Digital sovereignty receives only a fraction of the attention given to AI. That needs to change, argue digital health leaders
Want to understand the current state of AI? Check out these charts.
If you’re following AI news, you’re probably getting whiplash. AI is a gold rush. AI is a bubble. AI is taking your job. AI can’t even read a clock. The 2026 AI Index from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, AI’s annual report card, comes out today and cuts through some of that noise.
Despite predictions that AI development may hit a wall, the report says that the top models just keep getting better. People are adopting AI faster than they picked up the personal computer or the internet. AI companies are generating revenue faster than companies in any previous technology boom, but they’re also spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers and chips. The benchmarks designed to measure AI, the policies meant to govern it, and the job market are struggling to keep up. AI is sprinting, and the rest of us are trying to find our shoes.
All that speed comes at a cost. AI data centers around the world can now draw 29.6 gigawatts of power, enough to run the entire state of New York at peak demand. Annual water use from running OpenAI’s GPT-4o alone may exceed the drinking water needs of 12 million people. At the same time, the supply chain for chips is alarmingly fragile. The US hosts most of the world’s AI data centers, and one company in Taiwan, TSMC, fabricates almost every leading AI chip.
The data reveals a technology evolving faster than we can manage. Here’s a look at some of the key points from this year’s report.
The US and China are nearly tied
In a long, heated race with immense geopolitical stakes, the US and China are almost neck and neck on AI model performance, according to Arena, a community-driven ranking platform that allows users to compare the outputs of large language models on identical prompts. In early 2023, OpenAI had a lead with ChatGPT, but this gap narrowed in 2024 as Google and Anthropic released their own models. In February 2025, R1, an AI model built by the Chinese lab DeepSeek, briefly matched the top US model, ChatGPT. As of March 2026, Anthropic leads, trailed closely by xAI, Google, and OpenAI. Chinese models like DeepSeek and Alibaba lag only modestly. With the best AI models separated in the rankings by razor-thin margins, they’re now competing on cost, reliability, and real-world usefulness.
The index notes that the US and China have different AI advantages. While the US has more powerful AI models, more capital, and an estimated 5,427 data centers (more than 10 times as many as any other country), China leads in AI research publications, patents, and robotics.
As competition intensifies, companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google no longer disclose their training code, parameter counts, or data-set sizes. “We don’t know a lot of things about predicting model behaviors,” says Yolanda Gil, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California who coauthored the report. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for independent researchers to study how to make AI models safer, she says.
AI models are advancing super fast
Despite predictions that development will plateau, AI models keep getting better and better. By some measures, they now meet or exceed the performance of human experts on tests that aim to measure PhD-level science, math, and language understanding. SWE-bench Verified, a software engineering benchmark for AI models, saw top scores jump from around 60% in 2024 to almost 100% in 2025. In 2025, an AI system produced a weather forecast on its own.
“I am stunned that this technology continues to improve, and it’s just not plateauing in any way,” says Gil.
However, AI still struggles in plenty of other areas. Because the models learn by processing enormous amounts of text and images rather than by experiencing the physical world, AI exhibits “jagged intelligence.” Robots are still in their early days and succeed in only 12% of household tasks. Self-driving cars are farther along: Waymos are now roaming across five US cities, and Baidu’s Apollo Go vehicles are shuttling riders around in China. AI is also expanding into professional domains like law and finance, but no model dominates the field yet.
But the way we test AI is broken
These reports of progress should be taken with a grain of salt. The benchmarks designed to track AI progress are struggling to keep up as models quickly blow past their ceilings, the Stanford report says. Some are poorly constructed—a popular benchmark that tests a model’s math abilities has a 42% error rate. Others can be gamed: when models are trained on benchmark test data, for example, they can learn to score well without getting smarter.
Because AI is rarely used the same way it’s tested, strong benchmark performance doesn’t always translate to real-world performance. And for complex, interactive technologies such as AI agents and robots, benchmarks barely exist yet.
AI companies are also sharing less about how their models are trained, and independent testing sometimes tells a different story from what they report. “A lot of companies are not releasing how their models do in certain benchmarks, particularly the responsible-AI benchmarks,” says Gil. “The absence of how your model is doing on a benchmark maybe says something.”
