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Cologne Floats Skewer World Leaders; AI Faces Hurdles

Cologne, Germany, and India are currently at the center of significant developments, from political satire at Carnival celebrations to major investments in artificial intelligence. In Cologne, Germany, the annual Rose Monday parade featured floats that satirized world leaders, while in India, an AI Impact Summit is underway, attracting major tech figures and investment.

The Cologne Carnival, as reported by Euronews, saw revellers and floats mocking figures like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The sharpest designs came from sculptor Jacques Tilly, whose work has previously drawn legal threats. The event highlights how Germans use humor to engage with serious political issues.

Meanwhile, India is hosting a four-day AI Impact Summit, as detailed by TechCrunch, with the aim of attracting more AI investment to the country. The event is expected to draw 250,000 visitors and features executives from major AI labs and Big Tech companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare. Key figures such as Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in attendance. India has earmarked 1.1 billion for its state-backed venture capital fund, which will invest in artificial intelligence and advanced technologies.

The summit comes as India's first AI company to IPO, Fractal Analytics, experienced a muted debut on the public markets, according to TechCrunch. The stock listed below its issue price and closed down, marking a step down from the company's recent private-market highs.

In other tech news, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is actively seeking investment opportunities in Europe. A partner at a16z revealed he took multiple flights to Stockholm in one year to find future Swedish unicorns, according to TechCrunch. This follows a recent pre-seed round led by a16z into Dentio, a Swedish startup using AI in dentistry.

Also, a new AI lab called Flapping Airplanes is focusing on less data-hungry ways to train AI, as reported by TechCrunch. The lab has secured 180 million in seed funding. The founders are exploring ideas related to the human brain to advance AI capabilities.

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Synthesized from multiple sources. Reviewed for accuracy.

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