AI’s Cloud Bill Lands on Apple Devices
Apple tied 15%–25% price increases to AI-driven component costs on the same day Qualcomm set a $15 billion data-center sales target for 2029.
OpenAI and Broadcom unveil Jalapeño, an LLM-optimized inference chip developed from design to manufacturing tape-out in nine months, aided by OpenAI's models
- Early testing shows that the first-generation accelerator will deliver performance per watt substantially better than current state-of-the-art
Qualcomm unveils Dragonfly C1000, a more power-efficient data center CPU built for agentic AI, and says Meta will use it when Qualcomm starts production in 2028
Qualcomm shares jumped 15% in extended trading on Wednesday after the chipmaker said non-handset revenue in fiscal 2029 will be $40 billion, up from a prior forecast of $22 billion.
Microsoft says the price of Xbox consoles will increase on August 1 by $100 for 512GB models and $150 for 1TB models, the third price increase since 2025
Microsoft is increasing the prices of Xbox Series consoles once more and introducing a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ option
Sony's Bungie says it is laying off a “significant number of employees”, including “most of the Destiny team”; Bungie has an estimated headcount of 800
The studio said the sci-fi MMO failed to meet expectations … The studio announced a “reduction in force” …
Micron reports Q3 revenue up 346% YoY to $41.46B, above $35.84B est., gross margin up, to 84.9%, above est., and forecasts Q4 revenue above est.; MU jumps 15%+
Micron's revenue more than quadrupled in the fiscal third quarter, the company said on Wednesday, as the memory maker continued …
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says the company is designing data center chips specifically for Chinese customers that are in compliance with US export controls
NEW YORK — Qualcomm unveiled its data center chip lineup on Wednesday, becoming the latest chipmaker to enter the AI processor race …
Sources: in a letter to US officials, Anthropic accused Alibaba of adversarial distillation, using Claude 28.8M times from April to June via almost 25K accounts
Anthropic PBC accused Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. of waging a large-scale effort to “illicitly” …
Apple raises Mac, iPad, and other product prices by 15%-25%, saying it has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly”; iPhone is unchanged
Increases come a week after Tim Cook said higher memory costs made them ‘unavoidable’
Google makes computer use available in Gemini 3.5 Flash via the Gemini API and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, succeeding the Gemini 2.5 computer use model
Computer use is now a built-in tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash to build agents that can interact across platforms.
How Larry Ellison's $45M donation to a group supporting President Trump brought Ellison deeper into Trump's circle, helping Oracle and his son's WBD acquisition
The billionaire's private friendship with the president has helped Oracle's business and his son's media conglomerate
Sources: Apple plans to skip higher-end M6 chips and launch its next Pro and Max chips in 2027 as part of the M7 lineup, to boost on-device AI capabilities
Apple Inc. is making one of the biggest-ever changes to its Mac silicon strategy, preparing to jump ahead to a new artificial …
IBM details a 0.7nm chip manufacturing process that utilizes a “nanostack” 3D transistor architecture, which it says could continue chip innovation for 10 years
Industry leaders had worried that innovations in chip miniaturization were no longer possible.
Facebook brings back Facebook Creator Studio as a stand-alone app with a built-in AI chatbot to help creators grow their audiences through personalized guidance
Facebook announced on Wednesday that it's reimagining its Creator Studio tool as a standalone AI companion app designed …
Sources: Kalshi is in talks to raise funding at a ~$40B valuation in a round that may close as soon as Q3; Kalshi raised $1B at a $22B valuation in May 2026
Rapidly growing company is increasingly challenging established derivatives and betting rivals — Kalshi is in talks to raise funds …
Om Malik, a longtime technology writer, founder of Gigaom, and a partner at True Ventures, died on Wednesday at 59
Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends.
TRM Labs: since 2019, Iran-linked crypto wallets, including those tied to Iran's central bank, have moved $3.84B+ in transactions through crypto exchange CoinEx
Iranian entities have moved more than $3.84 billion in transactions through the crypto exchange CoinEx, according to an analysis of public blockchain data
The Netherlands is lobbying the US to not expand chip equipment export controls that would constrain ASML's ability to sell immersion DUV machines to China
The Netherlands is lobbying the US to not expand export controls on semiconductor equipment, a move that would constrain ASML Holding NV's ability to sell to China.
Binance says it will make a fresh push for permission to operate in the EU after Greece rejected its MiCA license application before the June 30 deadline
Crypto platform Binance intends to stay in the European Union and will make a fresh push for permission to operate there …
Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams, who championed a huge data center beside the Great Salt Lake, lost his Republican primary on Tuesday after voter backlash
The upset of J. Stuart Adams represented one of the strongest examples of how the data center issue has affected elections.
