🩺 OpenAI’s Consumer Health App Ambitions
OpenAI is reportedly exploring building consumer health tools like a personal health assistant or data aggregator. Recent health-focused hires and partnerships hint at a larger healthcare strategy. Investors believe OpenAI’s scale could finally crack Big Tech’s failed health data challenge.

🍏 iOS 27 to Add Three Major AI Upgrades
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports iOS 27 will debut three new “Apple Intelligence” features: a visually redesigned Siri, an AI-powered web search tool, and a health-focused AI agent integrated into a revamped Health+ service. Expected in 2026, the update signals Apple’s deeper push into personalized AI.

🗺️ Google Maps Adds AI Builder Tools
Google Maps launched Gemini-powered tools letting users create custom map projects from text prompts. The new builder and styling agents generate interactive prototypes, while an MCP server connects AI assistants to Maps data and docs for smarter, grounded map experiences.

🔲 Beyond Microchips: The Rise of Wafer-Scale Systems
As traditional chips hit physical limits, engineers are exploring wafer-scale computing, using entire silicon wafers as single processors. Firms like Cerebras lead with the WSE-3, packing 4 trillion transistors and 7,000× more bandwidth than top chips, signaling a shift toward “data centers in a box.”

Moonshot’s Kimi K2 Thinking — an open-source model — posts surprising benchmark gains against GPT-5 on reasoning and search.

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In a New York Times guest essay, philosophy professor Barbara Gail Montero contends that artificial intelligence, like intelligence itself, may soon be understood as conscious through evolving human interaction and shifting concepts rather than a fixed scientific threshold. Drawing on Alan Turing’s 1950 argument that the question “Can machines think?” is too vague, Montero claims that our definitions of intelligence—and soon consciousness—change as technology advances. She concludes that even if A.I. achieves a form of consciousness, this may not automatically grant it moral standing, since humans already ignore many conscious beings.

Highlights:

Forward Future Takeaways:
Montero’s essay reframes the A.I. consciousness debate as a philosophical evolution, not a technological milestone. Her argument underscores how language and cultural context, as much as code or computation, shape what we call “thinking” or “feeling.” The larger question isn’t whether A.I. is conscious, but whether humanity is prepared to expand—or redefine—the boundaries of moral consideration in an age of machine minds. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)

While competitors chase app store glory with viral video generators, Anthropic is doing something decidedly less flashy: building AI for banks, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies. It's the kind of strategic choice that makes for terrible Twitter moments but excellent balance sheets.

Paul Smith, Anthropic’s Chief Commercial Officer, joined us live at Dreamforce to unpack that strategy—how the company builds trust with banks and global enterprises, why “safety” is actually a growth lever, and what makes Claude different from its flashier rivals. This article distills Anthropic’s playbook for turning caution into competitive advantage. → Continue reading.

OpenAI has committed to $1.4 trillion in computing costs over the next eight years — over 70× its roughly $20 billion annual revenue—fueling concern about the sustainability of the AI boom. CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar faced scrutiny after suggesting government or investor backing might help fund the massive outlay, before clarifying that OpenAI isn’t seeking federal guarantees.

The company expects revenue reach “hundreds of billions” by 2030, banking on rising demand for ChatGPT and enterprise AI tools. Analysts warn that without profitable business lines or cheaper chips, the startup’s ambition to rival Microsoft and Google may strain investor faith. → Read the full article here.

A Nature Sustainability study projects that U.S. AI server expansion could generate 24–44 million tons of CO₂ annually and consume up to 1.1 billion cubic meters of water per year by 2030. The analysis, covering 2024–2030, finds that without major advances in clean energy and efficiency, the AI industry will fall short of its net-zero goals and depend heavily on uncertain carbon offsets and water restoration schemes.

While best practices could cut emissions and water use by as much as 73% and 86%, researchers warn that existing grid and infrastructure limits curb their effectiveness. The study urges faster renewable deployment and coordinated policy to ensure sustainable AI growth. → Read the full paper here.

🧐 Palantir CEO Defends U.S. Surveillance: Alex Karp said an American surveillance state is preferable to China leading in AI, arguing national dominance outweighs privacy concerns.

🚀 Tech Giants Bet on India’s AI Boom: OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity are offering free AI tools to millions via telecom deals—aiming to hook users early and harvest data.

💸 Tsavorite Lands $100M in AI Chip Pre-Orders: The 2023 startup secured global demand for its Omni Processing Unit, uniting CPU, GPU, and memory to boost AI efficiency and scalability.

🤖 Baseten Launches Training Platform for Open Models: Valued at $2.15B, Baseten unveiled an AI training system letting enterprises fine-tune and own model weights.

📖 Wikipedia Tells AI Firms: Pay, Don’t Scrape: The Wikimedia Foundation urged developers to use its paid Enterprise API and credit contributors, after bots mimicking humans drove traffic spikes.

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Thanks for reading today’s newsletter—see you next time!
Matthew Berman & The Forward Future Team

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