The Hinton Lectures return for a third year as artificial intelligence research and advancements accelerate globally.

TORONTO, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Hinton Lectures™, co-founded by Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, return to Toronto on November 9-11, 2026. The Hinton Lectures are a transformative lecture series charting the future of Artificial Intelligence, by demystifying AI for the public and providing a platform for open, accessible discussion on its future.

This year’s distinguished lecturer, Paul Christiano, was an early researcher at OpenAI, where he developed reinforcement learning from human feedback.

Christiano is the founder and executive director of the Alignment Research Center, a non-profit developing methods to better understand how decisions are happening inside machine learning systems. Christiano is also Senior Technical Advisor at NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation, Board Member of the OpenAI Foundation and Member of the OpenAI Safety and Security Committee.

The distinguished Nominating Committee for the lecture series is comprised of Prof. Hinton; Beth Barnes, Founder & CEO of METR; Roger Grosse, Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society; and, Shane Legg, co-founder and Chief AGI Scientist at Google DeepMind. 

Hinton, Christiano, Barnes and Legg have all been recognized at least once on TIME100’s most influential in AI.

The three-night lecture series hosted at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, John W. H. Bassett Theatre and broadcast online, kicks off the inaugural AI Safety Week.

The Hinton Lectures is proudly supported by Presenting Partner Manulife and by Founding Partner Global Risk Institute (GRI), whose combined support underscores the growing importance of industry leadership in the safe and ethical development of AI. TELUS rounds out this year’s roster, as an evening sponsor.

“Canada helped build the foundations of modern AI,” says Ankesh Chandaria, CEO of AISF.  “The pressing question now isn’t what these systems can do, but what they should do and who gets to decide. Canada is a natural place to convene this vital global conversation, and we’re honoured to host Paul Christiano and leading AI safety researchers to explore how increasingly capable AI can be developed and governed safely.”

“Our support for The Hinton Lectures reflects Manulife’s commitment to advancing the responsible use of AI,” says Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer at Manulife. “As AI continues to evolve, fostering informed dialogue around its opportunities, risks and societal impact is more important than ever. The Hinton Lectures bring together leading voices from academia, industry and public policy to explore these issues thoughtfully, and we’re proud to support those conversations as this year’s presenting partner.”

“AI is advancing rapidly, with significant implications for financial services and the safeguards needed to manage its risks. GRI recognized early the need for broader discussion of these issues,” says Sonia Baxendale, President and CEO, GRI. “Through our founding partnership in the Hinton Lectures, we are helping bring leading perspectives, including Paul Christiano’s, to that conversation.”

“Open discussion about AI’s rewards and risks is essential to building technology that is trustworthy and benefits everyone,” says Pam Snively, Chief Data & Trust Officer at TELUS. “TELUS is proud to support The Hinton Lectures – a world-leading forum bringing researchers, industry leaders, policymakers and the public together to ensure AI is developed and deployed responsibly, and with accountability, grounded in a human-first approach.”

The 2024 lecturer was Jacob Steinhardt, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley & Founder of Transluce and the 2025 lecturer was Owain Evans, Director of Truthful AI (TIME100 in AI 2026).  

The 2026 lectures will be moderated by Canadian futurist, writer and podcaster Sínead Bovell.  Bovell is also the founder of WAYE, a tech education initiative that prepares the next generation of leaders for a future shaped by advanced technologies.

The lectures are open to the public, with access available both in-person and via livestream. Tickets are available now at hintonlectures.com.

For media inquiries or media accreditation contact Diane Begin at diane.begin@aisfoundation.ai.

The Hinton Lectures | Media Assets

About AI Safety Foundation

The AI Safety Foundation (AISF) increases awareness and scientific understanding of the catastrophic risks of AI, by advancing education and research, to ensure a safer future for humanity.  AISF is proud to present an annual lecture series, the Hinton Lectures™, delivered by world-leading AI safety experts. aisfoundation.ai

About Global Risk Institute

The Global Risk Institute in Financial Services (GRI) is Canada’s premier organization for risk management thought leadership and actionable insights. Bringing together leaders from industry, government and academia, GRI transforms global risk intelligence into practical strategies that strengthens the resilience of Canada’s financial sector. globalriskinstitute.org

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Anchored in our ambition to be the number one choice for customers, we operate as Manulife across Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, providing financial advice, insurance and health solutions for individuals, groups and businesses. Through Manulife Wealth & Asset Management, we offer global investment solutions, financial advice, and retirement plan services to individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2025, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 106,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 37 million customers with operations across 25 markets globally. We trade as ‘MFC’ on the Toronto, New York, and Philippine stock exchanges, and under ‘945’ on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. manulife.com

Manulife’s official newswire announcement, as Presenting Partner, will be live later today.

