Welcome to the newest edition of ID Tech’s AI update. Here’s the latest big news on the shifting landscape of AI and identity technology:
The Trump administration plans to rescind the Biden-era “AI diffusion rule”, which was set to impose a three-tier approach to export restrictions to China. Major tech companies like Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, and Oracle had expressed strong opposition to the rule, arguing that it would hurt business with an overly complex and ultimately unenforceable set of regulations. The new administration says it is working on a new export control regime.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton has introduced the “Chip Security Act”, a piece of legislation that would require the Commerce Department to implement location-tracking mechanisms in export-controlled AI chips, essentially beefing up enforcement of AI-focused sanctions. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat, plans to bring a similar bill to the House in the coming weeks.
OpenAI has abandoned its original plan to transition to a for-profit business model, announcing that it will continue to be governed by its non-profit parent entity. It still plans to convert its for-profit subsidiary into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), which entails balancing shareholder interests against broader public benefits. The new structure will allow investors and employees to hold equity in the PBC.
OpenAI has announced “OpenAI for Countries”, a program to set up partner governments with their own “Stargate” supercomputing infrastructure projects. The original, US-based Stargate project was only announced in January of this year. It’s a $500 billion, four-year effort to build data center and computing infrastructure, starting in Texas.
Apple is developing chips specialized for AI servers as well as for smart glasses and future Mac models. The chips are meant to support the Apple Intelligence platform, which has so far been floundering. Chip production is expected to begin in 2026 or 2027, in collaboration with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Broadcom.
Meta has named Robert Fergus as the new head of its AI research lab. Fergus was formerly a research director at Google DeepMind, and will now lead Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab, replacing Joelle Pineau, who announced her departure in April. The news comes after Meta appointed Clara Shih, the former CEO of Salesforce AI, as head of a new Business AI group in November.
Researchers at Mass General Brigham have developed an AI algorithm to predict ‘biological age’ as well as cancer survival prospects based on face images. Their “FaceAge” tool uses a deep learning algorithm trained on a dataset of nearly 59,000 face images from healthy individuals to set aging baselines, and was then tested on more than 6,000 cancer patients, whose biological age was determined to be five years older, on average, than their chronological age.
Baidu has filed a patent for meow-deciphering AI technology. Filed with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the patent covers a system that is designed to translate animal vocalizations into human language. Still in a research phase, the technology could improve “the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication”, as the patent states.
The chatbot’s take: We decided to hit Chat with another ethical question after last week’s surprisingly clear-cut answer.
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May 9, 2025 – by Alex Perala
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