Isomorphic Labs, born from DeepMind's AlphaFold breakthrough, is closing in on testing its first AI‑designed drug candidates in human trials, said president Colin Murdoch. By leveraging AlphaFold's precision in predicting protein structures, the lab has built a "world‑class drug design engine" in collaboration with pharma giants Novartis and Eli Lilly. After raising $600 million in April 2025, Isomorphic is now "staffing up" for clinical trials in areas like oncology and immunology with its sights set on speeding up development, cutting costs, and improving success rates.
Another key AI executive takes Zuckerberg up on his lucrative offer, as Apple's head of AI models, Ruoming Pang, departs from Apple to join Meta's Superintelligence Labs, reports Bloomberg. Ruoming Pang, who had joined Apple in 2021 after a 15-year stint at Google, was a high-level engineer working on Apple's foundation models as the lead of the team behind Apple Intelligence, which totaled roughly 100 engineers. As Apple's own AI efforts struggle to deliver results as it looks into third-party AI solutions, Pang's exit means a hefty blow to the giant's ambitions as he joins an ever-growing list of new hires at Meta.
After hundreds of EU companies attempted to delay the continental AI Act late last week, the European Commission said in a statement that the legislation will continue rolling out on schedule, dismissing the efforts. Spokesperson Thomas Regnier underscored there will be "no stop the clock" or grace period, while the AI Act's general‑purpose AI rules won't be enforceable until August 2026. Companies have warned that compliance costs and missing guidance could risk hampering innovation, but Brussels insists its risk‑based framework and staggered roll‑out remain on track.
Alphabet-owned Google has been hit with an EU antitrust complaint after the Independent Publishers Alliance raised a complaint regarding the giant's AI Overviews feature. The coalition alleges that Google "misuses web content for AI Overviews in Google Search" and that the summaries "have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers." The complaint also notes that publishers "do not have the option to opt out" of Google's AI training practices or from content scraping for summaries without losing their spot on Google's search results page.
Groq, an AI chip startup backed by Samsung and Cisco, has made its first expansion into Europe with the launch of a data center in Helsinki, Finland, through a partnership with Equinix. With Europe's rapidly rising demand for AI inferencing, Groq looks to leverage Finland's access to renewable energy and cool climate. Groq's chips, called LPUs, are designed for inference rather than training and avoid supply chain issues tied to high-bandwidth memory. CEO Jonathan Ross also took the chance to tout the company's speed in deployment, noting the Helsinki site was built in four weeks and will begin serving traffic by week's end.
French-based IT consulting firm Capgemini has struck a deal to purchase WNS for $3.3 billion in cash for its AI toolkit in generative and agentic AI for business process optimization. The deal is expected to close by late 2025 and will give a boost to Capgemini's Digital Business Process Services and expand its presence in the US and UK. Capgemini's top brass is also expecting an immediate uptick in revenue and margin growth, citing cross‑selling opportunities with WNS's blue‑chip clients like Coca‑Cola, T‑Mobile, and United Airlines.