The warplane-dropped nuclear gravity bomb known as the B61 has been fully modernized with a new precision guidance system, the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced this week.

The B61-12 replaces several earlier variants of the bomb after more than a decade of life-extension work costing $9 billion. An estimated 500 of the nuclear bombs are deployed with the Air Force for use in Asia or from NATO bases in Europe.

The modernized bomb includes greater accuracy from a new “tail kit assembly,” likely modeled after those used by conventional Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits that turn “dumb bombs” into precision-guided weapons. The bomb also has “a substantial reduction in yield, with no overall change in military characteristics,” the NNSA said in a statement.

Technologists use the term “artificial general intelligence” to refer to a potential AI system that could outperform humans across all cognitive domains. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said this week that his company is on track to develop AGI. “We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’ and materially change the output of companies,” Mr. Altman wrote on his blog.

Google is also striving to develop AGI and has new plans for building large models simulating the entire world. Tim Brooks left OpenAI last year for Google DeepMind, the company’s AI unit, and is now assembling a team with designs on making AGI. In posts on social media, Mr. Brooks has shared job listings for research scientists and engineers to join him on “an ambitious project to build generative models that simulate the physical world.”

Google’s rush toward AI capable of imitating human reasoning comes after the company famously ousted software engineer Blake Lemoine after he raised concerns that the company’s AI system was “sentient,” or capable of having feelings. Google disputed his assertions. Mr. Lemoine left the company after experimenting with the new technology in 2022 and later warned of the technology’s use in warfare.

As AGI appears attainable to tech titans, meanwhile, Mr. Altman blogged that OpenAI has its sights on a new goal: “superintelligence.”

Leading U.S. AI company Nvidia has revealed its preparation for the arrival of AI-powered humanoid robots and shared its plans on Monday for the arrival of “agentic AI” in the workplace.

Speaking this week at the tech trade show CES, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company is focused on the types of robots that can work and function in the world around them, including agentic robots, self-driving cars and humanoid robots. He said robots characterized by agentic AI will be “information workers so long as they could accommodate the computers that we have in our offices.”

“The ChatGPT moment for general robotics is just around the corner,” Mr. Huang said. “And in fact, all of the enabling technologies that I’ve been talking about is going to make it possible for us in the next several years to see very rapid rates of surprising breakthroughs in general robotics.”

Mr. Huang announced a new partnership with Toyota to build the auto manufacturer’s next generation of autonomous vehicles. Automaker Mercedes-Benz is among the companies that are already collaborating with Nvidia on autonomous vehicle projects, and Mr. Huang said Mercedes will have cars powered by Nvidia going into production this year. Nvidia also released a new platform this week to help developers train their humanoid robots using “imitation learning” to more closely resemble humans. 

AT&T and Verizon say they believe they’ve halted the threat of China’s hackers accessing their networks, but the danger facing the U.S. telecom sector and its customers is far from finished. Federal investigators are aware of nine telecommunications companies victimized by China-sponsored hackers, which the Biden administration has identified as Salt Typhoon.

AT&T says it has made progress in booting the Chinese hackers out of its systems. “We detect no activity by nation-state actors in our networks at this time,” AT&T spokesman Alex Byers told Threat Status, adding that the company’s ongoing investigation showed that “the People’s Republic of China targeted a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest.”

Verizon similarly told Threat Status it had “contained” a cyber incident, which the company said involved the targeting of a “small number of high-profile customers in government and politics.” Verizon said it notified the affected customers.

While the two companies frame the hackers’ advances as involving a few targeted attacks hitting a small number of VIPs, President Biden’s White House has described China’s hacking goals as far more expansive, and other telecommunications companies are discovering and thwarting different issues from the suspected hackers. 

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters on Dec. 27 that federal officials did not yet have a good sense of the total damage.  

On Dec. 3, China announced a ban on exporting the strategic critical minerals gallium, germanium and antimony to the United States, writes Adam Muellerweiss, who asserts that “China’s announcement is more than just a shot across the bow; it threatens the economic security and national security of the United States,” and that “the incoming president and Congress must take quick and decisive action in response.”

“Antimony is used to make military technology including night-vision goggles, infrared sensors and bullets. Antimony is also used in starter batteries, which are used in tanks, howitzers and every vehicle on the road in the United States. These batteries start the vehicle and are responsible for the safety features of all vehicles: SUVs, ambulances, even Air Force One,” writes Mr. Muellerweiss, president of the Responsible Battery Coalition.

The “good news” is that the U.S. dominates starter battery technology and has a closed-loop system of recycling starter batteries,” he writes, adding that “Mr. Trump and the new Republican Congress must ensure that this system stays up and running. Republicans are eager to slash government spending, but they need to be sure not to drive up the cost of American battery manufacturing.”

• Jan. 9-10 — CES 2025, Consumer Technology Association 

• Jan. 14 — National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director Michael Casey, Intelligence and National Security Alliance

• Jan. 14 — Passing the Baton 2025: Securing America’s Future in an Era of Strategic Competition, U.S. Institute of Peace

• Jan. 14 — Reflecting on the Commerce Department’s Role in Protecting Critical Technology with Under Secretary of Commerce Alan Estevez, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Jan. 14-16 — Surface Warfare: Sharpen the Sword; 37th National Symposium, Surface Navy Association 

• Jan. 15 — Infrastructure Security in the Cyber Age: A Conversation with CISA Director Jen Easterly, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Jan. 23 — 2025 Defense R&D Summit, Potomac Officers Club