• Supercritical CO₂ could eliminate some of rocketry’s most expensive infrastructure requirements
• Cold launches avoid exposing launch pads to destructive exhaust temperatures exceeding 3,000°C
• Engine ignition occurs only after the rocket clears the launch platform safely

Chinese aerospace startup Z-Trak Space is exploring an unusual launch system using carbon dioxide (CO₂) commonly associated with fizzy drinks rather than rocket exhaust.

The proposal centres on supercritical CO₂, a state achieved when the gas remains above specific temperature and pressure thresholds simultaneously.

To get the most out of an AI chatbot these days, you have to pay up. The free tiers of the most popular chatbot options are decent, but those looking to take advantage of all the features will be forced to pay a premium. A couple of years ago, the idea of actually paying for AI seemed absurd, but that’s not the case now. 

A recent CNET survey revealed that US adults pay an average of $111 on subscriptions per month and lose up to $252 annually on unused subscriptions annually, with millennials and Gen Z wasting the most. The AI chatbot you once hoped to get more out of — but may no longer use — could be one of them.

If you’re looking to pay for an AI chatbot, you have options, and not all subscriptions are equal. Some just give you higher access to better models, where others offer a lot more. Paying for AI also doesn’t guarantee an ad-free experience. Below, we’ll break down what you actually get when you pay up for some of the most popular chatbots.

By the numbers

Here’s a price breakdown of the most popular chatbots. 

ChatGPT Go, Plus and Pro

OpenAI’s first paid tier, Go, is its newest plan. For only $8 a month, you’ll get higher limits and more access across the board. That said, if you’re looking to avoid ChatGPT’s ads, you won’t be able to do so with this plan and will need to bump up to the next tier to go ad-free. 

The second premium plan is ChatGPT Plus, which opens the doors to extended GPT-5.5 access and higher limits on messaging, uploads, data analysis and image generation. You’ll also get advanced voice mode with video and screensharing and the ChatGPT agent. 

If you want more, you can opt for one of ChatGPT’s Pro plans, which cost $100 or $200 a month. The $100 plan will net you 5x usage, and the $200 plan gives you 20x more usage. The Pro plans will provide Pro reasoning with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro, Maximum Codex tasks, and unlimited file uploads and image generation. The plans also give users maximum memory, deep research and agent mode. Those on the Pro plans will also get first dibs on trying out new features for ChatGPT.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Google AI Plus, Pro and AI Ultra

With Gemini, Google is integrated at the heart of the chatbot experience, making it a great option for Google users. 

Despite the abundance of features in the Google AI Pro plan, Gemini’s free tier offers plenty for most people. Like ChatGPT, Google also introduced a $8 plan. The Plus plan offers 200GB of storage and more access to the latest Gemini models. Once you start shelling out some cash for Google’s AI plans, higher usage access and more features follow. 

Google’s AI Pro offers more features across the board than the free and Plus version, unlocking Gemini in Google Workspace apps, 1,000 credits for the Flow filmmaking tool and more advanced models in Search’s AI Mode. It doesn’t stop at Gemini, though. You’ll also get 5TB of storage for Google Photos, Drive and Gmail, along with a YouTube Premium Lite plan. This plan also includes a 10% credit on purchases from the Google Store. 

During Google I/O 2026, the AI subscriptions got shaken up once more. There are now two AI Ultra plans that unlock different features and higher usage limits. 

The newest plan is AI Ultra ($100), offering 5x higher usage limits compared to the AI Pro Plan. The $100 option gives access to Gemini 3.5 Flash, priority access to Google Antigravity and a YouTube Premium Individual plan. Google says this plan was specifically tailored for developers, technical leads, knowledge workers and advanced creators. 

The highest tier of Google’s AI subscriptions is the now-$200 plan, down $50 from when it was introduced. This plan offers 20x higher usage limits compared to the $100 plan. 

Both AI Ultra plans offer access to Gemini Spark, Google’s 24/7 agent that can act on your behalf and perform tasks for you. It can tap into other Google products and get things done for you in the background — as long as you’re willing to give it even more of your data. 

