Google has announced a sweeping $37 million investment to boost the development and ethical deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) across Africa, marking its most ambitious commitment to the continent’s tech industry yet.

The initiative, announced Thursday, is aimed at transforming AI access and infrastructure while supporting real-world solutions to Africa’s most pressing challenges—from food insecurity and language barriers to skills shortages and innovation gaps.

The package includes previously undisclosed funding and extends across AI research, infrastructure, talent development, and scalable startup support. Google said the plan reflects its long-term commitment to fostering AI that is not only globally competitive but also deeply rooted in African needs and realities.

At the heart of the investment is the AI Collaborative for Food Security, a $25 million initiative spearheaded by Google.org. The program brings together researchers and nonprofit organizations to build AI-powered tools that can predict hunger outbreaks, improve crop resilience, and offer real-time agricultural advice to smallholder farmers. These tools aim to strengthen Africa’s fragile food systems in the face of mounting climate shocks and economic volatility.

In a region where over 280 million people face food insecurity, Google says the collaboration will leverage AI to create data-driven interventions that can help mitigate risks before they escalate into crises. This aligns with broader efforts to use technology for sustainable development across Africa’s agricultural economies.

Another major pillar of Google’s strategy is linguistic inclusion. With over 2,000 languages spoken across the continent, language barriers remain a significant impediment to internet access and digital literacy. To address this, Google awarded $3 million to the Masakhane Research Foundation, a collective working on AI models tailored to over 40 African languages.

The grant will support the creation of high-quality datasets, natural language processing tools, and voice applications. According to Google, this work will help millions of Africans access services and digital content in their native languages, broadening internet reach and fostering cultural preservation through AI.

Recognizing Africa’s fast-growing tech ecosystem, the tech giant is also launching a catalytic funding initiative that will support more than 100 early-stage AI startups operating in agriculture, education, and healthcare. The support will blend philanthropic capital with venture investment and technical mentorship to scale startups solving local problems.

To support this ecosystem, Google unveiled plans to open Africa’s first AI Community Center in Accra, Ghana. The center will serve as a hub for collaborative learning, research, and community innovation. Programs will focus on AI literacy, social impact applications, and intersections with the arts, aiming to provide hands-on experience and foster homegrown talent.

Google’s push into education also includes 100,000 new Google Career Certificate scholarships in Ghana. These self-paced programs offer training in AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, and other digital fields. Google.org will complement this with an additional $7 million investment to support AI education across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana. This funding will facilitate localized AI curricula, digital safety programs, and support for nonprofit partners and academic institutions.

Further, Google is making direct academic investments to nurture African AI leadership. It has awarded two $1 million research grants—one to the African Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AfriDSAI) at the University of Pretoria, and another to the Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute in South Africa. These grants will fund foundational research and postgraduate scholarships to build the next generation of AI scientists on the continent.

Commenting on the new investment, James Manyika, Google’s SVP for Research, Labs, and Technology & Society, said: “Africa is home to some of the most important and inspiring work in AI today. We are committed to supporting the next wave of innovation through long-term investment, local partnerships, and platforms that help researchers and entrepreneurs build solutions that matter.”

This latest announcement builds on earlier projects by Google in Africa, including AI-powered maternal health dashboards in Nigeria and Ghana, wildfire alert systems in East Africa, and the development of regional language models at its research hubs in Accra and Nairobi.

The investment marks a significant moment in Africa’s digital transformation and underlines Google’s belief that the continent is not only a growth market but a potential AI leader in its own right.

“By building with local communities and institutions, we’re supporting solutions that are rooted in Africa’s realities and built for global impact,” said Yossi Matias, VP of Engineering and Research at Google.

Tesla is raising the alarm over a looming shift in the U.S. auto market, warning customers to place their orders now or risk losing out on access to its electric vehicles as President Donald Trump’s newly signed tax law ends the federal EV tax credit.

The move, which removes the $7,500 electric vehicle incentive effective September 30, is already reshaping the market, with Tesla scrambling to sell its inventory and American automakers bracing for a turbulent second half of the year.

“Given the abrupt change, we have limited supply of vehicles in the US this quarter,” said Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja on the company’s earnings call. “If you are in the US and looking to buy a car, place your order now as we may not be able to guarantee delivery orders placed in the later part of August and beyond.”

The warning follows the passage of legislation extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while removing critical green energy subsidies—a development industry analysts say could tilt the balance of power in favor of smaller EV startups like Lucid and Rivian, who are less dependent on the tax credit.

In response, Tesla has rolled out a series of time-limited incentives, including free Supercharging, a Full Self-Driving trial, and a $1,000 discount for military personnel, teachers, and first responders, as it pushes to move vehicles before the September deadline.

Tariffs Add to Tesla’s Troubles as “Weird Transition Period” Unfolds

Tesla’s top executives also pointed to the Trump administration’s tariff policies as a mounting challenge, with the company incurring $300 million in additional costs this quarter due to trade-related duties.

“We are in an unpredictable environment on the tariff front,” Taneja said.

CEO Elon Musk described the present moment as a “weird transition period” as Tesla tries to navigate not only the expiration of tax incentives but also regulatory ambiguity surrounding autonomous driving technologies.

U.S. Automakers Face Disadvantage as Foreign Brands Gain Ground

Tesla’s concerns reflect a broader anxiety across American manufacturers, who say the combined impact of tariff hikes and policy rollbacks is placing U.S. automakers at a structural disadvantage.