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a leading Canadian communications technology company operating in more than 45 countries and generating over $20 billion in annual revenue with more than 17 million customer connections through our advanced suite of broadband services for consumers, businesses and the public sector. TELUS is passionate about putting our customers and communities first, leading the way globally in client service excellence and social capitalism. telus.com

SOURCE AI Safety Foundation

New members bring expertise in networking silicon, infrastructure and high-speed Ethernet as the SONiC community gathers at the OCP Global Summit 2026

The SONiC Foundation welcomes Lenovo, NADDOD and Zhanwang (NEXAI) as new General Members, expanding industry participation across AI, high-performance computing, cloud and data center networking.The new members bring complementary expertise across high-performance networking, with Lenovo bringing experience in enterprise technology and infrastructure, and NADDOD and NEXAI planning upstream technical contributions.The new members join the SONiC community ahead of the OCP Global Summit 2026, where the SONiC Foundation will participate in a series of events and technical sessions encouraging community discussions and collaboration.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) Foundation, an open source network operating system (NOS) hosted under the Linux Foundation, today announced that Lenovo, NADDOD and Zhanwang (NEXAI) have joined as General Members. The additions demonstrate continued industry investment in SONiC as AI, high-performance computing (HPC), cloud and data center environments place new demands on network performance, scalability and interoperability.

AI and HPC infrastructure are driving greater requirements for network bandwidth, latency, reliability and observability, while operators increasingly need the flexibility to build infrastructure across a broad ecosystem of networking technologies. The new members bring expertise spanning networking silicon, hardware platforms, high-speed interconnects, enterprise technology and large-scale infrastructure deployments, strengthening the SONiC community.

“AI infrastructure is raising the bar for networking, and the additions of Lenovo, NADDOD and NEXAI bring valuable knowledge from across the networking stack into the SONiC community,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager of networking, edge and IoT at the Linux Foundation. “Their participation will help advance an open, collaborative networking ecosystem that can evolve alongside the rapidly changing requirements of AI, cloud and data center infrastructure.”

Lenovo is building SONiC-based automation and AI-driven operations capabilities, with a focus on components including Redis, SAI, telemetry, BGP EVPN and RoCE, and plans to contribute deployment experience and platform enhancements back to the community as its capabilities mature. NADDOD uses SONiC across its AI data center switch portfolio and plans to contribute platform and SAI enhancements, interoperability testing, reference architectures and insights from real-world deployments. NEXAI is actively porting SONiC to its networking products and plans upstream contributions spanning RDMA and RoCE, Priority Flow Control, SRv6, telemetry and AI network observability. Their contributions will help advance SONiC to meet the needs of large-scale data center environments.

SONiC at OCP Global Summit 2026

New members will join the SONiC community ahead of the 2026 OCP Global Summit, taking place Oct. 12-15 in San Jose, where the community will come together for a series of Foundation-led activities, including:

A SONiC Foundation booth with live demonstrations throughout the summitA co-located SONiC Workshop on Oct. 14An extended offsite SONiC Workshop on Oct. 16, hosted by SONiC Premier Member Nokia at its Sunnyvale office. Register for the Extended Offsite SONiC Workshop.

Learn more about SONiC activities during OCP Global Summit 2026 and view the SONiC agenda.

Supporting Quotes

“Positioned at the forefront of the AI era, we are pioneering AI networking innovations anchored by SONiC to build Lenovo China’s “Token Factory”: AI-powered AI empowers AI. Guided by our vision of “Smarter AI for All,” Lenovo China is partnering with the SONiC community to foster open innovation. By driving the deep convergence of AI compute, storage, and networking, we are building a next-generation Token-Driven Network to power future Token Factories.”

– Billy Chen, ISG, VP, China Geo, Lenovo

“Advancing open networking for AI requires innovation across network software, switching and interconnects. NADDOD brings these together through our expertise in SONiC-based platforms and high-speed interconnects. We contribute an engineering perspective that connects hardware enablement, interoperability validation and RoCE optimization with the demands of today’s AI infrastructure, supporting collective progress across the open AI networking ecosystem.”

– Chang Liu, CTO, NADDOD

“Joining SONiC is a key milestone for NEXAI. We believe open-source networking is foundational for next-gen AI data center infrastructure. We look forward to contributing our expertise in high-performance switch silicon and working hand-in-hand with the SONiC community to advance cloud networking innovation.”

– Jeff Zhang, Senior Director of Technical Marketing, NEXAI

About the SONiC Foundation
The SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) Foundation, hosted by the Linux Foundation, supports the development and adoption of SONiC, an open source network operating system originally developed for hyperscale cloud environments. Today, SONiC powers production networks across cloud providers, enterprises, telecommunications providers, and AI infrastructure worldwide. Built on an open, vendor-neutral architecture, SONiC enables organizations to deploy and manage network infrastructure across multiple hardware platforms while avoiding vendor lock-in. Its growing ecosystem of contributors and member organizations continuously advances features, reliability, and scalability through open collaboration. To learn more about the SONiC Foundation and how to get involved, please visit https://sonicfoundation.dev.

