The Sorting: Identity vs. Execution
Three Western AI labs revealed their identity crises on the same day. Four Chinese companies showed they never had one. The luxury of introspection has a cost.
The Abu Dhabi Connection
Documents show Sheikh Tahnoon backed $500M for 49% of Trump's World Liberty crypto project—months before UAE secured access to American AI chips. The timeline raises questions about what was exchanged for what.
The Numbers and the Narrative
On the same day, The Atlantic wrote that Anthropic is "at war with itself" while a16z published data showing it's the fastest-growing AI vendor in enterprise. Both are true. That's the point.
Sources: Apple execs question if it has the ingredients to win in AI-first era, new MacBook Pros are about to launch, Apple considers clamshell foldable iPhone
Apple's blockbuster holiday quarter was impressive — but it shouldn't give cover to avoid an AI reckoning.
Documents and sources: Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan backed a $500M investment for a 49% stake in WLF, four days before Trump's inauguration
$500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
A look at China's “genius class” system, which picks ~100K gifted teens annually for elite science-focused schooling; its alumni span ByteDance, PDD, and more
A network of ultra-competitive high-school talent streams has been turning out the leading lights of science and tech
Inside Physical Intelligence, a startup co-founded by Stripe veteran Lachy Groom that is building general-purpose robotics foundation models and has raised $1B+
From the street, the only indication I've found Physical Intelligence's headquarters in San Francisco is a pi symbol that's …
A look at iOS 26's call-screening feature, which some compare to an executive assistant filter unwanted calls, as others complain it makes people hard to reach
Thanks to a new iPhone feature, everyone now has an executive assistant in their pocket to filter unwanted calls
A researcher says an exposed Moltbook database could have let anyone take control of the site's AI agents and post anything; the database has since been secured
‘It exploded before anyone thought to check whether the database was properly secured.’ — Moltbook is a “social media” …
India to exempt foreign companies from being taxed when providing equipment to their contract manufacturers in the country, a rule change Apple lobbied for
India's government on Sunday handed a major win to Apple (AAPL.O) by allowing foreign companies to provide machines …
Indonesia lifts its ban on Grok after receiving a letter from X “outlining concrete steps” to prevent misuse; Indonesia was the first country to ban Grok
Indonesia joined Malaysia and the Philippines in reversing its restrictions, weeks after it blocked the chatbot …
Researchers detail how AI tools for generating deepfakes proliferated on Civitai before it banned them in 2025; many tools submitted before the ban remain live
Civitai—an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz …
Survey of 100 companies in the Global 2000 on AI use: 78% of CIOs use OpenAI models in production vs. 44% for Anthropic, but Anthropic's gains are impressive
Results from our third annual CIO Survey — The enterprise AI battleground is heating up, and we've got some fresh data on the state of play and who's winning.
Anthropic positions itself as the AI sector's superego, but it's caught between the pressures to be safe, fast, and rigorous while being commercially successful
These are not the words you want to hear when it comes to human extinction, but I was hearing them: “Things are moving uncomfortably fast.”
India proposes zero taxes for foreign cloud providers through 2047 on services sold outside the country as long as they run workloads from Indian data centers
As the global race to build AI infrastructure accelerates, India has offered foreign cloud providers zero taxes through 2047 …
OpenAI says it is asking select advertisers to commit $200K+ as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT; two sources say their companies were pitched lower amounts
OpenAI is asking select advertisers to commit at least $200,000 as it rolls out beta ads on ChatGPT, the company confirmed to ADWEEK.
Chinese government funding is backing traditional Chinese medicine providers to adopt AI for drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, acupuncture robots, and more
With backing from the Chinese government, TCM practitioners are integrating AI tools to reach new consumers at home and abroad.