Spencer Hakimian, founder of Tolou Capital Management, echoed those concerns in a note reacting to a recent 15% tariff on foreign autos, which investors see as giving Japanese carmakers an edge.

“Toyota is up +8% on the news of a 15% tariff. Why? It’s simple,” Hakimian explained. “Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other American manufacturers are going to be paying 50% more for their steel, 50% more for their copper, 25% more for their Canadian production, 25% more for their Mexican production, and 55% on their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay 15% more and they’re done with all the shenanigans. Ford has to pay much more than that. A lot more in fact. We’ve given a Japanese car company an advantage over American car companies. All in hope of bringing auto jobs back to America.”

Industry analysts say the combination of tariff hikes and subsidy removals may backfire, with American firms bearing disproportionate costs while foreign competitors, like Toyota and Hyundai, sidestep the worst of the trade penalties.

Weak Earnings Underscore Market Shift

Tesla’s Q2 2025 earnings report reflected the deepening pressure. The company posted $22.5 billion in revenue, its sharpest quarterly decline in 10 years, falling short of Wall Street expectations. Earnings per share landed at 40 cents, versus a projected 42 cents. The company delivered 384,000 vehicles in the quarter ending June, a modest achievement in an increasingly volatile market.

Tesla’s stock fell over 4% in after-hours trading, contributing to a 17.6% year-to-date decline.

As the countdown to the tax credit sunset continues, Tesla’s message to Americans is that the window is closing fast. With tax incentives vanishing and tariff costs escalating, the affordability and accessibility of Tesla’s EVs—once seen as central to America’s energy transition—are now under threat.

And Tesla isn’t the only one sounding the alarm. Across the industry, U.S. automakers are preparing for a future defined more by political and regulatory maneuvering than market forces, with customers caught in the crossfire.

After several delays, OpenAI says its next foundational model, GPT-5, could launch as early as next month, The Verge and Axios report. The timing is tentative, but there are indications that the release is imminent: Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman teased on social media that it was coming “soon,” and testers and “red teams” are gauging its capabilities and security. GPT-5 is expected to merge traditional and reasoning models like o3, with mini and nano versions also available through its API.

OpenAI is preparing to launch its most powerful artificial intelligence model yet—GPT-5—as early as August, according to The Verge, citing sources familiar with the company’s internal timeline.

The release, if it happens as expected, will mark a critical leap in generative AI development and set the tone for the next stage of competition among global AI powerhouses.

The model has been under intense internal testing for months. Back in May, Microsoft engineers were reported to be provisioning significant server capacity in anticipation of a possible launch, prompting speculation about a release timeline that has since shifted slightly. Sources say that OpenAI has now entered the final phases of testing and refinement, with the infrastructure upgrades and technical evaluations largely in place.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been steadily teasing GPT-5’s capabilities. In a recent podcast appearance with comedian Theo Von, Altman shared how the model solved a question he struggled with, prompting him to say he felt “useless relative to the AI.” He also confirmed publicly via a post on X that the model is coming soon, adding to growing anticipation across the developer and enterprise ecosystem.

One key element of the launch is the company’s planned release of mini and nano variants of GPT-5, designed to serve a range of needs from lightweight consumer applications to enterprise-grade deployments. These models will be offered via OpenAI’s API and platform, positioning the company to expand its reach across varied sectors, including software development, creative industries, customer service, finance, and education.

Unlike prior rollouts—such as GPT-4o, which introduced real-time multimodal capabilities—GPT-5 is expected to integrate a broader range of functionalities into a single, cohesive system. Altman has described the model as “a system that integrates a lot of our technology,” with internal discussions suggesting GPT-5 will combine memory, reasoning, multimodal input comprehension, and potentially real-time learning into a unified AI agent.

This bundling strategy reflects OpenAI’s intent to streamline user interaction with its tools by reducing fragmentation across different versions. The goal, according to developers close to the company, is to simplify deployment and ensure consistency in performance and behavior across devices and platforms.

The upcoming release is also seen as OpenAI’s strategic response to intensifying pressure from rivals like Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama series, and Mistral’s open-weight models. As these companies race to dominate both foundational AI and consumer-facing interfaces, GPT-5 could determine whether OpenAI maintains its current leadership position or begins to cede ground to competitors offering faster, cheaper, or more open alternatives.

Beyond raw performance, OpenAI’s model strategy also carries significant commercial weight. Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, is expected to embed GPT-5 across its Azure cloud platform, Copilot products, and enterprise offerings. The integration could push further adoption of AI-powered workflows within Microsoft’s global client base, from small businesses to Fortune 500 firms.

As the launch window draws closer, developers and researchers are paying close attention to how GPT-5 will handle long-form reasoning, factual consistency, and safety guardrails—key issues that have dogged even the most advanced models. OpenAI has faced criticism over hallucinations and content control, and expectations are high that GPT-5 will demonstrate meaningful progress on these fronts.

For OpenAI, this is more than a product upgrade—it’s a litmus test for whether generative AI can transition from experimental hype to mission-critical infrastructure. GPT-4 was criticized for hallucinating, after users had expected that the model would not come with the shortfall. Even Altman said he was surprised at the model’s level of hallucination. GPT-5 is thus expected to be a better version, with many of the needed corrections.