Two breakthroughs exemplify advances in AI and photonic technologies for processing complex information. At UCLA, Rahman and Ozcan introduced universal point spread function engineering enabling enhanced 3D optical information processing, improving imaging and data capture. MIT researchers developed a photonic processor capable of classifying wireless signals in nanoseconds, outperforming digital solutions by 100-fold and offering scalable, energy-efficient hardware tailored for 6G applications. These innovations promise faster, more accurate data processing across biomedical, telecommunications and computational fields.