Day: February 19, 2026

‘Romance’ between scientists and AI leads to progress on age-old maths problem

Media Library

Chinese scientists have used artificial intelligence to make progress on a more than 300-year-old maths problem that has implications for large-scale data storage and advanced telecommunications. Using an AI system called PackingStar, the researchers made record-breaking advances on the “kissing number” problem, surpassing the limits of human geometric intuition and standard computing. The work done by the team was like a “romance” between machines and humans exploring science together, they said in a video posted by Peking University on Saturday. Advertisement “These results showcase AI’s power to understand high-dimensional geometry,…

Postcard from Pakistan: after two decades, kites return to the skies above Lahore

Media Library

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. By three o’clock on the first Saturday in February, Lahore is already in motion. The streets pulse with anticipation as people head out to parties, carrying spools of string and delicate kites, some held high above the crowd. Traffic crawls; street-food vendors slip between cars and motorbikes, their calls mingling with the city’s cacophony. Above it all, the first kites rise silently, hovering and darting across the afternoon sky, as…