AI Research

$55 Million Series Seed+ Raised For Advancing Materials Research

Published

1 month ago

July 21, 2025

Radical AI is a company focused on transforming materials science and advanced manufacturing through the power of artificial intelligence. Its core mission is to dramatically accelerate the discovery, development, and production of new materials, which has traditionally been a slow and resource-intensive process. The company announced a $55 million Series Seed+ funding round led by RTX Ventures, with participation from NVentures (NVIDIA’s VC arm), Noa, Infinite Capital, Eni, AlleyCorp, and others.

Radical AI revolutionizes materials research by removing the inherent fragmentation in human-driven research and development. This means treating a material’s digital blueprint, its physical creation, and its real-world performance not as separate events but as a single, continuous stream of intelligence. This is achieved through:

— AI-based R&D – Unlike traditional approaches relying on trial and error, Radical AI employs advanced AI and machine learning to predict material properties, design new compositions, and optimize manufacturing efficiently.

— An integrated system for scientific intelligence – The company is developing a comprehensive, integrated system that seamlessly combines several key components

— Theoretical computation – Using computational models to simulate material behavior and predict characteristics.

— Machine Learning – Applying AI to analyze large datasets and identify patterns that human researchers might overlook.

— Experimental Data – Integrating results from physical experiments to improve models.

— Robotic Labs (Self-Driving Labs) – Automating experimental procedures and data collection allows continuous iteration and discovery without constant oversight. This method sees each stage—from digital design to physical creation and real-world performance—as a continuous flow of insights.

— Autonomous discovery – The company’s AI synthesizes insights from various sources like scientific literature, simulations, and real-time data, accelerating breakthroughs and finding new connections beyond human researchers.

— Solving major challenges – Radical AI seeks to address major global issues like space exploration, clean energy, advanced transportation, security, biotech, and semiconductors, all limited by advanced material availability.

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AI Research

TikTok Salaries Revealed: How Much AI, E-Commerce Workers Make in 2025

Published

8 minutes ago

August 31, 2025

Nathan McAlone

TikTok’s US plans are up in the air due to a divest-or-ban law that puts its future in jeopardy. But it’s still offering six-figure salaries to workers this year in key areas like e-commerce and artificial intelligence.

It’s sought to hire data scientists to sharpen its search algorithm, court workers to grow its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop, and bring in machine learning engineers to improve its content feed and recommendations.

The company’s jobs portal lists over 1,800 open roles in the US in cities like Austin, San Jose, Seattle, and New York.

Like other Big Tech firms, work expectations at TikTok and its owner, ByteDance, are demanding. The company runs performance reviews twice a year, and low scorers can be placed on performance-improvement plans or even shown the door. But the opportunity to work at one of the most influential tech companies in the world continues to draw in talent.

Outside e-commerce, TikTok is shaking up areas like music marketing and young people’s news habits. If it can navigate political tides in the US and China, where ByteDance was founded, it will stand alongside YouTube and a few other players in shaping the next phase of media.

“From a career growth standpoint, you have access to huge budgets and big names,” a former staffer said of working at TikTok. “Everyone in the industry wants to talk to you.”

While TikTok and ByteDance don’t disclose salary information publicly (unless required by state law), they do submit pay ranges in federal filings when they look to hire workers from outside the US.

To understand more about the company’s pay rates, Business Insider reviewed thousands of TikTok salary offers for foreign hires at the company, as well as its owner, ByteDance, for the first three quarters of this reporting year that ran through June 30. The results don’t include equity or other benefits that employees often receive in addition to base pay. But they paint a picture of the range of pay a worker might expect in roles like software engineering, data science, or product management.

The foreign-hire data shows a wide range of salaries at the companies. For example, a finance representative could earn $65,000 a year, and a global head of product and design position could fetch a $949,349 annual salary.

Backend software engineers at TikTok could earn between $144,000 and $301,158, based on the salary data, though rates increased beyond that for specialties like trust and safety. Data scientist positions at TikTok were generally offered between $85,821 and $283,629 — or more in specific areas like e-commerce. For TikTok machine learning scientists, the range was between $168,000 and $390,000, while general marketing managers were offered between $85,000 and $430,000.

These salary offers fall in line with pay rates in federal applications at other Big Tech firms. Meta’s first-quarter visa filings revealed it offered data scientists between $122,760 and $270,000, for example. Meanwhile, a staff software engineer at Google could receive between $220,000 and $323,000, according to the company’s first-quarter filings.

Here are the salary ranges TikTok and ByteDance offered for other roles in key business areas, based on recent applications. TikTok and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment.

