Google has unveiled a new quantum computer called Willow that excels at a benchmarking problem, but it still isn't clear whether these machines can serve a practical purpose

A technology that packs more optical fibre connections onto chips could let them transmit 80 times as much information, speeding up AI training and slashing data centre energy costs

A US ban on exporting high-end chips used for AI development to China doesn't seem to have affected Tencent, as US researchers suggest they may have found signs of the tech giant still using the chips

A US ban on exporting high-end chips used for AI development to China doesn't seem to have affected Tencent, as researchers have found signs of the tech giant using the chips well after the ban was put in place

A robotic wheeled rat that was trained with AI learned how to play and fight with real rodents – and could one day offer companionship to lab rats

In a unique demonstration of brain implants that incorporate living cells, the devices were able to connect with the brains of live mice

The latest weather forecasting AI model from Google DeepMind can beat the leading providers more than 97 per cent of the time, and it is quicker and cheaper to run

A bird-inspired robot called RAVEN can walk, hop and jump into flight, an ability that could help people develop fixed-wing drones that can take off and land anywhere

Users of the healthcare app Alan whose queries were answered by a medical AI reported high satisfaction levels, but one exchange included "potentially dangerous inaccuracies"

EEG recordings used in neurology could be made simpler by replacing the usual electrodes, wires and gels with a tattoo printed onto the scalp

Robotic equipment can implant electrodes into cockroaches and connect them to an electronic backpack, making it feasible to mass-produce biorobots for search missions

Tiny robots designed to carry out environmental or industrial tasks could be powered by tricks involving surface tension

Tate Modern exhibition explores past echoes of today’s debates about virtual reality and AI-generated art

The content you see on social media is often determined by an algorithm - and it turns out that these algorithms can rapidly change your views

Determining when someone died based on their decomposing body is a subjective task, but artificial intelligence could bring some objectivity to the process

Near Space Labs’s autonomous balloon fleet is already taking high-resolution images of the ground, and its range will expand to the entire continental US early next year

John "Bud" Benson Wilbur isn't often remembered today, but his ideas about what the distant-future world of 1977 would look like are inspirational, says Annalee Newitz

The long history of robotics should teach us to be more sceptical when it comes to autonomous humanoid robots, says Nicole Kobie

Recent developments in AI and neurological research may prompt concern. However, placing outright bans on such research is unlikely to be the best solution - and may hold us back

Russia’s new ballistic missile flies on a high arc out of Earth’s atmosphere and releases multiple high-speed projectiles, making it challenging but not impossible to intercept