Digital advocacy firms like CiviClick and Influent appear to use AI to generate mass public comments on local energy projects, mostly favoring fossil fuel use
From California to North Carolina, officials weighing policy changes are being inundated with comments via platforms that tout AI capabilities.
Apple says it removed VK's apps from the App Store to comply with sanctions; VK says they were removed without warning and it has never been under US sanctions
The Kremlin demanded an explanation from Apple (AAPL.O) on Thursday after several Russian mobile apps related …
Rockstar says physical copies of GTA VI will contain a download code, not a disc, and be available starting November 12, when players can begin pre-loading
Google launches a Google Finance app for Android, with market data, financial news, and an AI-powered “Key Moments” feature, and plans an iOS version this year
Google on Thursday launched a dedicated mobile app for Google Finance that houses users' watchlists and provides real …
A profile of incoming WhatsApp CEO Kunal Shah, who studied philosophy, advised Sequoia India, and joins a growing pool of Indian-born executives at US companies
Kunal Shah has experience in building transaction platforms and insights into emerging markets
Assort Health, which develops AI voice agents for health care to handle scheduling and more, raised a $120M Series C led by Menlo Ventures at a $1.2B valuation
Assort Health Menlo Ventures agentic AI voice AI — Assort Health picked up $120 million in series C funding …
OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, Microsoft, and others launch Raise Us, a new non-profit led by ex-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to help US workers adapt to AI
OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon and Microsoft have signed on to an effort led by Gina Raimondo, a former commerce secretary.
As China's working-age population shrinks, consensus is growing that China must embed embodied AI robots into as many tasks as possible, as soon as possible
The country's workforce is set to fall to 300mn by the end of the century. Beijing wants humanoids to narrow the labour gap.
Cloudflare partners with Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla on PACT, a protocol to distinguish legitimate human or bot web traffic from undesirable network requests
Makers of Chrome, Edge, Firefox back bot-fraud defense called Private Access Control Tokens — Cloudflare on Monday …
Paris-based Tsuga, whose observability software runs in customers' own clouds to help them skip per-byte ingestion costs, raised a $35M Series A led by Singular
Tsuga, a Paris startup building observability software for the age of AI agents, has raised a $35m Series A …
An Amazon seller reveals how middlemen on chat apps offer access to Amazon employees who allegedly grant favors, like reinstating suspended accounts, for a fee
Middlemen lurking on message apps like WeChat offer access to company employees they say can grant favors for a price.
Sources: Bumble explores a sale amid slowing growth in the online dating sector; its shares fell 48% over the past 12 months, giving it a market cap of $388M
Dating app Bumble (BMBL.O) is exploring a sale amid slowing growth in the online dating sector, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Microsoft quietly extends the Extended Security Updates program for Windows 10 consumers by a year, letting eligible users get updates through October 12, 2027
Windows 10's ESU program has been quietly extended by an extra year, now ending on October 12, 2027 instead of October 2026.
New Zealand-based Partly, which develops an AI model for the auto parts industry, raised a $50M Series B led by DST at a $500M valuation, as it enters the US
Partly Group Ltd., a New Zealand startup using artificial intelligence to change up the automotive parts business …
Qualcomm says it will acquire Modular, which builds a chip software platform and has a proprietary coding language, in a nearly $4B deal set to close in H2 2026
Lauren Goode /Wired:
Preliminary findings: the EU says Azure and AWS are “the largest and second largest” cloud services in the EU, as the bloc weighs up tougher DMA oversight
Microsoft Corp.'s Azure and Amazon Web Services face tough European Union guardrails after regulators said they should be targeted by the bloc's Digital Markets Act.
Source: Google is asking publishers that test new AI features in Google News to grant it broad rights to their content, including to potentially train AI models
Google is tightening the screws on news publishers. — In recent months, the tech giant has been pitching publishers …
Documents: Meta's planned prediction markets app will use Meta AI models to generate questions from trending topics, make recommendations, and resolve markets
Chipmaker Onsemi agrees to buy Synaptics in a nearly $7B all-stock deal expected to close in the middle of 2027; ON drops 9%+ and SYNA jumps 11%+ after hours
On Semiconductor has agreed to buy Synaptics in a nearly $7 billion all-stock deal to bolster its push into physical artificial intelligence technology.
