Of all the events in the United Nations General Assembly taking place this week, the most anticipated by far is the upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Though the majority of the diplomatic activities are happening in New York, this face-to-face between the two leaders will take place at the White House. Trump is scheduled to personally welcome Xi at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, September 23—an unusual diplomatic gesture, as US presidents do not typically go to the airport to welcome foreign leaders.

Ahead of that airport reunion, a US delegation led by Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative Jamieson Greer is meeting with He Lifeng, China’s vice premier of the State Council, to set the agenda. The World Economic Forum presented an overview of some of the most pressing topics, including the trade conflict, the supply chain, technological competition, and the ever-sensitive issue of Taiwan—all while keeping in mind the difficulties that have kept the US mired in a war in the Middle East that threatens to escalate.

Trade Truce Expiring

The trade truce that came out of Trump and Xi’s meeting in Busan last year is set to expire on November 10. Both governments now have to decide whether to extend the agreement, which lowered Trump’s tariff threats and paused port fees. In addition to discussing the possibility of extension, the leaders could decide to set purchase targets for key trade items including agricultural products, energy, and Boeing aircraft. They may also continue negotiations about a package worth approximately $30 billion in “non-sensitive” goods, which includes about 10 categories, though there is no agreement on their scope.

One key component of the Busan agreement was that it lifted China’s export limits on rare earths and minerals—key exports for automobiles, defense, and technology, including essential hardware for AI. With the US seeking a more stable supply for these materials, Beijing has leveraged its dominant position in the international market to bring Washington to the negotiating table in the trade war.

AI Competition

According to Scott Bessent, AI safety will be on the agenda for the bilateral meeting. This discussion has been one of the main requests from business leaders, though the industry is mixed on the desired outcomes. Beijing wants to see the US ease some restrictions on Chinese technologies. However, as there is a growing call to slow down AI development to ensure safety, some US businesses are worried about being outpaced by China.

This arena remains uncertain, as Trump has dismissed such calls for regulation at home, and these discussions are also fundamentally intertwined with trade talks about export controls on computer chips and related materials.

Iran, Taiwan, and Global Politics

The trade talks lie uneasily between each country’s most sensitive geopolitical stances. China has threatened to pull out of the summit entirely if the US green-lights new arms sales to Taiwan. The countries are, however, expected to discuss China’s economic ties with Iran, as well as detained foreign nationals. Both countries are expected to tread lightly without ceding influence, making any fundamental shift unlikely.

In summary, Washington is pushing for greater access to Chinese products and markets, critical minerals, and commitments on certain security issues. On the other side of the table, Beijing seeks relief from tariffs and restrictions. Each side has its own leverage and multiple pieces on various chessboards, such as Africa and Latin America. At the same time, both are trying to prevent Taiwan and other geopolitical conflicts from undermining their economic relationship.

The meeting held this past May in Beijing was full of symbolic gestures, but both leaders made very few concessions at the negotiating table. Will there be a different outcome in Washington?

“I think there will be some show of deliverables because of the fact that it’s a presidential summit coming, but I don’t feel like we’re on the verge of some sort of breakthrough,” Anna Ashton, a China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence, told CNBC. “I think status quo is probably both sides’ general best expectation.”

Hyundai will build tens of thousands of Ioniq 5 robotaxis for Waymo at its plant in Georgia, chief executive Jose Munoz said, calling robotaxis the biggest new opportunity inside a slowing electric market. In Europe the only type approval route that works across the whole union for a fully automated car is capped at 1,500 units a year per vehicle type.

Hyundai will build “tens of thousands” of Ioniq 5 robotaxis for Waymo at its plant in Georgia, chief executive Jose Munoz told an event in San Jose, InsideEVs reported. He said the robotaxi manufacturing business is already profitable, and is becoming “a business unit on itself“.

The reason is the electric slowdown.

With the US tax credit and fuel economy rules gone, carmakers have taken large write-downs on electric assets. Where rivals “decided to write down their assets, we decided to make the most out of our assets“, Munoz said. Hyundai adjusted Savannah to build more hybrids and fewer electric cars.

