The $150 Billion Question
Meta guides $115-135B in capex and rises 7%. Microsoft spends $37.5B in a quarter and crashes 10%. The market is trying to price AI infrastructure—and failing.
Source: SpaceX and xAI are in talks to merge ahead of a planned IPO this year; under the proposed deal, shares of xAI would be exchanged for shares in SpaceX
Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI are in discussions to merge ahead of a blockbuster public offering planned for later this year.
Apple acquires Q.ai, whose tech can analyze facial expressions and could enable non-verbal discussions with AI assistants; sources: the deal values Q.ai at ~$2B
iPhone-maker strikes deal for secretive group that creates technology that analyses facial expressions
Apple Q1: iPhone up 23% YoY to $85.27B, vs. $78.65B est., Mac down 7% to $8.39B, iPad up 6% to $8.6B, and Wearables, Home, and Accessories down 2% to $11.49B
All-time records for total company revenue and EPS — iPhone and Services revenue reach new all-time highs
Tesla agrees to invest $2B in xAI for preferred shares as part of xAI's Series E, despite a shareholder vote in November 2025 that failed to win approval
Tesla Inc. reported fourth-quarter profit that surpassed expectations, showing the automaker is making progress toward overcoming rising costs …
Apple reports Q1 revenue up 16% YoY to $143.76B, vs. $138.48B est., net income up 16% to $42.1B, and China net sales up 38% to $25.53B
Apple reported fiscal first-quarter earnings on Thursday that surpassed expectations, with revenue soaring 16% on an annual basis.
Google launches Project Genie, which lets users create interactive worlds using Genie 3, Nano Banana Pro, and Gemini, for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US
It's what I had the most fun using Google's Project Genie for, at least right now. … This week, a new generative AI tool …
Microsoft reports Q2 revenue up 17% YoY to $81.3B, operating income up 21% to $38.3B, net income up 60% to $38.5B, and Microsoft Cloud revenue tops $50B
Microsoft Cloud and AI Strength Drives Second Quarter Results — REDMOND, Wash. — January 28, 2026 — Microsoft Corp. today announced …
Samsung reports Q4 revenue up 24% YoY to ~$65.6B, vs. ~$65.28B est., and operating profit up 200%+ to ~$14.06B, driven by memory chip price hikes and HBM demand
Samsung Electronics shares rose 2.4% Thursday after the company reported an over threefold surge in fourth-quarter operating profits …
Sources: Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50B in OpenAI, which is seeking up to $100B in new capital, a round that could value it at as much as $830B
CEO Andy Jassy is leading the e-commerce giant's negotiations with the startup — Amazon.com is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI …
Waymo says a robotaxi struck a child at 6 mph near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23, resulting in minor injuries; the NHTSA opens a probe
A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23, according to the company.
Tesla plans to scrap its premium S and X models and convert its California factory into an Optimus manufacturing hub, as Elon Musk refocuses on robotics and AI
Elon Musk's electric-car maker invests $2bn in the billionaire's xAI — Tesla plans to scrap two models and invest $2bn in Elon Musk's xAI …
Apple's iPhone 16 was the world's best-selling smartphone in 2025, followed by the 16 Pro Max and 16 Pro; Apple took 7 of the top 10 spots and Samsung took 3
- Apple and Samsung continued to capture the Top 10 spots. … - In terms of comparisons with predecessor models …
Security researchers warn Moltbot, previously Clawdbot, requires a specialist skillset to use safely, as data exposure risks persist even when set up correctly
The massively hyped agentic personal assistant has security experts wondering why anyone would install it
Nothing CEO Carl Pei says the company's flagship Phone 4 won't launch in 2026: “We're not just going to churn out a new flagship every year for the sake of it”
The US SEC clarifies its tokenized stock rules, saying they are subject to securities and derivatives rules and issuer approval is required for true ownership
The agency says issuer approval is required for true tokenized ownership, warning that many stock tokens sold to retail investors provide only indirect or synthetic exposure.