Media Contact
The Linux Foundation
pr@linuxfoundation.org 

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SOURCE SONiC

The combined platform, backed by Blackstone, brings together ASK’s institutional scale and broad client reach, and SageOne’s research-driven, time-tested investment approach.

MUMBAI, India, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ASK Investment Managers (‘ASK IM’) today announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire SageOne Investment Managers (‘SageOne’), an established asset manager operating across portfolio management services (PMS) and alternative investment funds (AIF). Samit Vartak, SageOne Founder and Chief Investment Officer will reinvest into ASK and continue in an expanded role as the Chief Investment Officer (Equities) of the combined asset management business.

The acquisition strengthens ASK IM’s equity investment capabilities and provides SageOne access to ASK’s global distribution footprint. Blackstone will remain the majority shareholder of the platform.

SageOne has established a differentiated performance track record through its disciplined, high-conviction investment approach. The SageOne Core Portfolio (SCP) is among the best performing domestic funds and has delivered annualized returns of 25.3% from April 1, 2012 to August 31, 2026, compared with 13.8% for the BSE 500 TRI during the same period. Over the last 3 years, the fund has delivered annualized returns of 19.4% compared with 12.1% for the BSE 500 TRI. The SageOne team led by Samit will continue to drive their investment function with the same consistent approach that has underpinned SageOne’s performance.

Samit is a veteran investor and comes with 25 years of investment experience across market cycles. Since founding SageOne in 2012, Samit has built the firm into a respected, high-performing investment franchise anchored in disciplined research.

ASK and SageOne will bring together more than INR 850 billion in assets under management, a deep pool of investment talent, and deep pan-India distribution and global institutional network. The platform will innovate strong investment products and drive scalability.

Mr. Sameer Koticha, Founder and Chairman of ASK Group said, “This is a strong strategic fit for ASK. SageOne has built an impressive investment business based on rigorous research, conviction and disciplined execution. Just as importantly, Samit is an exceptional investor and entrepreneur whose experience and perspective will be valuable across our platform. His appointment as our CIO (equities) will strengthen our investment leadership and help us serve clients with a broader set of high-quality investment solutions. We are very pleased to welcome Samit and the SageOne team to ASK.”

Mr. Samit Vartak, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of SageOne Investment Managers said, “This partnership is the right next step for SageOne. ASK gives us the scale and institutional support, without changing the philosophy and discipline that define how we invest. We also see significant value in being part of the broader Blackstone ecosystem, with access to its global perspectives, institutional capabilities and the ability to attract and nurture exceptional investment talent. Our ambition is to build one of the strongest investment teams improving our ability to deliver alpha for the clients. ASK and SageOne share a long-term approach and a strong belief in independent research. I look forward to working with ASK’s investment teams and contributing to the next phase of growth across the platform.”

Mr. Ganesh Mani, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone said, “We are bullish on the long-term compounding value of Indian asset and wealth management businesses and continue to invest in ASK’s growth. We believe that SageOne is the right addition to the ASK platform and solidifies ASK’s equities asset management business. We welcome Samit, whose expertise will strengthen the ASK leadership team and continue to deliver long-term value for our clients.”

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory and investor approvals and the completion of applicable regulatory processes.

The Rainmaker Group acted as the exclusive financial advisor to this transaction.

About ASK Group

ASK Group is a leading provider of asset and wealth management services, specializing in high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients. The Group’s diversified offerings include portfolio management, alternative investment funds, real estate private equity, wealth management, hedge solutions, non-banking financial services, private credit, and international investments. It has 20+ offices and branches across India, Dubai and Singapore, and caters to multiple asset classes and investors (such as HNI, institutional, family office, pension funds, funds of funds and sovereign wealth funds) across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. ASK Asset & Wealth Management Group manages assets over INR 770 billion as of March 31, 2026. ASK is majority owned by Blackstone Inc, a leading global investment firm with over $1.3 trillion of assets under management.

About SageOne Investment Managers:

Founded in 2012, SageOne Investment Managers is a SEBI & IFSCA registered investment management firm with offices in Pune, Mumbai and Gift City. The firm manages equity investments through Portfolio Management Services (PMS) and Category III Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) structures, with strategies oriented towards mid & small-cap space, including domestic and GIFT City offerings. As of Aug 31, 2026, SageOne manages nearly INR 90 billion of equity assets across its PMS and AIF structures for HNI and UHNI investors.

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to invest. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investment strategies discussed herein may not be suitable for all investors. Investments in alternative investment funds involve risks, including loss of capital. No assurance is given that any investment objectives will be achieved.

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