IO+'s week: innovation in times of change
Our weekly overview offers an overview of the most interesting stories around key innovations every Sunday.
Published on January 26, 2025
As editor-in-chief, Aafke oversees all content and events but loves writing herself. She makes complex topics accessible and tells the stories behind technology.
This week was dominated by Trump's inauguration. The US president signed the first set of presidential orders Monday after his inauguration, from declaring a state of emergency on the southern border to pardons for Capitol stormtroopers. Big tech (including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Jeff Bezos) sat in the front row during the ceremony—a big contrast to 2017.
In her column, Elcke dreams of a very different scenario - a nice change from the above news, if you ask me. We list what the tech world can expect from Trump's second term.
The startup taking on the AI giants
Trump also announced $500 billion in investments in AI. According to the former Google CEO, the US was already far ahead of China regarding artificial intelligence development.
Noteworthy, then, is DeepSeek. This Chinese startup recently launched DeepSeek V3, an open-source language AI model capable of surpassing those of industry giants such as Open AI and Meta. DeepSeek is unique because it has developed a model with a fraction of the computing power required by large AI companies. You can read all about it here.
Meanwhile, there was plenty of other news:
- Eindhoven's strategic move: Municipality to acquire Brainport Industries Campus
- I kept a CO₂ diary last week: My CO₂ diary: the emissions of a dog, a renovation and 3 glasses of wine
- Dutch productivity growth requires radical change, says TNO
- Innovations could end nitrogen crisis - if The Hague invests substantially more
- EU aims to keep startups by easing expansion rules
- The Dutch energy transition: new goals, new obstacles to overcome
- Low lymphocyte count in your blood predicts you will get sick
- Mosa Meat submits first application for EU market approval
- Developing new technologies for Defense: NATO's DIANA accelerator launched
By the way, you can find us on Bluesky and Mastodon these days. Have a great week!
Aafke Eppinga - editor-in-chief IO+