News
AI dominates China’s elite doctors in cancer diagnosis competition
A custom-built AI designed to diagnose brain tumors and predict hematoma expansion dominated some of China’s best doctors in a competition last Saturday in Beijing. The AI, dubbed BioMind, ultimately scored 2:0 against its human competitors, comprised of 15 senior doctors from China’s premier hospitals.
BioMind was developed by a collaboration between a team from the Artificial Intelligence Research Center for Neurological Disorders at the Beijing Tiantan Hospital and researchers from the Capital Medical University. BioMind’s developers opted to feed the AI with data sets featuring tens of thousands of images depicting nervous-system-related diseases, which were retrieved from Tiantan Hospital’s archives stretching over the past decade.
Wang Yongjun, executive vice-president of Tiantan Hospital, stated that this training ultimately enabled the AI to become proficient in diagnosing neurological diseases such as meningioma and glioma with an accuracy rate of over 90%. According to Wang, such rates are comparable to the accuracy of a senior doctor, according to a report from state-owned Xinhua News.
During its the competition on Saturday, BioMind was able to correctly diagnose brain tumors with an accuracy rate of 87% out of a total of 225 cases. The AI was also able to complete its task in 15 minutes. In comparison, the team of 15 elite doctors was able to achieve an accuracy rate of 66% when diagnosing brain tumors, finishing the task in 30 minutes. Apart from this, BioMind was able to make correct predictions in 83% of brain hematoma expansion cases, while its human competition displayed a more conservative 63% accuracy.
Despite the AI’s strong performance against China’s elite doctors on Saturday, however, Cheng Jingliang, a professor of radiology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, stated that artificial intelligence systems for the medical field are still well into their infancy. According to Cheng, AI is already being used in hospitals to help doctors read images such as lung scans, but when it comes to giving full diagnoses to patients, artificial intelligence still lags far behind that of senior medical professionals.
In a statement to China Daily, Paul Parizel from the Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium, who served as a member of the jury during last Saturday’s AI vs. human doctors competition, believes that systems such as BioMind would prove to be incredibly valuable when integrated to existing medical practices.
“It will be like a GPS guiding a car. It will make proposals to a doctor and help the doctor diagnose. But it will be the doctor who ultimately decides, as there are a number of factors that a machine cannot take into consideration, such as a patient’s state of health and family situation,” he said.
The United States initially led the artificial intelligence race, but over the years, China has steadily gained ground in the AI industry. Thanks to a population that is compliant to the application of new technologies, as well as a government that actively pushes AI researchers to push further, China is on track to overtake the United States in the near future. Last January alone, the Chinese government announced plans to build a $2.1 billion technopark in Beijing that is expected to house companies actively involved in AI research and development. The United States does not have a comparable initiative to date. This was confirmed by Jack Clark of Elon Musk-backed OpenAI, who previously stated that the country lacks a central national strategy on artificial intelligence.
“It is confusing that we have this technology of such obvious power and merit and we are not hearing full-throated support, including financial support,” Clark said.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.