Apple says “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”; the MacBook Neo rises from $599 to $699
Apple Inc. took the extreme measure of raising prices of all Macs, iPads, home devices and the Vision Pro on Thursday …
NAND flash maker Kioxia, Japan's most valuable company since June 12, plans to offer US depositary shares in spring 2027 amid AI-driven demand for memory chips
Kioxia Holdings Corp. plans to offer US depositary shares in the spring of 2027 and a stock split to take advantage of runaway demand …
Nebulock, which helps security teams proactively find and remediate threats across a company's security stack, raised a $25M Series A led by FirstMark
Contextual security startup Nebulock raised a $25 million Series A led by FirstMark, founder and CEO Damien Lewke tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Mirendil, founded by former Anthropic researchers and seeking to build self-improving AI for open-source developers, raised a $200M seed at a $1B valuation
Mirendil raises $200 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins to make AI that can do the job of an AI engineer
General Intuition, which trains AI agents in spatial reasoning via gameplay footage, raised $320M led by Khosla at a $2.3B valuation, for $454M in total funding
As soon as I entered General Intuition's R&D floor at its New York office, the company's 31-year-old co-founder …
Anthropic hires French telecom group Orange's Chief AI Officer Steve Jarrett to help Anthropic “better understand and adapt” its products to Europe and Africa
The artificial intelligence head of French telecoms group Orange (ORAN.PA) has left the company to join U.S. AI startup Anthropic, he said on Thursday.
How risk modelers like Fathom and Verisk are using AI and diffusion models to bypass the limits of physics-based “cat” models to predict natural disasters
Catastrophe scientists are pushing past the limits of physics-based models, improving how insurers calculate riskLinkedIn:Alberto CanalandAndrew SmithLinkedIn:Alberto Canal:Great piece in the Financia...
Coval, which develops simulation and evaluation tech for testing, launching, and monitoring AI voice and chat agents, raised a $28M Series A led by Norwest
Voice artificial intelligence testing startup Coval Inc. revealed today that it has raised $28 million in new funding to expand …
Sources: Google expands the scope of its months-old AI coding strike team to “midtraining” to try to catch up with Anthropic, after major executive departures
Google is reorganizing its recently launched strike team working on AI coding tools to try to catch up with Anthropic …
Sources: Sam Altman told staff the US government asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT 5.6 over security concerns, approving “access customer by customer”
For AI companies on the verge of releasing cutting edge new AI models, there's a new normal in the wake …
Qualcomm expects to generate $15B in data center chip sales by 2029 and raises its non-handset chip revenue forecast from $22B to $40B by 2029; QCOM jumps 9%+
Trase, which is building an operating system and infrastructure layer for AI agents in industries like health care and defense, raised a $107M seed led by Arch
Trase, an AI operating system company, has raised $107 million in seed funding led by Arch Venture Partners, CEO Grant Verstandig tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Sources and a draft document: the US proposes that the EU sign on to an AI partnership to help secure chip supply chains; the one-page statement had few details
The US has proposed that the European Union sign on to an artificial intelligence partnership as part of an effort to create …
Paris-based digital health insurance startup Alan raised €480M led by Prosus at a €5.5B valuation, and is set for €1B+ in annual recurring revenue by year's end
Paris-based group raises one of Europe's biggest non-AI start-up rounds this year
Hang Ten Systems, led by former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, launches with a $32M seed led by Mayfield to help enterprises use AI to run software at a lower cost
Patronus AI, which builds simulated digital environments for evaluating AI agents, raised a $50M Series B led by Greenfield, bringing its total funding to $70M
AI agents are becoming more sophisticated. They are evolving from answering questions to autonomously executing multi-step complex tasks.
Exponential View: global AI sales, excluding China, hit $25B in Q1, exceeding an estimated $21B in data center and chip depreciation costs; margins remain thin
Revenue from artificial intelligence has reached a tipping point, showing that the hundreds of billions of dollars tech companies …
Memo: Meta Superintelligence Labs is hiring three founders and other team members behind AI security startup Virtue AI; two founders report to Nat Friedman
Meta Superintelligence Labs is hiring three founders and other team members behind AI security startup Virtue AI, Axios has learned.
Australian payments startup Airwallex raised $320M led by Lee Fixel's Addition at an $11B valuation, and is incubating blockchain payments startup Metal
Amid allegations of sharing customer data with China, Australian payments startup Airwallex, now valued at $11 billion, is gunning for Stripe and Ramp.
Netris, which helps neoclouds automate network configuration to bring their data centers online faster, raised a $15M Series A from a16z
The AI boom has encouraged everyone and their uncle to launch a data center business. But spinning up a data center isn't easy.
