An innovative material stronger than steel is on the verge of mass production, originating from research conducted at the University of Maryland. In 2018, materials scientist Liangbing Hu discovered a method to transform ordinary wood into a substance exceeding the strength of steel.

Anthropic co-founder and Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan will be a main speaker at TechCrunch Sessions: AI on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The event offers a chance to delve deeper into the AI community with a limited-time discount on tickets. Kaplan's session will cover hybrid reasoning models and Anthropic‘s risk-governance framework for mitigating potential AI risks; he was appointed Anthropic’s responsible scaling officer in October.

Jared Kaplan's background includes 15 years as a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied quantum gravity, field theory, and cosmology. He also contributed to the development of GPT-3 and Codex at OpenAI before co-founding Anthropic. At Anthropic, he helped develop Claude, the company’s family of AI assistants. Anthropic's recent advancements include the launch of Claude 3.7 Sonnet in late February, described as its “most intelligent model yet,” featuring hybrid reasoning for handling both simple and complex queries efficiently. Anthropic has also introduced an autonomous research capability and Google Workspace integration, positioning Claude as a “true virtual collaborator” for enterprise users and is reportedly developing a voice assistant feature for Claude. In March, Anthropic announced a fundraising deal valuing the company at $61.5 billion, significantly up from $16 billion the previous year.

At TechCrunch Sessions: AI, Kaplan will discuss how AI will revolutionize human-computer interaction, work processes, and social dynamics, offering practical insights for teams looking to implement AI effectively.