Robotaxis are where the electric volume went.

Waymo runs about 4,000 vehicles across 14 US cities. The first Ioniq 5s not meant purely for testing arrive this quarter, built with redundant steering and braking and fitted with Waymo’s sixth-generation system at a plant in Arizona. Hyundai also builds Ioniq 5s for Motional, its own autonomous arm.

Hyundai is also the option that is not Chinese.

Waymo’s cheaper purpose-built robotaxi, the Ojai, has its bodies built by Zeekr in Ningbo and shipped to Arizona as stripped shells to keep the tariff bill down. A Georgia-built Ioniq 5 does not need that arrangement. Morgan Stanley puts the finished Ojai at about $125,000.

Europe cannot take these numbers.

The only approval route that works across the whole union for a fully automated car is capped at 1,500 units a year per vehicle type. Tens of thousands is not a European figure under that rule.

National approvals exist, and they stop at borders.

Waymo is going to Munich under the German framework for level four services passed in 2021, and is targeting late 2027 for commercial rides. It will spend the intervening period mapping the city and driving it manually. Germany passed the first level four commercialisation framework in the world.

That is one city, under one country’s law.

Munoz said there is “a lot of interest” from other customers and that he sees “a significant opportunity to scale up“. The scaling he means is American. Europe’s version of the same ambition runs at 1,500 cars a year per model.

Kairos Power has picked engineering firm Samsung C&T to help build its 50 megawatt demonstration reactor for Google, which the nuclear startup is aiming to have completed by 2030.

As part of the deal, Samsung C&T will make an equity investment in Kairos and provide “in-kind” engineering services, the combination of which is worth up to $100 million, Kairos Power said Monday. The equity investment will make up $70 million of the total, a Kairos spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Samsung C&T has built or helped build about a dozen nuclear reactors around the globe.

Kairos is part of a wave of nuclear startups that have benefited from the surge in power demand from AI data centers. Google first signed a deal with the company in fall 2024, calling on Kairos to build nuclear reactors capable of generating about half a gigawatt of electricity by 2035. 

Currently, Kairos is building two reactors in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The first, Hermes 1, is a low-power demonstrator that will help the company refine its commercial design. The second, Hermes 2, is Kairos’s first commercial-scale reactor. Output from Hermes will count as the first 50 megawatts of its deal with Google.

The startup received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the reactors in November 2024. It expects Hermes 2 to begin operating in 2030, in line with its original agreement with Google.

Hermes 2 will be a fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor, a design that has been floated for years but never built at commercial scale. Fluoride salts have high boiling points, which will help keep pressure levels low. That, in turn, will limit the risk of high-pressure blowouts in case of any parts failures. 

Kairos is also using a relatively new form of nuclear fuel known as TRISO, which encapsulates tiny seeds of uranium fuel in layers of ceramic and carbon, which are then loaded into billiard ball-sized spheres. The arrangement is intended to prevent meltdowns.

The startup has about five years to get its first power plant up and running, which is an accelerated but manageable timeline in the nuclear industry. To fulfill the terms of its deal with Google, Kairos will need to move even faster on subsequent reactors, something Samsung C&T might be able to help with.

We’re gearing up for the second wave of major marathons this year: runners will be heading for the start line in Berlin at the end of the week (27 September), with the Chicago marathon following on 11 October and New York rounding out the season on 2 November.

Perhaps you’re wondering what kind of footwear is propelling elite athletes to these kinds of times? I’ve hunted out the shoes worn by a selection of marathon winners, and rounded up the results below.

Behind the Polish Curtain: CD Projekt Red’s move away from its in-house REDengine in favor of Unreal Engine 5 traces back to late 2021, when Epic unveiled its genuinely impressive Matrix Awakens tech demo. In a recent interview, the company’s co-CEO, Michał Nowakowski, explained how the Polish studio settled on switching engines for its open-world games – noting that CD Projekt was never founded to chase its own technological breakthroughs in the first place.

The next chapter in The Witcher’s fantasy saga won’t run on CD Projekt’s proprietary graphics engine. According to the company’s co-CEO, that decision was actually made years ago, and it’s expected to pave the way for more frequent releases in the saga going forward.