Meta reports Q4 revenue up 24% YoY to $59.9B, vs. $58.35B est., net income up 9% to $22.8B, and family DAP up 7% to 3.58B for December; META is up 7%+
Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025.
Chinese media: China executed 11 members of the Ming mafia family that ran online scam centres in Myanmar; five Bai family members are also sentenced to death
Amazon reported hundreds of thousands of pieces of potential CSAM in AI training data to NCMEC in 2025; child safety officials say Amazon didn't give the source
The tech giant reported hundreds of thousands of cases of suspected child sexual abuse material, but won't say where it came from
Microsoft shares fell ~10% on Thursday following an earnings report that disappointed some investors, the stock's sharpest daily decline since March 2020
Microsoft shares slid about 10% on Thursday following an earnings report that disappointed some investors, prompting the stock's sharpest daily decline since March 2020.
Sources: OpenAI is in talks to raise up to $30B from Nvidia and less than $10B from Microsoft, as part of a $100B funding round
A coalition of music publishers, including UMG, filed a second lawsuit against Anthropic, seeking $3B over allegations of copyright infringement of 20k+ songs
A coalition of music publishers has filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, and it's a big one.
Amazon's $35M marketing campaign for Melania is ~10x the budget for similar documentaries like CNN's RBG; some suggest Amazon is currying favor with Trump
The tech giant is spending $35 million to promote its film about the first lady, far more than is typical for documentaries.
Sources: Microsoft is focusing on fixing the core issues of Windows 11 over the coming months after persistent bugs, ads, and bloatware eroded user trust
Engineers are now focusing on performance, reliability, and the overall Windows experience. … Windows is in a weird spot.
Nvidia launches a native GeForce NOW app for Linux, starting with Debian-based Ubuntu, after releasing a Steam Deck app in 2025; in a hands-on, it works well
GeForce NOW cloud gaming expands to desktops and other Ubuntu devices, with Bazzite tested and the Steam Deck thriving.
Google updates Gemini in Chrome with a new side panel, an auto browse feature that can navigate pages and take actions for AI Pro and AI Ultra users, and more
ZDNET's key takeaways — Google Chrome is being upgraded with Gemini 3 and a revamped sidepanel UX.
A San Francisco jury finds former Google engineer Linwei Ding guilty of stealing trade secrets related to AI chip technology to build a startup in China
A former Google engineer was convicted Thursday of economic espionage and trade secrets theft for taking hundreds of the company's confidential documents …
OpenAI has hired 7+ employees from AI coding startup Cline, including Nik Pash, who left Cline after posting “imagine the smell” on X regarding an xAI hackathon
OpenAI has recently hired more than a half dozen employees from Cline, a startup that develops an open-source …
Sandisk reports Q2 revenue up 61% YoY to $3.03B, vs. $2.69B est., and net income up 672% to $803M, as AI drives demand upward; SNDK jumps 11%+ after hours
Data storage technology company posts second-quarter profit of $803 million, up from $104 million a year earlier
The UK CMA proposes measures to let publishers opt out of content scraping for Google's AI Overviews and AI training without losing visibility in search results
News organisations hope proposals will increase leverage to get paid if content is used in AI summaries
Airtable unveils Superagent, a service that can deploy AI agents in parallel for tasks like market analysis, its first standalone product in its 13-year history
Google expands Gemini's hands-free conversational capabilities to walking and cycling modes in Google Maps, available on iOS and rolling out on Android
Appfigures: Sora's app downloads dropped 32% month-over-month in December and 45% in January to 1.2M; consumer spending on the app fell 32% MoM as of January
After rapidly hitting the top of the App Store in October, OpenAI's video-generation app Sora is now struggling.
Grubhub plans to remove delivery and service fees on restaurant orders over $50 starting Feb. 2; Grubhub's US market share fell to ~4% in 2025 from 10% in 2023
Grubhub is removing delivery and service fees on all restaurant orders above $50, the latest move by the newly private food-delivery app …
Waymo says it hopes to launch its London robotaxi service as soon as September, after an April pilot; the UK government plans to change regulations in H2 2026
Waymo, the US driverless car firm, said it hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London as soon as September this year.