Lastly, the $200 AI Ultra plan gives subscribers access to Project Genie, an advanced generative AI model that can build 3D worlds for just about anything you want. 

Copilot

Microsoft’s Copilot has the advantage of being preinstalled on a ton of Windows computers, making it incredibly accessible (like Gemini on Android). Although it’s based on ChatGPT models with Microsoft Graph, Copilot feels different enough to be its own thing. 

To my surprise, Copilot produced the most interesting images when I compared it to the other chatbots. Sometimes Gemini and ChatGPT generated similar images, but Copilot nearly always produced something more distinct. Even if I don’t do it all that often, I still consider it a go-to feature. 

Much like Google, Copilot integrates well with Microsoft 365 apps, though some of its features are locked behind Microsoft 365 for Business, like its NotebookLM competitor, Copilot Notebooks. Without jumping into 365 for business, Copilot offers three plans that give you access to higher limits and allow you to use it in select Microsoft 365 apps. The upgraded plans will also give you access to Deep research models and Actions, which allow Copilot to fill out forms for you or assist in shopping. 

Perplexity

Perplexity is our favorite chatbot for research, but the free version limits you to three Pro searches and Research uses per day. That might be fine for casual users, but those really trying to tap into Perplexity’s capabilities will want a bit more of everything, and you’ll need to pony up $20 a month to really get going with it. 

Perplexity Pro will give you unlimited Pro Searches and unlimited file uploads, and more file uploads per Space. It will also unlock image generation and access to more advanced models than the standard “best” model in the free version.  

Perplexity also has Comet, its limited-access web browser with AI baked right in. Pro and Max subscribers receive Comet Plus included in their subscription. 

Claude Pro and Max

The paid version of Anthropic’s Claude is in line with the competition, costing $20 a month, and it boasts a 5x boost in usage per session versus the free version during peak hours, though limits are still in place. Basically, if you send basic inquiries of up to 200 English sentences, each roughly 15 to 20 words, you’ll be able to send about 45 messages every 5 hours with Claude Pro. 

Despite taking the top spot on our best chatbot list, Anthropic’s pricing page for Claude’s Pro and Max plans feels a bit dry compared to others on the list. The $20 Pro plan’s first feature with “more usage” is immediately followed by an asterisk that references the limits in place for the Pro plans. Such limits are to be expected for anything that’s not the top plan, but they seem to depend on how you’re using Claude. In addition to more usage, the Pro plan will unlock Claude Code, unlimited Projects, access to Research mode and more Models. 

The Max plan offers even more usage than the Pro plan, increases the output limits on all tasks, provides priority access during peak traffic times and offers early access to new Claude features. This bump is likely helpful for the Claude power users out there and costs $100 per person per month.

One note on usage here: Anthropic was just sued for being intentionally misleading about how much usage its users actually get. The lawsuit filed in June alleges that the usage cap for its more advanced models is significantly less than advertised. It might be something to consider before shelling out $100 or $200 for its most expensive plans. 

Grok

Grok’s premium tiers are the most expensive for personal use, whether on a monthly or annual basis. The first premium tier, SuperGrok, will increase access to both Grok 3 and 4, extend token limits to 128,000, give you priority voice access, and include the Imagine image model. It costs $30 a month, or $300 for a year. This tier also opens access to Ani and Valentine AI companions. 

The next tier up is SuperGrok Heavy, and is mostly “more” of what you get from SuperGrok for $300 a month or $3,000 per year. This tier will give you preview access to Grok 4 Heavy, extend access to Grok 4, and provide unlimited access to Grok 3. SuperGrok Heavy has a higher token count and early access to new features. 

If you’re interested in trying Grok, you might be able to get it at a discount. At the time of this writing, both SuperGrok and SuperGrok Heavy are at a 67% discount for the first three months. This makes SuperGrok $9.90 a month for three months, and SuperGrok Heavy $99. If you don’t mind spending at least some cash and want to see if Grok is worth it to you, the discounted price is definitely a good time to consider it.