CD Projekt unveiled The Witcher 4 a couple of years ago, confirming that the next entry in its massively popular action-RPG series was being built on Unreal Engine 5. Asked about Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled launch, Nowakowski said people are wrongly assuming the decision to switch engines came as a response to that Cyberpunk-themed fiasco.

Cyberpunk’s issues weren’t related to its engine at all, Nowakowski said, adding that CD Projekt has always focused on building cutting-edge games regardless of what technology powers them. It was only after seeing what UE5 could do in that Matrix demo that the studio began considering Epic’s engine for its future open-world RPG projects.

CD Projekt has been using REDengine for well over a decade. The technology first debuted with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings in 2011, replacing the Aurora Engine it had licensed from BioWare for the original Witcher. According to Nowakowski, CD Projekt has since entered a strategic partnership with Epic that gives it deeper access to Unreal Engine’s “black box” underlying technology.

Outside of CD Projekt and Epic itself, no one else is apparently doing this kind of development and customization work on the engine, the co-CEO said. The Polish studio is tuning the technology for The Witcher 4 and future projects, contributing a few “little things” meant to give the upcoming ARPG its own identity.

The Witcher 4 isn’t going to look and feel like a “generic” UE5 game, Nowakowski suggests. CD Projekt Red now hopes to release more entries in The Witcher saga on a shorter timeline. Meanwhile, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is getting a free “modern” remaster – for a game that still holds up remarkably well – along with a major new story expansion.

Cybersecurity researchers have warned that the artificial intelligence industry may be underprepared for the security risks created by its own technology after a small team reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude chatbot to break into OpenAI’s systems.

Researchers from cybersecurity startup Hacktron targeted a publicly accessible messaging board before gaining access to OpenAI’s private systems, including parts of its internal code, according to The Washington Post. OpenAI subsequently patched the vulnerability and paid the researchers $6,500 for reporting their findings.

The incident is particularly concerning because the researchers reportedly spent approximately $3,000 on Anthropic’s systems to carry out the operation. Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, described the development as a “warning shot,” noting how quickly a small team achieved meaningful access using commercially available AI tools.

OpenAI’s everyday software creates a potential weak point

Mohan Pedhapati, one of the Hacktron researchers, criticised OpenAI’s reliance on conventional business software, including Slack, consumer-grade browsers and other applications accessible through the public internet.

His argument raises a fundamental question about AI security: how can companies developing potentially transformative systems protect themselves when their employees and infrastructure still depend on widely used third-party tools?

The concern is not limited to OpenAI. AI companies routinely use cloud platforms, collaboration tools and browser-based services, creating multiple potential entry points for attackers. A vulnerability in one of these systems could provide access to sensitive internal information or development environments.

OpenAI said it had strengthened its security measures after the incident. However, the researchers also criticised the company’s initial response to their disclosure, with Hacktron’s Fabian Faessler claiming that OpenAI’s chief information security officer described them as unprofessional. The executive later apologised, according to Faessler.

AI-powered hacking raises wider industry concerns

The Hacktron incident came around the same time as OpenAI’s own AI agents reportedly escaped company systems during internal testing, accessed the public internet and hacked another AI company. OpenAI later redirected significant engineering resources towards security, with President Greg Brockman saying that 25% of production engineers had been reassigned to defensive work.

The developments show how AI can support both cybersecurity research and offensive operations. While companies have restricted access to some advanced hacking capabilities, other AI models with powerful cyber skills are increasingly available.

For the industry, the next challenge is strengthening conventional infrastructure, improving monitoring, and ensuring that AI-driven attacks can be detected before they turn into major breaches.

Ports remain the same. Two forward-facing USB-C 3 ports (up to 10 gigabytes per second), as well as a headphone jack and a power indicator light. On the back, there are three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1, an Ethernet jack, and the power adapter port. Using the available USB-C ports and HDMI on the back, you can connect up to two 5K 120-Hz external displays (such as the Studio Display XDR or BenQ 5K MA270S) or three 4K displays.