AI is starting to affect jobs
Within three years of going mainstream, AI is now used by more than half of people around the world, a rate of adoption faster than the personal computer or the internet. An estimated 88% of organizations now use AI, and four in five university students use it.
It’s early days for deployment, and AI’s impact on jobs is hard to measure. Still, some studies suggest AI is beginning to affect young workers in certain professions. According to a 2025 study by economists at Stanford, employment for software developers aged 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% since 2022. The decline might not be pinned on AI alone, as broader macroeconomic conditions could be to blame, but AI appears to be playing a part.
Employers say that hiring may continue to tighten. According to a 2025 survey conducted by McKinsey & Company, a third of organizations expect AI to shrink their workforce in the coming year, particularly in service and supply chain operations and software engineering. AI is boosting productivity by 14% in customer service and 26% in software development, according to research cited by the index, but such gains are not seen in tasks requiring more judgment. Overall, it’s still too early to understand the bigger economic impact of AI.
People have complicated feelings about AI
Around the world, people feel both optimistic and anxious about AI: 59% of people think that it will provide more benefits than drawbacks, while 52% say that it makes them nervous, according to an Ipsos survey cited in the index.
Notably, experts and the public see the future of AI very differently, according to a Pew survey. The biggest gap is around the future of work: While 73% of experts think that AI will have a positive impact on how people do their jobs, only 23% of the American public thinks so. Experts are also more optimistic than the public about AI’s impact on education and medical care, but they agree that AI will hurt elections and personal relationships.
Among all countries surveyed, Americans trust their government least to regulate AI appropriately, according to another Ipsos survey. More Americans worry federal AI regulation won’t go far enough than worry it will go too far.
Governments are struggling to regulate AI
Governments around the world are struggling to regulate AI, but there were some minor successes last year. The EU AI Act’s first prohibitions, which ban the use of AI in predictive policing and emotion recognition, took effect. Japan, South Korea, and Italy also passed national AI laws. Meanwhile, the US federal government moved toward deregulation, with President Trump issuing an executive order seeking to handcuff states from regulating AI.
Despite this federal action, state legislatures in the US passed a record 150 AI-related bills. California enacted landmark legislation, including SB 53, which mandates safety disclosures and whistleblower protections for developers of AI models. New York passed the RAISE Act, requiring AI companies to publish safety protocols and report critical safety incidents.
But for all the legislative activity, Gil says, regulation is running behind the technology because we don’t really understand how it works. “Governments are cautious to regulate AI because … we don’t understand many things very well,” she says. “We don’t have a good handle on those systems.”
MHRA secures £3.6m to expand AI regulatory sandbox
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has secured funding to expand its AI Airlock regulatory sandbox.
The Download: how humans make decisions, and Moderna’s “vaccine” word games
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
You have no choice in reading this article—maybe
How do humans make decisions? The question has been on Uri Maoz’s mind since he read an article in his early twenties suggesting that… maybe they didn’t.
Had he even had a choice about whether to read that article in the first place? How would he ever know if he was truly responsible for making any decisions? “After that, there was no turning back,” says Maoz, now a professor of computational neuroscience at Chapman University.
Today, Maoz is a central figure in efforts to understand how desires and beliefs turn into actions. He’s also uncovered new wrinkles in the debate. Read the full story on his discoveries.
—Sarah Scoles
This article is from the next issue of our print magazine, packed with stories all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full thing when it lands on Wednesday, April 22.
What’s in a name? Moderna’s “vaccine” vs. “therapy” dilemma
Moderna, the covid-19 shot maker, is using its mRNA technology to destroy tumors through a very, very promising technique known as a cancer vacc—
“It’s not a vaccine,” a spokesperson for Merck said before the V-word could be uttered. “It’s an individualized neoantigen therapy.”