Social media app UpScrolled hits #1 on Apple's US app store following allegations that TikTok suppresses anti-ICE videos; its founder says it crossed 1M users
Topline — Social media app UpScrolled ranks No. 1 on Apple's U.S. app store as of Thursday as it capitalizes on user discontent with TikTok …
Crypto exchange Bybit plans to offer banking services via “MyBank” accounts that can hold USD and other currencies, set to launch in February pending approvals
Crypto exchange Bybit plans to start offering banking services with the launch of accounts that will let customers hold balances …
Sources: ByteDance and Alibaba both plan to release flagship AI models around China's mid-February Lunar New Year holiday, including ByteDance's Doubao 2.0
The battle for AI dominance in China is reaching new heights. Tech giants ByteDance and Alibaba Group are both poised to release …
Deezer makes its AI music detection tool available for businesses to buy and says daily deliveries of AI tracks averaged 60K in January, ~39% of total uploads
The tool, which identifies, tags, and removes AI-generated music from recommendations, has detected over 13.4 million AI tracks in 2025.
Talos, which develops digital asset trading infrastructure, raised a $45M extension from Robinhood and others to its $105M Series B, at a $1.5B valuation
Russia says a crypto regulatory framework will come into force July 1, 2027; it will ban privacy coins like monero and cap retail investor purchases at ~$4K
What to know: … The head of Russia's lower house of the country's parliament on Thursday said crypto market regulations …
Dow plans to cut 4,500 staff to save costs and will rely on AI to boost productivity, resulting in $1.1B to $1.5B in charges; it currently employs ~34,000 staff
Chemicals giant is using automation and AI to boost growth and productivity; posts wider quarterly loss
Munich-based RobCo, which makes robotic arms and factory automation software, raised $100M led by Lingotto and Lightspeed, a source says at a $500M+ valuation
RobCo, a German startup that makes robots for use in manufacturing, has raised $100 million in financing from investors including …
Samsung and SK Hynix executives say they expect global memory supply shortages will persist until 2027 due to AI demand, after the companies reported earnings
Kim Jaewon /Nikkei Asia:
Alibaba's Cainiao logistics unit merges with Chinese robovan company Zelos, creating a business sources say valued at ~$2B with a fleet set to hit 20K+ vehicles
The Zelos-Cainiao robovan fleet is set to top 20,000 vehicles — Alibaba's logistics arm is merging its autonomous-driving unit …
Crypto PAC Fairshake expanded its war chest to $193M by the end of last year, up from $141M in July; Ripple gave $25M, and a16z gave $24M in H2 2025
STMicro reports Q4 net revenue up 0.2% YoY to $3.33B, operating income down 66% YoY to $125M, and forecasts Q1 2026 net revenue of $3.04B, above $2.92B est.