Looking at the ingredient labels on foods lining supermarket shelves, it’s common to see names such as “potassium sorbate,” “citric acid,” and “L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C).” These substances are food additives used to prevent spoilage and preserve quality, and they are widely incorporated into industrially produced processed foods. According to Open Food Facts, the world’s largest open food database, more than 20 percent of the processed foods and beverages in its database contain at least one preservative.

Against this backdrop, a research team led by scientists at Sorbonne Paris Nord University and Université Paris Cité analyzed data from the large-scale NutriNet-Santé cohort study, which followed 112,395 participants for a median of 7.9 years, to investigate the relationship between dietary preservative intake and the risk of developing hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

“Experimental studies suggest that some preservative food additives may be harmful to cardiovascular health, but we have not had enough evidence on the impact of these ingredients in humans,” said Anaïs Hasenböhler, the doctoral researcher who led the study, in a press release. “As far as we know, this is the first study of its kind to investigate the links between a wide range of preservatives and cardiovascular health.”

8 Preservatives Linked to Hypertension Risk

The researchers divided preservatives into two broad categories. The first consisted of non-antioxidant preservatives, such as sorbates, nitrites, and sulfites, which inhibit the growth of mold and bacteria. The second consisted of antioxidant preservatives, including ascorbic acid, citric acid, and erythorbates, which prevent oxidation and discoloration in foods. According to the researchers, nearly every participant (99.5 percent) consumed at least one preservative during the first two years of the study.

The analysis found that participants with the highest intake of non-antioxidant preservatives had a 29 percent higher risk of developing hypertension than those with the lowest intake. They also had a 16 percent higher risk of overall cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke, and angina. Participants with the highest intake of antioxidant preservatives likewise showed a 22 percent higher risk of hypertension.

The researchers also examined the 17 most commonly consumed preservatives individually. Of these, eight were associated with an increased risk of hypertension: potassium sorbate (E202), potassium metabisulfite (E224), sodium nitrite (E250), ascorbic acid (E300), sodium ascorbate (E301), sodium erythorbate (E316), citric acid (E330), and rosemary extract (E392). Among these, ascorbic acid was also associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

During the follow-up period, researchers recorded 5,544 cases of hypertension and 2,450 cases of cardiovascular disease, including 1,142 cerebrovascular events and 1,308 cases of coronary artery disease. The study also found that approximately 16 percent of the association between non-antioxidant preservatives and cardiovascular disease was mediated indirectly through hypertension. In other words, the findings suggest that preservatives may contribute to hypertension, which in turn may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Calls to Reevaluate Food Additive Regulations

The researchers emphasize that these findings come from an observational study and do not establish a causal relationship between food preservatives and hypertension or cardiovascular disease. The study also has important limitations. Women accounted for 78.7 percent of participants, and the cohort included a relatively high proportion of highly educated individuals, meaning it does not perfectly represent the general population.

Even so, the statistical models accounted for a wide range of potential confounding factors, and the results remained consistent across multiple sensitivity analyses.

“These results suggest we need a reevaluation of the risks and benefits of these food additives by the authorities in charge, such as the EFSA in Europe and the FDA in the USA, for better consumer protection,” said Mathilde Touvier, research director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, in a press release. “In the meantime, these findings support existing recommendations to favor nonprocessed and minimally processed foods, and avoid unnecessary additives.”

The possibility that preservatives long regarded as safe could affect cardiovascular health raises important questions about current regulatory approaches. For additives that are consumed continuously through multiple foods without numerical limits on their use, the findings suggest it may be time to reopen the debate over whether existing regulations are adequate.

This story originally appeared on WIRED Japan and has been translated from Japanese.

Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial from Google asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?

With the tagline “Group project, but make it 1776,” the ad depicts a largely unseen Thomas Jefferson mid-draft when he gets a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting gets scheduled in Google Calendar and conducted remotely via Google Meet (with every single attendee apparently turning their camera off?), then the whole thing is finalized with e-signatures; cue the fireworks.