E-commerce and TikTok Shop roles

TikTok Shop – Celebrity Team Live Operation Manager: $94,000

TikTok Shop – US Data Analyst – Logistics: $128,000

TikTok Shop – Campaign Strategy Operations Manager: $132,000

TikTok Shop – Category Manager – Health: $135,000

TikTok Shop – Anti-Fraud Ops Program Mgr – Global Selling: $180,000

TikTok Shop – Data Scientist: $218,000 to $304,000

Product Manager, User Growth Customer Lifecycle-TikTok Shop: $220,000

Strategy Manager, E-Commerce: $228,000 to $230,000

Software Engineer – E-commerce Recommendation Infrastructure: $237,000 to $315,207

TikTok Shop – Inventory Placement Strategy Manager: $250,000

TikTok Shop- Compliance Operation: $257,600

Senior Machine Learning Engineer, E-commerce: $320,000

Tech Lead – E-commerce Recommendation Infrastructure: $320,113

Logistics Procurement Lead, TikTok US E-commerce: $350,000

Senior Data Scientist, Content E-commerce: $350,000

Tech Lead, Global E-commerce Governance Platform: $365,000

Global E-commerce Solutions Manager: $480,000

AI and machine learning roles

Software Engineer (AI Platform): $144,000

Research Scientist (TikTok AI Privacy): $188,000

Product Manager GenAI Safety, Trust & Safety: $218,400

Senior Product Designer, Creation (AI Projects): $221,368

Machine Learning Engineer – Computer Vision: $228,960

Software Engineer, Machine Learning Infrastructure: $270,000 to $320,783

Site Reliability Engineer, AI Applications: $276,000

AI Product Manager: $300,010

Product Manager Lead, Emerging Product & AI Safety: $336,000

AI Security Researcher – Security Flow: $340,000

Senior Machine Learning Engineer, TikTok Recommendation: $386,115

Search roles

Search Product Operations – Creator Search Optimization: $110,000

Software Engineer – TikTok Search Business Infrastructure: $154,880 to $214,720

Product Manager, Search Ads: $205,000

Machine Learning Engineer – Search Ads: $229,200 to $354,000

Machine Learning Engineer – TikTok Search: $241,200 to $300,000

Senior Machine Learning Engineer – TikTok Search Business: $268,920

Product Manager – TikTok Search: $287,500

Product Manager, Search Content Ecosystem: $400,000

Leader of Search and Recommendation Product (ByteDance): $540,552

Search Ads Closed-loop Product Manager: $564,000

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AI Research

Prediction: 1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Will Be Worth More Than Nvidia and Palantir Technologies Combined by 2030

Published

1 hour ago

August 31, 2025

The Editors

Key Points

Nvidia and Palantir Technologies are collectively worth $4.6 trillion today. Meta Platforms could top that figure within five years.
Meta Platforms is using artificial intelligence to increase engagement and ad conversion rates across its social media platforms.
Meta is the undisputed leader in the burgeoning smart glasses market, a product that could eventually replace the smartphone.

Interest in artificial intelligence went parabolic following the release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Since then, Nvidia stock has advanced 1,090% to a market value of $4.2 trillion. And Palantir Technologies stock has climbed 2,340% to a market value of $370 billion. That means the companies are collectively worth $4.6 trillion.

I predict Meta Platforms(NASDAQ: META) will surpass that figure in no more than five years (i.e., before the end of 2030). The company is currently worth $1.9 trillion, which means its share price must increase by about 247% for its market value to reach $4.7 trillion. Here’s why I think that could happen.

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Image source: Getty Images.

Meta Platforms is a digital advertising giant with deep AI expertise

Meta Platforms owns three of the four most popular social media platforms as measured by monthly active users. That competitive advantage lets it collect consumer data on a tremendous scale, and that data helps brands target ad campaigns. As a result, Meta is the second-largest adtech company worldwide and is likely to gain market share, according to Morningstar.

Meta has already made strides in boosting engagement with artificial intelligence (AI). CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on the second-quarter earnings call, “Advancements in our recommendation systems have improved quality so much that it has led to a 5% increase in time spent on Facebook and 6% on Instagram.” He also said that advertising conversion rates increased across both social media platforms, meaning more clicks and purchases.

Importantly, Meta is investing aggressively in AI infrastructure and aspires to automate the entire ad creation process by next year. The Wall Street Journal writes, “Using the ad tools Meta is developing, a brand could present an image of the product it wants to promote along with a budgetary goal, and AI would create the entire ad, including imagery, video, and text.”

Meta’s Orion smart glasses could be the next big consumer electronics product

Meta Platforms is the market leader in smart glasses, a nascent market where shipments more than tripled last year and are forecast to increase faster than 60% annually through 2029. And Meta is actually gaining market share. Its Ray-Ban smart glasses accounted for nearly three-quarters of shipments in the first half of 2025, up from 60% in 2024.

