The Permit Inside the AI Term Sheet
OpenAI and Anthropic captured 43% of global venture funding in the first half of 2026. Now ownership, model-release terms, and national-security commitments are entering the same negotiation.
AI’s Cap Table Has a Chair for the State
Across two years, frontier AI’s financing logic has moved toward public policy and national security; OpenAI’s 2025 stock-based compensation averaged $1.5 million per employee.
Sony says all new PlayStation games will only be sold in digital formats from January 2028, as digital media preference “significantly outpaces physical discs”
New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won't be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced.
Sources: Meta plans a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to AI compute and models, to compete with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud; META jumps 9%
Meta Platforms Inc. is developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to AI computing power and models …
Sources: SpaceX showed investors a handset-like device prototype with AI tech from xAI, a proprietary OS, a Snapdragon chip, and a design slimmer than an iPhone
The sleek, handset-like prototype was designed to integrate AI technology from SpaceX's xAI — Elon Musk's SpaceX has developed …
Sources: Apple is working on four new iPad Pros and an entry-level 14" MacBook Pro for H1 2027 with a new design in line with its upcoming touch-screen laptops
Apple Inc. is preparing an upgraded iPad Pro line and a redesigned entry-level MacBook Pro for next year, adding to a slate of several …
Alex Karp calls US reliance on AI labs for military tech “effing insane”, pans AI fees for businesses, and touts Palantir's Nvidia Nemotron deal for US agencies
Topline — Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Wednesday called the AI industry “effing insane” in a heated interview on CNBC …
Sources: OpenAI has discussed giving a 5% stake to the US government, seeking to clear political obstacles by securing buy-in from the Trump administration
Sam Altman's start-up in early talks for a public ownership deal as political pressure rises. OpenAI has discussed giving …
Sources: the White House is in advanced talks with AI companies on voluntary standards and new model release timelines, to be announced as soon as next week
Guidance to be announced as soon as next week after government intervention in Anthropic and OpenAI rollouts
Sources: Apple is in negotiations to buy chips from CXMT and YMTC, two Chinese semiconductor makers on a Pentagon blacklist, for use in devices sold in China
Apple Inc. is in negotiations to purchase chips from two Chinese semiconductor makers on a Pentagon blacklist to help reduce …
Amazon's emissions rose 16% YoY in 2025, driven by data center construction and delivery fuel, while Google's “ambition-based” emissions jumped 18% YoY in 2025
Amazon and Google report jumps in their greenhouse gas output as the data center boom gains momentum.
The US DOJ says Peter Stokes, a 19-year-old dual US-Estonian citizen, was extradited from Finland to face charges of participating in Scattered Spider hacks
A 19-year-old man with dual U.S. and Estonian citizenship was extradited from Finland to Chicago this week to face criminal charges …
Sources: Apple told suppliers to prepare to produce ~10M foldable iPhones in 2026, up from a forecast of 7M to 8M, and 80M iPhones in total across new models
TAIPEI — Apple is planning an ambitious iPhone launch for the second half of this year and first half of 2027 with at least five …
Nansen: about two-thirds of Trump's memecoin investors are currently in the red, and 85% of World Liberty's $WLFI buyers on the secondary market are underwater
Roughly two-thirds of investors in the president's memecoin are currently in the red — Morten Christensen made a big bet …
A survey of US adults finds 56% support banning social media for under-16s, while 21% oppose; majorities across demographic and partisan groups support a ban
Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults support banning anyone under the age of 16 from using social media sites, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
At a town hall, Mark Zuckerberg said Meta's AI agent development has not accelerated as expected and its reorganization was not as “clean” as it could have been
Meta (META.O) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an internal town hall on Thursday that AI agent development …
Venice AI, which offers access to 200+ AI models while allowing users to retain their privacy, raised a $65M Series A led by Dragonfly at a $1B valuation
Concerns over the impact of AI chatbots on mental health, personal safety, harassment, and disinformation have forced AI developers …
President Trump says Micron will invest $250M in Trump Accounts; Micron says it will come via an employee matching program and a $250 deposit in some US states
President Trump said the U.S. chip maker would make a significant donation to a new type of investment account created by the administration.
The European Court of Justice rules that Google's earlier defeat against a €4.1B European Commission penalty over abusing Android's market power should stand
Google lost its long-running fight against a €4.1 billion ($4.7 billion) European Union antitrust fine after the bloc's top judges …
Sources: Microsoft has been working on a disc-to-digital feature for Xbox One and Xbox Series X that will let users digitize their physical game collections
feature said to go back to Xbox One-era gamesFraser Gilbert /Pure Xbox:Report: Xbox Disc-To-Digital Feature Will Allow You To Digitise Your Physical CollectionShikhar Mehrotra /Digital Trends:Xbox mig...
Bending Spoons, which owns Vimeo, AOL, and Evernote, closed up 40% in its US market debut on Wednesday at a $25.7B valuation, after raising $1.68B in its IPO
Bending Spoons SpA shares surged 40% above their initial public offering price after the company and some of its backers raised $1.68 billion.