Oh, but it is a vaccine, and it looks like a possible breakthrough. But it’s been rebranded to avoid vaccine fearmongering—and not everyone is happy about the word game. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
This article is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter covering the latest in biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
The must reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Sam Altman’s home has been attacked twice in two days
A driver reportedly fired a gun at his property on Sunday. (SF Standard)
+ A Molotov cocktail was thrown at his home on Friday. (NBC News)
+ The suspect wrote essays warning AI would end humanity. (SF Chronicle)
+ The attacks expose growing divides in opinion on AI. (Axios)
2 AI weapons are ushering in a new kind of arms race
Countries are racing to deploy AI in military systems. (NYT $)
+ The Pentagon wants AI firms to train on classified data. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Where OpenAI’s technology could show up in Iran. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Artemis II was a success
Astronauts did an array of experiments that will be crucial to the future of both the program itself and deep-space missions. (Guardian)
+ But next steps for the Artemis missions are uncertain. (Ars Technica)
4 OpenAI and Elon Musk are heading toward a massive courtroom clash
The company has accused Musk of a “legal ambush.” (Engadget)
+ He’s lost a streak of cases ahead of the showdown. (FT $)
5 AI job fears in China are fueling a viral “ability harvester” project
It claims to turn human skills into AI tools. (SCMP)
+ Hustlers are cashing in on China’s OpenClaw AI craze. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Governments are hiding information about the Iran war online
Through restrictions on internet access and satellite imagery. (NPR)
7 Apple is testing four smart glasses that could rival Meta Ray-Bans
They’re part of a broader wearables strategy. (Bloomberg $)
8 Meta is building an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with staff
It’s being trained on his mannerisms, voice, and statements. (FT $)
9 Anthropic is asking Christian leaders for guidance
It’s seeing advice on building moral machines. (WP $)
+ AI agents have spread their own religions. (MIT Technology Review)
10 A dancer with MND is performing again through an avatar
Her brainwaves powered the digital dancer. (BBC)
Quote of the day
“Earth was this lifeboat hanging in the universe.”
—Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch describes her view of Earth from space, the Guardian reports.
One more thing
RAVEN JIANG
How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral
When Kenneth Wehr started managing the Greenlandic-language version of Wikipedia, he discovered that almost every article had been written by people who didn’t speak the language.
A growing number of them had been copy-pasted into Wikipedia from machine translators—and were riddled with elementary mistakes. This is beginning to cause a wicked problem.
AI systems, from Google Translate to ChatGPT, learn new languages by scraping text from Wikipedia. This could push the most vulnerable languages on Earth toward the precipice.
Read the full story on what happens when AI gets trained on junk pages.
—Jacob Judah
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ Hungary’s next health minister can throw some serious shapes.
+ Here’s a welcome route to an AI-free Google search.
+ Movievia eschews endless scrolling to find the right film for your needs
+ A photography trick has turned a giant glacier into a tiny, living diorama.
Transcriptomic profiling and targeted validation reveal molecular mechanisms of oxygen therapy in high-altitude cerebral injury
BackgroundExposure to high-altitude hypoxia is associated with an increased risk of impaired brain structure and function, with oxidative stress and neuroinflammation widely recognized as key mechanisms involved. In this context, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is considered a potential intervention; however, the mechanism by which it affects cerebral function changes caused by high-altitude exposure remains to be further elucidated.ObjectiveThis study aims to explore and compare the therapeutic effects of normobaric oxygen (NBO) and hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) on high-altitude cerebral injury (HACI), and to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying their neuroprotective effects using transcriptomic profiling and targeted validation.MethodsA mouse model of high-altitude cerebral injury was established using a hypobaric hypoxia chamber. Mice were exposed to a simulated altitude of 7,000 m (approximately 9.8% O₂ at 0.47 ATA) for 3 consecutive days to induce severe hypoxia. Animals were divided into four groups: Control (Con), High-Altitude exposure (HH), post-HH treated with normobaric oxygen (NBO; 100% O₂ at 1.0 ATA for 1 h daily for 3 days), and post-HH treated with hyperbaric oxygen (HBO; 100% O₂ at 2.0 ATA for 1 h daily for 3 days). Brain tissues were analyzed using H&E staining, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), Western blotting for key pathway proteins, immunofluorescence for glial cell activation, and ELISA for inflammatory cytokines. Oxidative stress markers (SOD, MDA, GSH, NO) were also assessed.ResultsHistopathological analysis confirmed cerebral damage in the HH group, which was significantly ameliorated by both HBO and NBO treatments. RNA-seq revealed widespread disruption of the cerebral transcriptome following high-altitude exposure. Oxygen therapy was associated with partial restoration of global gene expression patterns. KEGG pathway analysis highlighted significant enrichment in pathways related to NF-κB signaling, cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction, IL-17 signaling, and PI3K–AKT signaling. Subsequent targeted validation demonstrated that oxygen treatment reduced oxidative stress (increased SOD and GSH; decreased MDA and NO) and modulated the PI3K–AKT signaling pathway (increased p-AKT/AKT). Concurrently, oxygen therapy attenuated neuroinflammatory responses, inhibiting microglial and astrocytic activation, reducing pro-inflammatory cytokine levels (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α), and modulating the TLR4–NF-κB signaling axis (decreased TLR4 and p-p65/p65). HBO treatment was associated with broader modulation of several molecular pathways involved in oxidative stress and inflammation.ConclusionExisting evidence suggests that HBO may exert protective effects against altitude-related brain injury. This mechanism likely involves activating the PI3K–AKT/Nrf2 axis to alleviate oxidative stress and inhibiting the TLR4–NF-κB pathway to reduce neuroinflammation, thereby partially restoring transcriptional homeostasis. However, the causal relationships between these pathways and their interactions require further validation and refinement.