Counterpoint Research writes, “Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses redefine the smart glasses experience by integrating wearable AI while combining a stylish design with enhanced smart functionalities.” The company sees a large opportunity on the horizon. Zuckerberg believes smart glasses could replace smartphones as the personal computing form factor of choice within the next 15 years.

To capitalize, Meta announced Orion last year, smart glasses that incorporate augmented reality (AR) that overlays the physical world with holographic displays. The company will not commercialize the product for several years while it works to make the technology less expensive. However, smart glasses that blend AR and AI could be revolutionary, as they would enable wearers to search the internet, talk with friends, and watch media content without phones.

Apple rose to great heights following its introduction of the iPhone in 2007. If Zuckerberg is correct about smart glasses being the next big breakthrough in consumer electronics, Meta could become the Apple of the next decade, which means its market value could increase substantially in the years ahead.

Meta Platforms could be a $4.7 billion company by mid-2030

To summarize, Meta has a strong presence in digital advertising and a leadership position in smart glasses. Adtech spending is forecasted to grow at a rate of 14% annually through 2032, while smart glasses sales are projected to increase by more than 60% annually through 2029. In total, that gives Meta a reasonable shot at annual earnings growth of 20%+ in the next five years.

That outlook makes the current valuation of 26.7 times earnings seem quite reasonable. And if Meta does grow earnings at 20% annually over the next five years, its share price could increase by 149% without any change in the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. That would bring its market value to $4.7 trillion by mid-2030, surpassing the current combined market value of Nvidia and Palantir.

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Trevor Jennewine has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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AI Research

We ask AI the tough questions about Akron

Published

1 hour ago

August 31, 2025

, Akron Beacon Journal

We interviewed Google’s AI Mode, posing a series of random questions.
AI answered questions about Akron, ranging from its sex appeal to the likelihood of Godzilla attacking.
Was AI accurate in its answers? You be the judge.

Don’t you feel bad for guys named Al? Suddenly their name looks like the abbreviation for artificial intelligence.

AI seems to be everywhere these days.

I read somewhere that media companies plan to embrace AI technology to “realize efficiencies” in news coverage. I’m not sure what that will entail, but I’d better bone up on AI before someone realizes my inefficiencies.

Today, we present an exclusive interview with AI — and I don’t mean some guy named Albert, Alex or Alvin. I posed a series of random, silly and juvenile questions in Google’s AI Mode to see what answers it might generate.

The responses amused, surprised and kind of frightened me. I worry that there will be a lot of efficiencies realized before much longer.

Here is how artificial intelligence replied to my questions:

Is Akron sexy?

The word “sexy” is subjective and depends on individual preferences. Akron, Ohio, is generally not considered a traditionally “sexy” city, but it does have its own unique appeal and positive attributes. It offers a small-town feel with access to big city amenities, affordable living, and a growing arts and culture scene.

Will Taylor Swift move to Akron?

It’s unlikely Taylor Swift will move to Akron. While she has been spotted in the Northeast Ohio area, dining at a restaurant in Chagrin Falls with Travis Kelce, this doesn’t indicate a move to Akron specifically.

Reports suggest that she and Travis Kelce have been looking at properties in Cleveland’s Eastside suburbs. These suburbs, like Chagrin Falls, where she was seen, are known for their affluent properties and privacy, which would be desirable for a high-profile couple like them.

What’s that smell in Akron?

The “smell in Akron” that residents have been noticing recently is likely due to either a corpse flower blooming at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens or unpleasant-smelling water caused by algae blooms in the reservoir.

Is there chronic flatulence in Akron?

Yes, chronic flatulence can be a problem in Akron, Ohio, as it can be anywhere.

Is cannibalism illegal in Akron?

While the state of Ohio, where Akron is located, does not have a specific law explicitly banning the act of cannibalism itself, it has other laws that would effectively make the practice illegal.

Is Godzilla a threat in Akron?

It seems you’re referring to Godzilla, the fictional giant monster, in a humorous way. In reality, Godzilla is not a threat to Akron, Ohio. However, if you’re interested in the fictional Godzilla universe, some sources playfully suggest reasons why Godzilla might avoid Ohio, like being “a coastal elite” or simply not wanting to go there.

Is it OK to park on the devil strip in Akron?

No, it is generally not okay to park on the devil strip in Akron. The devil strip, also known as the treelawn or curb strip, is the area between the sidewalk and the street, and it’s typically prohibited to park there.

Is Akron for lovers?

Yes, Akron is sometimes referred to as “Akron is for lovers” and is considered a romantic place. A dating website even ranked Akron as the #1 city in Ohio for moving for love. Akron offers a friendly atmosphere, rich history, and cultural diversity, making it appealing for couples. Some dating articles suggest that couples can enjoy outdoor adventures, explore the arts and music scene, and participate in community events.