Of course, since this is an ad from a tech company in the year 2026, AI has a role to play. The fictionalized founders use Google’s “help me visualize” AI tool to try out different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes on the meeting, and the founders also ask the chatbot for advice before declining King George III’s document access request.

The whole thing is very tongue-in-cheek (at one point, Sam Adams asks, “Can we settle this over beers?”), and the AI evangelism is relatively discreet when compared to many other recent ads. And unlike that infamous Google commercial in which a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter for his daughter, this one shies away from any suggestion that the actual text of the Declaration of Independence would be improved with AI. Perhaps the most AI-forward element of the ad is the footage itself, which to my eye has the uncanny glow of AI-generated video.

While viewer comments on YouTube and Instagram appear to be mostly positive, you may not be surprised to learn that the response on Bluesky has been far more critical. Posters declared the commercial “cringey” and “stunningly tone deaf,” and the AI angle was the biggest target — even as many users, including historian Angus Johnston, noted that it’s “amazing how little of this is actually AI.”

“Even in a corny fantasy joke, it’s impossible to make the case that AI is a useful tool for political organizing, writing, or human collaboration,” Johnston said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated commercial production at CG Semi’s chip assembly and testing plant in Sanand, Gujarat. The facility will initially turn out 200 million chips a year, according to ANI, with plans to scale to 500 million.

The plant is an outsourced semiconductor assembly and test, or OSAT, facility. That covers the packaging and testing end of the chip supply chain rather than fabricating silicon from scratch.

CG Semi is a joint venture between Mumbai-listed CG Power and Industrial Solutions, Japan’s Renesas Electronics, and Thailand’s Stars Microelectronics. CG Power holds 92.3% of the venture, which is investing INR 7,600 crore (around $870m) over five years.

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New Delhi is covering as much as half the eligible capital expenditure through a subsidy worth up to $404m under the India Semiconductor Mission. The same programme recently pulled in Intel and 3DGS for a $3.3bn glass-substrate plant in Odisha.

Chips packaged at Sanand will go into cars, scooters, and industrial equipment, with a significant share exported to Japan, the US, and Europe. The plant is expected to create around 5,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next five years, according to local reports.

Third plant off the line

CG Semi is not India’s first packaging plant to fire up. Micron’s Sanand facility began operations in February and Kaynes Semicon followed in March.

Six semiconductor projects worth a combined $14.7bn have now been approved in Gujarat, including ventures from Tata Electronics and Suchi Semicon. Sanand is emerging as the country’s first chip packaging cluster.

At full ramp, CG Semi has said the site could handle 15 million units a day, a peak annual capacity of roughly 4.7 billion chips. It will produce legacy packages such as QFN and QFP alongside advanced FC BGA and FC CSP formats for automotive, consumer, industrial, and 5G customers.

Packaging first, fabs later

The launch fits a broader charm offensive. Modi has courted tens of billions in AI infrastructure commitments from Amazon, Google, and Reliance, and India has joined the US-led Pax Silica alliance on chip supply chains.

Governments everywhere are subsidising local chip capacity, from the EU’s flagship fab in Dresden to Washington’s CHIPS Act, in an escalating global race for tech supremacy. India’s bet is on mastering packaging first and fabrication later.

Speaking at the inauguration, Modi called semiconductor growth the next phase of “Make in India” and pledged to build out the entire electronics value chain. Whether Sanand’s packaging lines can anchor that ambition is the question the next few years will answer.

Imagine if you could bring 250 people together in a massive room and have them discuss and debate an important issue, arguing the points and counterpoints, and converging on answers that accurately reflect their collective knowledge, wisdom, values, and sensibilities.

Now imagine that you convened this debate on America’s 250^th birthday and asked 250 randomly selected Americans to come up with the top three innovations that America has contributed to the world over the last 250 years. What would they come up with?

I know – this all sounds impossible. 

After all, you can’t get more than a dozen people to have a productive conversation on anything. At large scale, nobody would get enough airtime to express their views or respond to others. This is why typical business meetings or focus groups never have more than 8 to 10 people. Thoughtful real-time conversations just don’t scale.

