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The Download: The Pentagon’s new AI plans, and next-gen nuclear reactors

View original at technologyreview.com
MIT Technology Review - Ai Research Title: The Download: The Pentagon’s new AI plans, and next-gen nuclear reactors Date: 2026-03-18 12:38 Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/18/1134371/the-download-the-pentagons-new-ai-plans-and-next-gen-nuclear-reactors/ <p><em>This is today’s edition of </em><a href="ht…
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  • The Pentagon wants to mass-produce the Lucas kamikaze drones it used to strike Iran

    60% confidence
  • Uncrewed narco subs could move more cocaine over longer distances without putting human smugglers at risk of capture

    60% confidence
  • The Pentagon plans to set up secure environments for generative AI companies to train military-specific versions of their models on classified data

    60% confidence
  • An approaching wave of new nuclear reactors could introduce fresh challenges to nuclear waste management

    60% confidence
  • US officials say Anthropic can't be trusted with warfighting systems

    60% confidence
  • Allowing AI models to train on and learn from classified data is a major new development that presents unique security risks

    60% confidence
  • OpenClaw is now the largest, most popular, the most successful open-sourced project in the history of humanity and is definitely the next ChatGPT

    60% confidence
  • AI models like Anthropic's Claude are already used to answer questions in classified settings, including for analyzing targets in Iran

    60% confidence
  • Training on classified data would embed sensitive intelligence—like surveillance reports or battlefield assessments—into the models themselves

    60% confidence
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What we're seeing
Vertical AI Agents Attract a Funding Wave Across Fintech-Adjacent Industries
A cluster of AI-native startups applying autonomous agents to narrow, operational problems — hotel front-desk staffing (Dextr AI), identity/fraud risk for financial institutions (Baselayer), insurance distribution (Napo, Connie Health, MGT Insurance) — closed seed-to-Series A rounds within days of each other in September 2026, with CB Insights running a coordinated CEO interview series to spotlight them. The pattern points to agentic AI maturing from generic chat tools into vertical, revenue-generating products, with identity verification for AI agents themselves (Baselayer) emerging as a new fintech infrastructure category responding directly to AI-driven fraud risk.
Our read on the data ›
Signals we're tracking
Satellite-Terrestrial Network Integration Acceleration
Increased investment and launches in hybrid satellite-cellular networks across telecom industry; competitive responses from other carriers; regulatory activity around satellite spectrum; expansion of emergency/rural connectivity use cases
Patterns we're watching ›
Where sources disagree
ING Group
Both facts record the same metric (shares_outstanding) for ING Group at the identical observation date (2025-12-31). FACT A states 2,902,437,688 shares; FACT B states 2,902 million shares (2,902,000,000). The difference is 437,688 shares (~0.015%). This is a genuine value conflict, though the discrepancy appears to result from FACT B rounding to the nearest million while FACT A provides the precise count.
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