Microsoft to ‘unlock Ireland’s AI potential’ with €4m investment

Ireland has announced a significant investment of €170 million into European space programmes, aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of Irish space-tech companies on a global scale. This funding is part of a broader strategy to bolster Ireland's presence in the rapidly evolving space industry.

Microsoft has unveiled the Fara-7B, an agentic AI model built on the Qwen framework, designed to operate directly on personal computers. This model is trained on 145,000 synthetic trajectories generated through the Magentic-One framework, enabling users to perform complex tasks locally while enhancing privacy and reducing reliance on cloud services.

Microsoft has introduced Fara-7B, a new AI model designed to automate tasks directly on users' PCs, enhancing user experience and privacy by performing complex operations locally rather than relying on cloud services. This model features 7 billion parameters, positioning it as a competitive alternative to existing AI solutions like GPT-4o.

The €750m Inspire investment package was launched with the goal of transforming research infrastructure across Ireland’s higher education sector. This initiative aims to enhance the capabilities and resources available for research and innovation in the country.

AppSelectBench has been introduced as a benchmark for evaluating application selection in Computer Using Agents (CUAs), addressing the need for effective application selection before invoking fine-grained tools like APIs. This benchmark aims to enhance the operational efficiency of CUAs by ensuring they select the appropriate applications based on user intents.

Microsoft’s AI chatbot Copilot will no longer be available on WhatsApp starting January 15, following the platform's new policies that prohibit general-purpose AI chatbots from utilizing its services. This decision reflects WhatsApp's efforts to regulate the use of AI technologies on its platform.

President Donald Trump announced the Genesis Mission on November 24, 2025, likening it to the Manhattan Project, aiming to revolutionize scientific research in the U.S. The initiative directs the Department of Energy to create a closed-loop AI experimentation platform that integrates national laboratories and government data for enhanced research capabilities.