STMicroelectronics NV, a chip supplier for Tesla Inc. and Apple Inc., forecast first-quarter revenue that beat analysts' estimates …
A co-creator of the dark web marketplace Empire Market pleads guilty to US drug conspiracy charges for facilitating $430M in illegal transactions in 2018-2020
SAP reports Q4 revenue up 3% YoY to €9.68B, adjusted operating profit up 27% to €2.83B, and forecasts 2026 cloud revenue to grow 23%+ to €25.8B; SAP falls 14%+
SAP SE shares fell the most in more than five years as current cloud backlog in the fourth quarter slipped …
Jones Lang LaSalle projects Malaysia's operational data center capacity to increase from ~1,025 MW at the end of 2025 to ~2,100 MW by the end of 2026
The US construction industry is adopting AI tools to improve project management and support site managers and foremen; IDC says 60% of firms use some form of AI
New AI tools are helping managers stay on top of the complex processes underpinning an exploding sector
Advantest shares hit a record high after the chip equipment maker beat Q3 earnings estimates and raised its FY operating profit forecast from $2.45B to $2.97B
ESA astronomers say they used AI model AnomalyMatch to scan 100M image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive in 2.5 days, finding ~1,400 “anomalous objects”
A look at Amazon's and Walmart's differing approaches to agentic AI shopping; Similarweb says Walmart doubled its AI referral share in the US to 32.5% in 2025
PaleBlueDot, which operates a GPU capacity marketplace and designs GPU clusters for enterprises, raised a $150M Series B led by B Capital at a $1B+ valuation
Canada says it is talking to Meta to restore news to Facebook and Instagram as the Online News Act is put on the table as part of trade negotiations with the US
ServiceNow reports Q4 revenue up 20.5% YoY to $3.57B, above $3.53B est., and subscription revenue up 21% YoY to $3.47B; NOW drops ~3%
ServiceNow topped Wall Street's fourth-quarter estimates after the bell on Wednesday, but shares fell more than 3%. — Here's how the company performed versus LSEG estimates:
New York-based Sword Health, which develops AI-powered tech for managing pain and offers remote physical therapy, agrees to acquire rival Kaia Health for $285M
Battery recycling and cathode production startup Redwood expands its Series E to $425M, sources say at a $6B valuation, adds Google as a new strategic investor
A federal judge in Virginia ruled that Norfolk's use of ~200 Flock automated license plate scanners is constitutional and doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment
A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the City of Norfolk's use of nearly 200 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) …Forums:Ars OpenForumForums:Ars OpenForum:Angry Norfolk residents lose la...
Google DeepMind researchers unveil AlphaGenome, an AI model trained on molecular data to predict 11 different genomic processes, such as gene splicing
Snap launches a wholly-owned subsidiary called Specs Inc. for its upcoming AR glasses, in a bid to facilitate minority investment and offer distinct branding
Letter: Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the US House Select Committee on China, says Nvidia helped DeepSeek hone AI models later used by the Chinese military
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority bans some Coinbase ads, finding them “irresponsible” for suggesting crypto as a solution to the cost of living crisis
Advertising Standards Authority says firm advised by George Osborne ‘trivialised risks of cryptocurrency’
Amazon plans to cut ~16,000 roles across the company as part of an ongoing effort to reduce organizational layers and bureaucracy, after cuts in October 2025
Sebastiaan de With, co-founder of iPhone camera app Halide and who previously freelanced for Apple, says he has joined Apple's Human Interface Design team
Halide and Lux co-founder and designer Sebastiaan de With announced today that he is joining Apple's human interface design team.
Decagon, which offers AI customer service agents, raised a $250M Series D led by Coatue and Index Ventures at a $4.5B valuation, up from $1.5B in June 2025
Decagon AI Inc., a customer support startup, has raised $250 million in a new round of funding that triples its valuation to $4.5 billion …
DeepSeek job listings show it hopes to broaden its AI offerings with a search engine capable of supporting multiple languages and more emphasis on agents
US-based AI startup Arcee releases Trinity Large, a 400B-parameter open-weight model that it says compares to Meta's Llama 4 Maverick 400B on some benchmarks
Many in the industry think the winners of the AI model market have already been decided: Big Tech will own it (Google, Meta …
SK Hynix announces a new US-based “AI Company” from a restructuring of its California-based subsidiary Solidigm, and commits at least $10B to the new entity
South Korean memory giant SK Hynix announced Wednesday that it will set up a new U.S.-based company focused …
IBM reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to $19.7B, above $19.2B est., and projects 2026 revenue growth and free cash flow above estimates; IBM jumps 8%+
International Business Machines Corp. reported quarterly sales that topped analysts' estimates on strong growth for its closely watched software unit.
Fidelity Investments announces its own stablecoin, the Fidelity Digital Dollar, or FIDD, available to institutional and retail clients in the coming weeks
Fidelity Investments, one of the largest asset managers on the planet, announced on Wednesday it will launch its own stablecoin.