Sources: Alibaba has delivered more than 100K units of the Zhenwu 810E, an ASIC for AI training and inference, surpassing those of its domestic rival Cambricon
The milestone underscores Alibaba's growing footprint in AI hardware, as Chinese firms accelerate efforts to build home-grown processors
Amazon asks the FCC for a 2-year extension until July 30, 2028, to deploy half of the 3,232 satellites for its Leo internet system, citing a rocket shortage
Amazon says it's been harder than expected to secure rides for its Amazon Leo broadband internet satellites, and now it's asking …
Filing: Chinese AI chip designer Cambricon reports a $316M net profit in 2025, its first profitable year; rivals Moore Threads and MetaX narrowed their losses
Domestic A-share companies in the sector are forecast to achieve substantial growth in their 2025 results, according to Donghai Securities
Denver-based Northslope, which builds customized AI applications for Palantir OS, raised a $22M Series A led by Friends & Family Capital and Goldcrest Capital
Nomura: total returns for software debt in collateralized loan obligations have been lower than all other sectors in 2026, amid fears about AI's impact on SaaS
Amid broad euphoria in credit markets, one type of debt is facing growing fear. — Software companies, larded up with debt …
Global Energy Monitor: over 97 GW of gas-fired power in the US pipeline were explicitly earmarked for data centers in 2025, compared with just 4 GW in 2024
Gas projects in the US pipeline explicitly linked to data centers increased by almost 25 times over the past two years, according to new research from Global Energy Monitor.
Q&A with AMD CTO Mark Papermaster, who says AMD is the first customer for TSMC's 2nm process, on AMD's rise since he joined in 2011, AI in chip design, and more
An interview with Nvidia's senior VP of hardware engineering, Andrew Bell, on continuing to provide Shield Android TV software updates a decade after its launch
“Selfishly a little bit, we built Shield for ourselves.” — It took Android devicemakers a very long time to commit to long-term update support.
Ant Group reports 30M MAUs for its AI health chatbot Ant Afu, which integrates appointments, test analysis, and insurance payments within Alipay's ecosystem
Sources: Waymo is nearing a $16B round at a $110B valuation; Alphabet will invest $12B+ and a16z, Dragoneer, Mubadala, Sequoia, and DST Global will also invest
Google's robotaxi start-up brings in new investors amid global roll out and competition from Elon Musk's Tesla
Q&A with Gokul Rajaram, investor and a former product leader at Google, Meta, and others, on AI changing product development, building ad businesses, and more
Global Net: three Chinese firms ranked among the world's top 20 chipmaking equipment manufacturers in 2025, up from one in 2022, with Naura Tech rising to fifth
Bitcoin has fallen to ~$77K, down ~5% in 24 hours, over 12% in the past week, and down 39% since its ATH in October 2025; Ethereum is down 21%+ in the past week
Bitcoin fell sharply in early Saturday afternoon trading in New York, tumbling below $80,000 mark to hit levels last seen in April 2025.
TechCreate's shares surged ~1,995% in the past week; the payment software company says it is not aware of any info that would account for the trading activity
How the music industry is divided over AI; some labels signed licensing deals for AI that mirror revenue splits they use with YouTube for user-generated content
Sandisk and Kioxia announce a five-year extension of their JV manufacturing contract from 2029 to 2034; the new deal involves SanDisk paying Kioxia $1.165B
Filing: SpaceX is seeking US FCC approval to launch 1M satellites; SpaceX claims that they will orbit the Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers
Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of 1 million satellites that will orbit Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers …
Miami-based Indigo, which uses AI-powered underwriting tech to provide medical liability insurance to physicians, raised a $50M Series B led by Rubicon Founders
Jensen Huang says Nvidia's OpenAI investment will be “the largest investment we've ever made”, after a report said plans to invest $100B in OpenAI stalled
Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the company will be participating in OpenAI's latest funding round …
A look at Moltbook, a social network where OpenClaw assistants interact autonomously, as they discuss consciousness and identity, technical tips, and more
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang …Charlie Guo /Artificial Ignorance:Humans Welcome to ObserveBen Smith /Semafor:The humans are chasing conspiracies. What will the bots think?Mithun Moh...