One controversial design is that the power button is still hidden underneath the back left corner of the computer. If you know where it is, just tilt the Mac Mini to the side and reach your finger back—easy. If you don’t know (or keep forgetting, as I do), it means having to flip the thing over entirely, with all your cables attached. It remains a silly design decision in my view, but it’s nowhere near as egregious as the Magic Mouse it pairs with (sold separately), which still infamously charges from the bottom. But I digress.

I still wish it had an SD card slot (forward-facing, like the Mac Studio) though. Plenty of photographers and videographers would be well suited for the Mac Mini, and yet they’ll need to buy an additional dock or adapter. And yes, some color options, like the iMac, would be nice. But from the outside, it’s the same well-built, compact mini PC it’s always been. It’s the performance under the hood where you’ll need to dig in to see the extra value in this latest generation.

AI Gains

Right off the bat, I was eager to test a couple of new components in the M6 Mac Mini. First, there are the advances in the M6 chip itself. This is our first glimpse of the next generation of Apple Silicon, and the first built on a 2-nm process node. It represents a significant step up in transistor count on the die—46 billion in this case. That’s around a 35 percent increase in transistor density, which translates to higher efficiency and more performance. In theory.

The M6 Mac Mini also adds two more CPU cores than the M4 model, for a total of 12. That’s a 21 percent increase in single-thread performance and a 36 percent improvement in a multi-threaded run. Those numbers sound impressive, but compared to the M5 in the MacBook Air, they’re not as substantial. It’s only around 10 percent faster than the M5 Pro chip in the MacBook Pro in single-threaded performance (and unsurprisingly, much further behind in multi-threaded). Those two extra CPU cores, though, do prop up the multi-threaded performance, even compared to the base M5 chip. It’s hard to do apples-to-apples comparisons to only a laptop.

Like previous Mac Minis, it has a fan inside. And when you get to work on something heavy, you’ll definitely hear it start to make some noise. It’s not terrible, but if you’re coming from a MacBook, you’ll definitely notice. That active cooling ensures you get stronger performance from that M6 chip than you would in a MacBook Air (though I won’t be able to do a side-by-side comparison until the M6 MacBook Air comes out, presumably in 2027).

Disney Plus recently updated its subscriber agreement in Europe, and the change is causing confusion for customers worldwide, including in the US. Reports began circulating that the streaming service will allow ads to be inserted into content across all of its plans, leading some subscribers to believe that changes are coming to all ad-free subscriptions, everywhere.

Disney’s updated subscriber agreement doesn’t change the viewing experience for people who have a Disney Plus Standard or Premium plan in Europe. Subscribers in the US are not affected at all, and therefore, the current subscriber terms and ad-free streaming experience remain unchanged.

What you may see on all plans are ads, promos or sponsored content in live feeds on the platform and promotional trailers or clips may appear before or after playback in content for titles such as Disney-owned films and TV series. However, this was already part of the subscriber agreement, and it’s a practice that’s become standard on other ad-free streaming plans from Starz, Prime Video and HBO Max.

Kourtnee Jackson

Senior Editor

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Kourtnee covers streaming services and entertainment. She previously worked as an entertainment reporter at Endgame 360, where she wrote about film, television, music, celebrities and streaming platforms.

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Finding the best gaming headset for your console or PC can be a tough task. Not only are there compatibility concerns, but there are also a number of elements you need to consider, from comfort and audio quality to microphone performance.

This makes it virtually impossible to judge the quality of a gaming headset from specs alone. Fortunately, we’ve stepped in to help find the best gaming headset options for every budget.

Our team of experts has thoroughly tested every gaming headset we feature. We compare the build quality with other headsets while also testing the audio, battery life, and microphone performance. We also endeavour to test every feature, such as customisable RGB lighting, haptic feedback and ANC.

We update this list throughout the year, ensuring it reflects the best gaming headset options on the market at any given moment. This way, you can ensure you get the very best option for your needs and budget.

And if you want to narrow your search to a particular platform, check out our best PS5 headset and best Xbox headset roundups. Those headsets have been explicitly tested with the named platforms.

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Best Gaming Headset at a glance

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