand-alone Covid misinformation rules in December 2024, according to Donovan’s letter.
YouTube “will not empower third-party fact-checkers” to moderate content and will continue to enable “free expression” on the platform, Donovan wrote. While Donovan writes that YouTube has not used fact-checkers, the platform has produced programs that are meant to label context on videos.
Similarly, Meta said in January that it had eliminated its fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram.
YouTube has a feature that will display information panels with links to independent fact checks under videos. The feature says it provides more context on videos across YouTube with information from third-party sources.
In 2017, Google launched a fact-checking tool that would display labels on search and news results.
People walk past an Amazon Fresh store in Washington, DC, on August 26, 2021.
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Amazon plans to close all of its Fresh supermarkets in the U.K., in the latest recalibration of its grocery strategy.
The company said in a Tuesday blog that it’s preparing to close all 19 of its Fresh U.K. stores, “following a thorough evaluation of business operations and the very substantial growth opportunities in online delivery.” Five of the Fresh locations are expected to be converted into Whole Foods stores, Amazon said.
Amazon opened its first Fresh location outside the U.S. in London in 2021, about a year after it debuted the store concept in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Fresh stores offer cheaper prices and more mass-market items compared to Whole Foods, the upscale supermarket chain Amazon acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017. Many of the stores also feature Amazon’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” technology.
The Fresh store pullback in the U.K. comes as Amazon has continued to adjust its grocery ambitions. The company has slowed expansion of its Fresh grocery chain and Go cashierless stores in the U.S. It still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
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At the same time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items like canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks.
Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
The company on Tuesday also said that it plans to offer same-day delivery of groceries, including perishable items, in the U.K. beginning next year.