This week’s list of top data news highlights covers August 23, 2025 to August 29, 2025 and includes articles on preparing for volcanic eruptions using AI and personalizing recipes based on scans of ingredients.
1. Streamlining Metal Production
CloudNC, a smart manufacturing company based in London, has released cloud-based software that uses AI to automate the programming of machines that cut metal parts. The system examines the shape of the part and the requirements for cutting it, then automatically generates most of the instructions that guide the machine’s movements. The system can handle about 80 percent of the work that a skilled programmer would usually do.
IBM has introduced a 3D replay feature and AI chatbot for this year’s U.S. Open. Using player-tracking data, the system recreates points as animated avatars inside the tournament’s mobile app, letting fans review ball trajectories and placements even when they can’t stream live video. Alongside the replays, the AI chatbot offers match insights and win predictions.
The University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine is using one of the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputers to advance cancer vaccine research. The team is analyzing tens of thousands of patient datasets to detect hidden patterns and contribute findings to the Oxford Neoantigen Atlas, an open-access platform for cancer vaccine development. By processing data at speed and scale, the project accelerates the design of vaccines that were previously out of reach.
4. Preparing for Volcanic Eruptions
Tokyo’s metropolitan government has released an AI-generated video modeling a worst-case eruption of Mount Fuji. The simulation combines geological and hazard data to visualize ash plumes drifting into the capital and the potential disruptions to transport and daily life. By illustrating the risks in vivid detail, officials aim to raise public awareness and preparedness for an event experts still consider unlikely but possible.
The University of Missouri, in collaboration with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, has created maps showing corn chlorophyll levels by combining drone imagery with soil data. The drones carried cameras that captured light wavelengths linked to plant health, and machine learning models translated those signals into chlorophyll estimates across entire fields. These maps help farmers apply fertilizer more precisely, lowering costs and reducing environmental impacts while maintaining yields.
Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed an AI model that helps design therapeutic peptides—short chains of standard amino acids that stick to disease-related proteins. Traditionally, designing such peptides requires detailed 3D maps of the target protein’s structure. But this new model skips that step: it learns from the amino acid sequences of known peptides and proteins to predict which new sequences are likely to bind effectively. That means scientists can now target proteins involved in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases that were previously out of reach because their structures are too complex or unknown.
7. Designing Clothing Virtually
Como Women, a professional women’s football club in Italy, has launched its first merchandise collection created entirely with AI. Partnering with Fashion AI School, an online training program for designers specializing in AI-driven fashion, the club used generative models to design twelve apparel pieces and the campaign’s visual content, from product mock-ups to promotional imagery. The project makes Como one of the first football clubs to use AI across both design and marketing.
8. Creating Intelligent Appliances
Researchers at MIT have developed Kitchen Cosmo, a device that uses AI to generate recipes but looks like a conventional kitchen appliance. A built-in camera scans what ingredients are available, and users set constraints like time, diet, or mood using knobs and dials. It then uses GPT-4o to come up with a recipe and prints it out on a slip of paper. By embedding AI into a tactile, everyday object, Kitchen Cosmo aims to make interacting with advanced systems feel more natural than relying on screens or apps.
9. Streamlining Manufacturing Industries
Nvidia has introduced Jetson Thor, a computer that gives robots the ability to run advanced AI tasks directly on the device. Built with the company’s Blackwell GPU, it processes sensor data, recognizes patterns, and makes real-time decisions without sending information to the cloud. By enabling faster responses, Thor supports autonomous robots in industries like manufacturing, mining, and oil and gas.
10. Performing Robotic Drumming
Researchers at the Politecnico di Milano, a university in Italy, have developed a humanoid robot that uses its mechanical hands and feet to play a drum kit. Trained through reinforcement learning, the model learned timing and coordination by trial and error, converting songs into precise sequences of drum strikes. Tested on more than 30 tracks across rock, pop, and jazz, the project shows how AI can teach robots skills that blend rhythm, movement, and creativity.