Google agrees to pay $135M to settle a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the tech giant programmed Android to illegally collect users' cellular data
Google says it took legal action to take down dozens of domains and disrupt the residential proxy network of Chinese company Ipidea, widely used by bad actors
Company targets global network employed by hackers that often use devices running in homes of everyday Americans
Sources: the White House will meet with banks and crypto firms on Monday to discuss a path forward for crypto legislation stalled by a clash between the sectors
The White House on Monday will meet with executives from the banking and cryptocurrency industries to discuss a path forward …
Sources: OpenAI is considering using biometric verification like World's eyeball scanning Orb for its planned social network to ensure its users are real people
OpenAI is quietly building a social network and considering using biometric verification like World's eyeball scanning orb …
The US DHS confirms NEC is the vendor that sold Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app used by federal immigration agents to identify people, to CBP and ICE
Immigration agents have used Mobile Fortify to scan the faces of countless people in the US—including many citizens.
Microsoft says its Q2 capital expenditures rose 66% YoY to $37.5B, exceeding analyst estimates for $36.2B; MSFT drops 10%+
Matt Day /Bloomberg:
Microsoft reports Azure Q2 revenue up 39% YoY, above 38.8% est.; Microsoft cloud's contracted backlog grew 110% to $625B, ~45% of which came from OpenAI alone
LinkedIn's Q2 revenue rose 11% YoY, topping $5B for the first time, giving it a $20B+ annual run rate; Satya Nadella says LinkedIn paid video ads grew 30% YoY
Todd Bishop /GeekWire:
Satya Nadella says Windows 11 reached 1B users during Q2, growing over 45% YoY and at a faster rate than Windows 10 did
a faster climb than Windows 10 and a major turning point for Microsoft's modern PC strategyPaul Thurrott /Thurrott:Windows 11 Now Has Over One Billion Users
Microsoft Q2 gaming revenue fell 9% YoY, including a 32% drop in Xbox hardware revenue and a 5% decline in Xbox content and services, which includes Game Pass
and Microsoft's own first‑party lineup is the culprit, raising tough questions for 2026, but PC and cloud is upJesse ‘Doncabesa’ Norris /XboxEra:Xbox down YoY in both hardware and Content & Services f...
Meta expects its 2026 capex to be $115B to $135B, compared with a $110.6B analyst estimate and $72.2B in 2025, driven by investments in Superintelligence Labs
Meta Platforms Inc.'s better-than-expected sales outlook helped ease Wall Street concerns about plans for unprecedented spending on artificial intelligence this year.
Meta reports Reality Labs Q4 revenue of $955M, vs. $940.8M est., and a $6.02B operating loss, vs. $5.67B est.; Reality Labs now has $75B+ in losses since 2020
stock down ahead of Q4 results, AI spending biggest worry
In Meta's Q4 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg says it plans to start shipping new models and products throughout 2026 and hints at “agentic shopping tools”
Russell Brandom /TechCrunch:
SK Hynix surpassed Samsung in annual operating profit for the first time in 2025; SK Hynix posted a record profit of ~$33B in 2025 while Samsung posted ~$30.5B
Dylan Butts /CNBC:
Following UK CMA's proposals, Google says it is exploring controls to let websites opt out of AI Overviews and AI Mode
Barry Schwartz /Search Engine Roundtable:
The Q.ai acquisition could be Apple's second-largest ever and marks founder Aviad Maizels' second exit to Apple, which bought his startup PrimeSense in 2013
Omer Kabir /CTech:
Apple reports Q1 revenue from Services, which includes the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple TV, Apple Music, and iCloud, up 14% YoY to $30B, in line with estimates
Apple booked a record haul for the December 2025 quarter thanks to a spike in iPhone sales, while its services business continued to boom …
Sources: SpaceX is considering a potential merger with Tesla, an idea some investors are pushing, while separately exploring a tie-up between SpaceX and xAI
Bloomberg:NEW