Google's Gemma Open Models Reach a Milestone of 150 Million Downloads

Google Gemini's Gemma open models reached a milestone of 150 million downloads this month. Omar Sanseviero, a developer relations engineer at Google DeepMind, also revealed that developers have created more than 70,000 variants of Gemma on the AI dev platform Hugging Face. This collection of lightweight models, built from the same research and technology that powers Gemini 2.0, was launched in February 2024 to compete with another open model like Meta’s Llama. In late April, it exceeded 1.2 billion downloads. The latest Gemma releases are multimodal, enabling users to work with images and text in 100 languages. Versions are also fine-tuned for particular applications, like drug discovery. Gemma and Llama have non-standard licensing terms, which some developers say they might be risky for commercial use of the models. Gemma just passed 150 million downloads and over 70k variants on Hugging Face🚀🚀🚀 What would you like to see in the next Gemma versions? — Omar Sanseviero (@osanseviero) May 11, 2025  

OpenAI Launched Its Coding Agent Called 'Codex'

Hugging Face Launches a Free, Experimental Cloud-Hosted AI Agent

Harvard President Takes a 25% Pay Cut While the Institution Faces Another Freeze of $450M in Federal Grants

Will All Software Be AI-Generated? More Technologists Believed So

An increasing number of technologists say that all code will be AI-generated. We collected some of the most notorious recent statements: • Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has predicted that almost all of the code in the future will be AI-generated. • Amjad Masad, CEO at Replit [in the picture above], said, "I no longer think you should learn to code." He added, "Learn how to think and break down problems as you would with humans and machines." • Sridhar Vembu, Founder at Zoho, predicted that AI will replace more than 90 per cent of the repetitive programming tasks. "When people say ‘AI will write 90% of the code,’ I readily agree because 90% of what programmers write is ‘boiler plate." However, not everyone agrees that AI will completely replace human programmers. Linus Torvald, the creator of Linux, dismissed such claims, stating, "AI is 90% marketing and just 10% reality." Should’ve added a few more footnotes to that one 😅 https://t.co/OzNk3nRnOr — Amjad Masad (@amasad) March 29, 2025

The University at Buffalo Will Create New Department to Harness the Power of AI

The University at Buffalo (UB), a flagship university in the SUNY system, will create a new academic department this fall dedicated to education and research on harnessing the power of AI. Kathy Hochul, Governor of New York, announced this month that the institution will receive $5 million to launch the new "Department of AI and Society," based jointly in UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences. The funds will be used to purchase high-performance computing for the university’s researchers and students, and to hire faculty members with expertise in AI. The initiative will complement existing academic departments and units, including UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, and Empire AI, the $400 million statewide consortium whose supercomputing center is at UB. The Department of AI and Society will offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in academic disciplines such as geography, health, public policy, communication, creativity and the arts, languages, etc. It will also offer a core set of courses that can be integrated into a wide range of majors. The University of Buffalo is also planning an AI & Society Building, a new facility featuring computer labs, offices, conference rooms, and startup incubator space. Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Robin Schulze, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will co-chair an advisory committee of faculty members developing the new department. Atri Rudra, the Katherine Johnson Chair in Artificial Intelligence and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will be the inaugural department chair.

Time Released the Ranking of the 2025 World’s Top EdTech Companies and Rising Stars

Chegg Announces More Layoffs and Less Revenue, Facing the Competition of AI Tools

OpenAI’s Startup Fund Invests In a Dozen Startups

Stripe Allows iOS Developers to Dodge Apple’s Commission

iOS app developers can now accept payments with the processing platform Stripe, outside any app, without Apple Store commission fees. This possibility of linking payments outside the apps, dodging Apple’s commission fees, has unexpectedly come after a landmark ruling on Wednesday in the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. Apple can no longer charge developers 27 percent fees on purchases made outside apps, and it cannot dictate how developers point users to buy things elsewhere. Stripe product manager Michael Luo demoed how it works on X. A guide showed developers how to accept transactions outside an app using Stripe Checkout. Instead of showing a transaction page inside the app, it launches Safari and takes users straight to a “buy now” page. Other apps are also beginning to launch new updates that link to the web for in-app purchases, allowing the developers to skirt Apple’s commissions. Patreon announced yesterday that it will update its app so creators can accept payments outside Apple’s payment system. Also, Spotify said it’s letting users subscribe to premium plans from links inside its iOS app. Stripe 🤝iOS developers Big news iOS app developers! You can now accept payments with @stripe outside of your app, with no iOS app store commissions. The Stripe team 🧑‍🍳cooked up a quick guide walking you through how. Go live now! Docs in the 🧵 pic.twitter.com/gKguWwBanv — Michael Luo (@AzianMike) May 1, 2025   It's official. Inked by Apple. I think by 3.1.3 you can even use Apple Pay in-app pic.twitter.com/PM9SGepWWV — Jake Mor (@jakemor) May 2, 2025

The Trump Administration Freezes Billions of Dollars in Research Grants to Harvard

The U.S. Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was freezing billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the institution concedes to several demands from the Trump administration. A letter from Secretary Linda McMahon said university leaders must address concerns about antisemitism on campus, school policies that consider a student’s race, and complaints from the administration that the university has abandoned before receiving additional federal grants. “This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote. The Trump administration has targeted Harvard over allegations of antisemitism on campus during pro-Palestinian protests. The protests were sparked by U.S. ally Israel’s military assault on Gaza after the October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated its actions against Harvard. In April, Harvard rejected numerous Trump demands, calling them an attack on free speech and academic freedom. It sued the Trump administration after suspending about $2.3 billion in federal funding for educational institutions while also pledging to tackle discrimination on campus. In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard said the government’s funding cuts will have stark “real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, (and) researchers” and jeopardize crucial medical and scientific research. Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest of any U.S. university, but the funds are often restricted and used for financial aid and scholarships.

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Sunday, November 23, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Today in AI & EdTech

Sunday, November 23, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

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OpenAI Launches Educational GPT Model

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