To solve this, a new category of AI technology called “hyper-communication” is greatly expanding the size, scope, and efficiency of large-scale deliberations. It uses specialized AI agents to connect groups in real-time, allowing people to discuss and debate issues at any scale. The goal is to enable hundreds or even thousands of participant to hold thoughtful discussions where they can express their views and argue the merits of any issue. 

I first wrote about this emerging technology in VentureBeat two years ago in an article about “Collective Superintelligence.” In that piece, I explain how large human groups can be hyper-connected by AI agents in ways that greatly amplify the group’s collective intelligence. You can check out the science behind hyper-communication in that prior VentureBeat piece. Here I am focusing on the debate among 250 Americans on America’s birthday.

To do this, I asked the team at Unanimous AI to field a randomly selected group of at least 250 Americans (with a broad distribution from every region in the country and diverse mix of political and social demographics) and invite them to a twenty-minute online debate inside a hyper-communication platform called Thinkscape that enables massively scalable discussion by text, voice, or video.   

Once connected, we asked the group to come up with the top three contributions that America has made to the world over the last 250 years – not a survey of opinions, but deliberation of ideas,  arguments, evidence, and reasoning. The group converged on a set of top answers that surprised me – but on reflection, they were sensible and well-reasoned. 

Before getting into the answers, let me show you what the debate looks like behind the scenes. There were 277 people, each of them debating the issues with four or five other people in parallel discussion spaces. The magic is the swarm of AI agents that connect all the small groups together into a single real-time deliberation.This is what it looks like at high speed:

In the debate above, the group of 277 people came up with 94 different ideas and then narrowed it down to a top 10, then a top 3. In the gif above, we  just plot the top ten ideas as they emerged and battle for support during the live conversational debate. 

The most interesting part of a large debate like this is not the answers, but the reasons that emerge to justify the answers. Here is the group’s reasoning behind the “top three innovations” that America has given to the world over the last 250 years:

#1: The Internet: “Our collective perspective is that America’s greatest contribution to the world over the past 250 years is the internet. It was born exclusively in the U.S. through academic and government research and was scaled globally with profound impact. It transformed communication, democratized information and education, enabled commerce, medicine, research and cultural exchange, and amplified soft power and civic organizing. We also acknowledged significant harms (misinformation, addiction, privacy loss) and arguments that it’s recent, global, or not uniquely American.”

#2 Advances in medicine: “Our collective perspective is that the United States has saved and prolonged hundreds of millions of lives worldwide. American-developed vaccines have successfully eradicated or controlled once-deadly diseases, significantly extending life expectancy and enabling broader societal and technological progress. From major breakthroughs in cancer research and treatments to cutting-edge medical technologies that have revolutionized hospital safety and procedures, U.S. ingenuity has redefined healthcare. Ultimately, while the global diffusion of affordable medicines and vaccines has extended these benefits across borders, the U.S. remains a premier medical destination where people from around the world travel to receive the most advanced treatments.”

#3: Spreading democracy:  “Our collective perspective is that one of America’s most significant global contributions is the nation’s system of governance. The US has long demonstrated democracy in practice as an enduring global model. The U.S. Constitution provided a vital blueprint for representative government, inspiring democratic movements and revolutions worldwide while actively promoting human rights and individual liberties internationally. By empowering citizens with the fundamental power to vote and choose their own leaders, this framework has served as a foundational framework for broader societal advances and directly helped establish thriving democracies around the world.”

It’s important to remember, this is 100% human intelligence — a pure reflection of the collective knowledge, wisdom, and values of 277 randomly selected Americans. That’s because the role of the AI agents in a hyper-communication system is to connect people, not replace them. The agents work to enable scalable human deliberation in which every participant is given optimized ability to express their views, respond to others, and converge on solutions based on their merits. The only question left is — what should we ask next? 

Louis Rosenberg earned his PhD from Stanford University, was a professor at California State University (Cal Poly) and has been awarded over 300 patents for his work in human-computer interaction, AI, and collective intelligence.

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