Arm EVP Mohamed Awad says its chip architecture now accounts for 50%+ of the hyperscale cloud computing market, as AI demand transforms the data center industry
TAIPEI — SoftBank-backed chip designer Arm says it has hit a milestone in its decades-long challenge to Intel and AMD …
Scaled Cognition, a reliability-focused lab that develops the Agentic Pretrained Transformer model, raised a $100M Series A led by Khosla at a $750M valuation
AI models can be ‘like schizophrenic geniuses,’ says CEO who raised $100 million in round led by Khosla Ventures
Google Home Speaker review: the $100 speaker, the company's first such device in six years, works for Gemini power users but has underwhelming music playback
Sources: OpenAI leans toward holding off its IPO until 2027 after warnings that Sam Altman's desired $1T valuation may not be met in current market conditions
The A.I. company's advisers are pushing its chief executive, Sam Altman, to move slowly after SpaceX's stock has been volatile …
Nature publishes a peer-reviewed paper alleging that Microsoft's 2025 quantum breakthrough claims were based on “basic Python errors” and data cherry-picking
Sources: Google AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, both viewed internally as key contributors to Gemini, are planning to leave for Anthropic
Story Protocol, a blockchain-based IP ownership network that raised $140M, rebrands as Data Foundation to build an on-chain registry for AI training data
Palo Alto-based blockchain startup Story Protocol is rebranding as DATA Foundation and shifting its focus entirely to AI training infrastructure …
Sail, whose software optimizes how AI models run on existing chips, emerges from stealth with $80M in seed and Series A led by Kleiner at a $450M valuation
For months, Kleiner Perkins partner Aditya Naganath had been mulling over his investing thesis that the next wave of AI wasn't going to be a chatbot …
Sources: Kraken is in talks to acquire a 15% stake in DeFi protocol Aave at a $385M valuation, investing 35,000 ETH in return for 250,000 AAVE tokens
Crypto exchange Kraken, part of Payward Inc., is in talks to acquire a 15% stake in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave at a $385 million valuation …
Ornn, which plans to launch a marketplace for GPU capacity designed to function like an exchange to trade oil contracts, raised a $33M seed led by a16z
Apple stock closed down 6.15% on Thursday after the company raised some product prices, its worst fall since April 2025
Apple on Thursday announced price hikes on MacBooks and iPads, its first formal move to pass higher memory and storage costs on to consumers after CEO Tim Cook said increases had become unavoidable.
Sources: the Trump administration has been happier talking to Anthropic lately after Dario Amodei was replaced by cofounder Tom Brown in meetings about Fable 5
Seltz, which is building a web search engine that can be used by AI agents, raised a $12.5M seed led by Speedinvest and B Capital
Sources: Meta has accelerated its plans to use LLMs to review content and ads, replacing ~50% of human review requests in 2026 and aiming for 90%+ by year-end
Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit says AI helped it link two separate hacking tools, Amadey and StealC, and file a single civil lawsuit to help take them down
The US awards $250M in CHIPS funds to a startup co-founded by billionaire mining magnate Robert Friedland to develop silicon-carbide chips and pulsed-power tech
I-Pulse Inc. will receive $250 million in US funding for semiconductor and pulsed-power development as the venture co-founded …
Source: Muon Space, which operates satellite networks for climate and national security monitoring, is raising $250M; it has raised ~$181M since its 2021 launch
Muon Space, which builds and operates satellite networks, is raising $250 million, Axios Pro has learned.
Notion plans to shut down its Gmail client Notion Mail on September 22 and go “all in” on AI agents to run inboxes, saying 50%+ of users do not open the inbox
Last year, Notion expanded its productivity suite to include Notion Mail, an AI-powered email client.
Runlayer, which provides an infrastructure and control layer for enterprise AI agents, raised a $30M Series A led by Felicis, bringing its total funding to $42M
Chinese cybersecurity company 360 unveils new AI tools: Tulongfeng, which it claims is “China's version of Mythos”, and Yitianzhen, to automate cyber defense
XCures, which uses AI to streamline patient data and medical records, raised a $46M Series B at a $127M post-money valuation, bringing its total funding to $76M
RunPod, which rents access to non-Nvidia servers, raised $100M led by Summit Partners at a $1B valuation, a source says up from $100M after its seed in 2024
Intel CEO and SambaNova Chairman Lip-Bu Tan says the AI chip startup is set to raise $800M to $1B, sources say at a ~$10B valuation, up from ~$2B in February
Apple says “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”; the MacBook Neo rises to $699 from $599
Apple Inc. took the extreme measure of raising prices of Macs, iPads and home devices on Thursday …
Sources: Apple plans to skip higher-end M6 chips and launch its next Pro and Max chips in 2027 as part of the M7 lineup, to boost on-device AI capabilities
Apple Inc. is making one of the biggest-ever changes to its Mac silicon strategy, preparing to jump ahead to a new artificial …
Alibaba's stock closed down 4.43% in Hong Kong on Thursday after Anthropic accused the company of “illicitly” accessing its AI models; Xiaomi and Baidu fell ~3%
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. shares slid to a 16-month low in Hong Kong after Anthropic PBC accused the Chinese technology giant of …