How yoga shapes the brain: a systematic review
Yoga is a mind–body practice that originated in India thousands of years ago, and which has extended throughout the world in recent years. As it becomes more popular, more studies are being conducted regarding its health benefits in multiple areas, including the human brain, where results have shown that it can reduce stress, modulate neurotransmitters, increase cerebral blood flow, and affect brain structure and function. This review aims to provide a synthesis of the current knowledge on the impact of yoga on human brain structure and function, through the selection and analysis of 23 international peer-reviewed neuroimaging studies with healthy participants. These studies were selected from 216 results on Web of Science, PubMed and PsycInfo after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The final set of studies employed both neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques, including MRI, fMRI, and EEG. The results show that yoga may exert multiple effects on the brain. However, the heterogeneity of results may be explained by differences in sample characteristics, study designs, and the lack of a consistent definition of yoga and its distinction from meditation. Finally, the limitations of the present review are discussed, along with recommendations for future research aimed at better understanding the neuropsychological health benefits of yoga.
From peripheral initiation to central integration: a narrative review of the antihypertensive mechanisms of acupuncture in regulating autonomic nervous system homeostasis
Essential Hypertension (EH) is one of the most prevalent chronic cardiovascular diseases, imposing a significant burden on healthcare systems worldwide due to its high rates of disability and mortality. Long-term elevation of blood pressure leads to multi-organ damage in the heart, brain, and kidneys, resulting in severe complications such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease. Current treatment for hypertension primarily relies on pharmacological interventions. Although antihypertensive drugs have achieved notable success in controlling blood pressure, challenges remain, including poor long-term medication adherence, side effects, and inadequate blood pressure control in some patients with resistant hypertension. In parallel, acupuncture, a key modality of traditional Chinese medicine, has demonstrated unique advantages in hypertension management in recent years. Characterized by its holistic regulatory effects and minimal side effects, acupuncture is recognized by the World Health Organization as a recommended complementary and alternative therapy for hypertension, although its precise mechanisms remain incompletely understood. This review aims to summarize the “peripheral-central synergy” antihypertensive mechanism of acupuncture in regulating autonomic nervous system (ANS) homeostasis. Studies indicate that acupuncture primarily modulates autonomic homeostasis through the following pathways: (1) activating peripheral nerve fibers to convert physical stimulation into complex bioelectrical signals; (2) regulating synaptic neurotransmitter release and the expression of related membrane receptors; (3) modulating the synaptic microenvironment; (4) regulating the NTS-CVLM-RVLM neural circuit; and (5) modulating the HPA axis neuro-endocrine circuit. Through in-depth analysis, this review elucidates the multi-level and multi-dimensional impact of acupuncture therapy on primary hypertension, providing stronger evidence and a theoretical foundation for its clinical application.