Does Canton hate Akron?

No, there’s no widespread evidence to suggest that people in Canton, Ohio, universally hate Akron, or vice versa. While friendly rivalry and occasional lighthearted banter might exist between the two cities, particularly in sports, it’s not indicative of genuine animosity. Both cities are located in Northeastern Ohio, about 24 miles apart, and share some cultural and historical ties.

Is it OK to fill a blimp with hydrogen?

While it is technically possible to fill a blimp with hydrogen, it is generally not recommended and often prohibited due to its high flammability and the risk of explosion, as demonstrated by the Hindenburg disaster.

Will construction ever end in Akron?

While it might feel like construction in Akron never ends, it’s not permanent. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has several major projects underway, with some scheduled to wrap up in 2025, like the I-76/I-77/State Route 8 Akron Beltway reconstruction. Other projects, like the SR 8 bridge replacement, are expected to continue longer, with an estimated completion date of June 2028.

What is LeBron James’ favorite food?

LeBron James’ favorite food is Italian food, specifically pizza, and he enjoys it with a whopping 16 toppings, according to a YouTube video from a food review channel. In the past, he’s also mentioned a love for fish tacos, especially on Tuesdays, which he famously dubbed “Taco Tuesday.” While his diet is generally healthy and includes things like grilled chicken, fruits, and vegetables, he also enjoys treats like Fruity Pebbles cereal and Chunky Monkey ice cream.

Is it true that Akron tastes like bubble gum?

There’s a rumor circulating online that Akron, Ohio, smells like bubble gum. This rumor is similar to the urban legend that Bubble Yum gum’s soft texture was attributed to spider eggs. The rumor about Bubble Yum was debunked by the manufacturer, and it’s highly unlikely that Akron itself would taste or smell like bubble gum.

Will Akron declare war on Stow?

The notion of Akron “declaring war” on Stow appears to be based on a misunderstanding or a figurative expression. Akron and Stow are neighboring cities in Summit County, Ohio. While there can be local political differences or competition between cities, it’s highly unlikely that this would escalate to a declaration of war in any literal sense. One recent search result refers to a past situation where there was tension along the US-Canadian border and an Akron lawyer wanted to “grab the sword” and liberate Canada, but the Canadians did not want to be liberated.

When will Lake Erie swallow Akron?

Lake Erie will not swallow Akron. Akron is significantly inland and at a higher elevation than Lake Erie. The lake’s water levels fluctuate, but it will not expand to engulf a city located so far away.

Who is the weirdest dude in Akron?

Based on anecdotal evidence from Reddit users, one of the most talked-about “weird” or eccentric individuals in Akron, Ohio, is a man described as:

∎ Tall, white, with long hair and a beard.

∎ Frequently seen walking briskly on major roads, carrying an umbrella, day and night.

∎ Generally keeps to himself.

Is disco still popular in Akron?

While not widely popular in the same way it was in the 70s, disco music still exists and can be found in certain venues and events in Akron, Ohio. You can find disco bands for hire and even some venues that may have disco nights or feature disco music.

Does Akron have a favorite marsupial?

Zippy the Kangaroo, the female mascot for the University of Akron, is the city’s unofficial favorite marsupial. The kangaroo mascot is a widely recognized and celebrated figure throughout the Akron community.

Which bear is best?

The “best” bear is subjective and depends on the criteria used for evaluation. If “best” refers to adaptability, the American black bear is often cited as excelling due to its ability to live in various habitats, including areas close to humans, and its diverse diet. If “best” refers to strength and dominance, the grizzly bear or polar bear are often considered the strongest. Ultimately, the “best” bear is a matter of opinion and what one values most in a bear.

How many Akron residents does it take to change a light bulb?

This is a classic setup for a joke, and there are likely many versions floating around. Here are a couple of popular ones that play on common stereotypes or local knowledge:

“Five: One to change the lightbulb and four to lean on their shovels and watch.” This is a variation of a joke often told about council workers or others perceived to be lazy.

A variation poking fun at bureaucracy: “Five: One to change the lightbulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad and fried chicken.”

It’s important to remember that these are just jokes and shouldn’t be taken seriously or as an insult to Akron residents.

How old is Mark J. Price?

Mark J. Price’s age is not publicly disclosed in the search results. However, a column he wrote for the Akron Beacon Journal provides some context about his age based on his personal recollections. In the column, he reminisces about the Akron rubber companies, potholes on the North Hill Viaduct, the grated surface of the High Level Bridge, and early television broadcasts. While we can infer that Mark J. Price is likely older based on these memories, his specific birth date is not available in the search results.