Two wars hung over this year’s get-together of scientists and politicians in Berlin. But there was still plenty of excitement, and trepidation, about new breakthroughs in AI, solar energy, and transatlantic science

EU universities have been all but left out of the UK’s AI safety summit, while arguably more important is a ground-breaking new executive order from the US, which begins to demand outside scrutiny of the potentially dangerous capabilities of AI models

As part of measures regulating artificial intelligence, Washington will move to improve surveillance of mail-order DNA. Scientists have long warned the current global system is full of loopholes. Now, the US government says the risks are ‘potentially made worse by AI’

Co-funded by Horizon Europe and the US National Science Foundation, the project reflects a wider strategy of deepening transatlantic cooperation on key technologies, to reduce dependence on China. The value of the project was not disclosed 

As AI becomes a daily helper for research managers, institutions are awaiting EU guidelines and learning from one another

Since the ‘AI made in Europe’ strategy launched in February 2020, the US has pulled further ahead. The EU’s problem is a lack of scale and focus. The answer is to adopt CERN’s approach to running large, coordinated and highly ambitious projects

European and Japanese scientists will fine tune their scientific models on each other’s machines, hopefully boosting performance and future-proofing code. It’s the latest push from Brussels to create stronger research links with ‘like-minded’ democracies

Politicians must not be allowed to harness fears around artificial intelligence to divide people, says Dragoș Tudorache MEP, who is leading Europe’s charge to regulate this powerful technology

The Chips joint undertaking is a rebrand of the Key Digital Technologies partnership, with a bigger budget and more responsibilities