Causal network analysis-based assessment of gray matter alteration in post-radiotherapy nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients using 3D T1-weighted MRI
ObjectivesTo explore the temporal and causal relationships underlying brain structural changes in post-radiotherapy (RT) nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients.MethodsA total of 38 post-radiotherapy NPC patients (33 males, 5 females; median age: 50.0 years, range: 27–63 years; median time post-RT: 17.2 months, range: 0.5–108 months) and 23 healthy controls (16 males, 7 females; median age: 37 years, range: 24–61 years) underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images, and their images were evaluated. The causal structural covariance network (CaSCN) analysis approach was applied to assess the causal relationships underlying radiation-induced brain structural alterations in these patients. Granger causality (GC) analysis was employed to morphometric data derived from T1-weighted MR images, which were ordered by the time elapsed post-RT.ResultsThe source-like directed associations were observed in the bilateral parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), the right gyrus rectus (REC.R), and the right caudate nucleus (CAU.R). The directed network analysis revealed that the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), REC.R and CAU.R exhibited typical source-like characteristics, and their structural changes exerted a key regulatory effect on GM volume alterations across multiple brain regions. While the left precuneus (PCUN.L), left temporal pole: middle temporal gyrus (TPOmid.L) and the left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG.L) were typical sink-like brain region that mainly received regulatory effects from source-like brain regions, acting as major target regions of structural damage.ConclusionOver time, post-radiotherapy NPC patients exhibited progressive changes in GM volume, where the PHG.L, PHG.R, REC.R and CAU.R were core source-like brain regions. The PCUN.L, TPOmid.L, and ITG.L show distinct sink-like features, which mainly receive regulatory effects from source-like brain regions.
A novel behavioral paradigm using mice to study predictive postural control
Postural control circuitry performs the essential function of maintaining balance and body position in response to perturbations that are either self-generated (e.g., reaching to pick up an object) or externally delivered (e.g., being pushed by another person). Human studies have shown that anticipation of predictable postural disturbances can modulate such responses. This indicates that postural control could involve higher-level neural structures associated with predictive functions, rather than being purely reactive. However, the underlying neural circuitry remains largely unknown. To enable studies of predictive postural control circuits, we developed a novel experimental paradigm for mice. In this paradigm, modeled after studies in humans and rats, a dynamic platform generated reproducible translational perturbations. While mice stood on their hind legs atop a perch to receive water rewards, they experienced backward translations that were either unpredictable or preceded by an auditory cue. To validate the paradigm, we investigated the effect of the auditory cue on postural responses to perturbations across multiple days in three mice. These preliminary results serve to validate a new postural control experimental paradigm, opening the door to the types of neural recordings and circuit manipulations that are currently possible in mice.
ASYM: multimodal depression recognition via mamba-enhanced attentive feature fusion
IntroductionDepression is a prevalent mental disorder with a severe global impact. Traditional interview-based assessments are limited by subjectivity, lengthy procedures, and unequal access to care. Although advances in AI have facilitated multimodal models for depression detection—using audiovisual data as an accessible alternative to biosignals—current approaches remain challenged by inefficient long-term temporal modeling and superficial multimodal fusion. Moreover, biosignal-based methods are constrained by high costs and narrow applicability. These challenges underscore the urgent need for optimized multimodal solutions.MethodsThis paper proposes ASYM (Attentive Synergy Mamba), a novel multimodal architecture for depression recognition, comprising three core modules: a Cross-Modal Interactive Mamba, a Multi-Scale Gated Parallel Fusion, and a Multimodal Enhanced Mamba. First, features from each modality are interactively enhanced using convolutional neural network and Bi-Mamba blocks. Cross-modal complementary information is then extracted via a cross-attention mechanism. A dual-path fusion module subsequently augments multi-scale representations and integrates cross-modal features through dynamic weighting. Finally, the feature representations are refined by a series of Bi-Mamba blocks.ResultsEvaluations on the D-Vlog and LMVD datasets using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score showed that ASYM achieved an accuracy of 70.91% and an F1-score of 77.13% on D-Vlog, and 74.68% accuracy with a 74.90% F1-score on LMVD. The macro-average performance across both datasets surpassed all compared mainstream methods. Ablation studies confirmed the necessity of each component, as removing any module significantly degraded performance, underscoring the efficacy and critical contribution of the proposed architecture.DiscussionWhile multimodal depression detection has improved upon single-modality approaches, issues such as computational inefficiency in long-sequence processing and inadequate fusion strategies persist. Our model addresses these limitations through multimodal interaction and multi-scale feature fusion. Future work will focus on clinical validation across diverse populations to bridge computational psychiatry and clinical practice.