Higharc, which uses AI to assist house builders in design and construction, raised a $95M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $170M+
A Durham-based artificial intelligence company targeting the homebuilding industry has raised $95 million and is hiring.
Sam Altman proposes a “US-led international forum” to establish AI standards, provide analysis of capabilities and risks, and make AI models available to allies
The labs develop the technology, but citizens and their elected representatives must make the rules
A researcher says a vulnerability in Apple's Hide My Email tool lets anyone see a user's real email address; first reported in June 2025, Apple has not fixed it
A look at the CSOP SK Hynix Leveraged ETF, which trades in Hong Kong and has ballooned into a $13B fund, becoming the world's largest single-stock leveraged ETF
A Hong Kong fund tied to SK Hynix has grown so large that it's beginning to move the stock it was built to track.
Alibaba and its US payment processor AUS agree to pay $600M to resolve DOJ allegations that they failed to stop illegal sales of ~80K drugs and other products
Chinese technology and e-commerce giant Alibaba (9988.HK) and its U.S.-based payment processor have agreed to pay $600 million …
Indian IT company Persistent Systems offers to acquire its Germany-based peer Nagarro for $1.45B; Indian IT companies are ramping up M&A as AI reshapes growth
BENGALURU — A move by Persistent Systems to buy German peer Nagarro in a $1.45 billion deal has highlighted how Indian software exporters …
X launches Live Studio, an updated livestreaming hub within Creator Studio with a simplified desktop setup, chat control options, thumbnail uploads, and more
Listen to the article — X announced an updated live-streaming command center within its Creator Studio platform …
Amazon says Leo now has 396 satellites in low-Earth orbit, following a July 1 launch, which is “enough to support continuous service across initial latitudes”
Early adopters of Amazon Leo should temper expectations. … Amazon says it now has enough satellites operating …
Z.ai launches ZCode, an “Agentic Development Environment” purpose-built for its GLM-5.2 model; Z.ai's GLM Coding Plan tiers range from $16.20 to $144 per month
The move marks the company's most aggressive push yet into the fast-growing AI-powered coding tool market …
CarbonSix, which is developing AI automation and robotic intelligence tech for manufacturing, raised a $40M Series A co-led by DSC Investment and LB Investment
CarbonSix, Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based Physical AI company focused on the manufacturing sector, raised $40m (approx. KRW 60 billion) in Series A funding.
Sources: Palmer Luckey's Erebor Bank is in talks to raise money at an $8B+ valuation, up from $4.35B in 2025; its deposits are up from $1.1B in March to $4.05B
Erebor Bank is in talks to raise money at a valuation of at least $8 billion, as deposits grow rapidly at the politically connected startup …
Sony says it will close the virtual PlayStation 3 store in select markets in 2026 before closing PS3 and PS Vita stores “in all other countries” in July 2027
The virtual PS3 store will close in select markets this year, with global closures for PS3 and PS Vita following in 2027.
An interview with Amazon SVP of Devices Panos Panay on designing custom chips for Echo and Fire TV devices, experimenting with AI-enabled gadgets, and more
Amazon is focusing on building chips for its “critical” consumer devices, the company's top hardware executive told CNBC.
Cloudflare sets a September 15 deadline for AI companies to differentiate their web crawlers into search, AI training, and AI agents or face being blocked
Cloudflare gave AI crawlers a September deadline to separate the bots that gather content for search from those that harvest …
Letter: the US says Anthropic “agreed to proactively detect and address security risks” of Fable 5 and Mythos 5; a source says Anthropic developed a “safeguard”
settling the company and administration into a fragile truceZachary Folk /Forbes:Anthropic's Fable And Mythos Models Are Back—Here's What The Government Was Concerned About In The First PlaceJason Hin...
Germany-based Quantum Systems, which sells surveillance drones used by Ukraine, raised $1.2B led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus, and Advent at an ~$8B valuation
Quantum Systems has raised $1.2 billion in a funding round, more than doubling the German drone startup's valuation …
SoftBank and its telecom unit launch SB Neo to offer AI chips and cloud services to big companies, aiming to provide 10GW of capacity in the US by around 2030
SoftBank Group Corp. and its telecom unit will start renting AI computing resources to US companies next fiscal year …
UK-based StirlingX, which develops secure data intelligence systems for defense and critical infrastructure, raised a $20M Series A, following a $11M seed
The UK company, which develops secure data intelligence systems for defence and critical infrastructure, will use the funding …
Sources: Crusoe is in active talks to raise ~$3B in a funding round expected to value the company in the ~$30B range, up from a ~$10B valuation in October
Crusoe, the data center upstart with contracts to supply AI computing power for the likes of Meta Platforms Inc. and Oracle Corp. …
Microsoft invests $2.5B and forms the Microsoft Frontier Company to embed 6,000 forward-deployed engineers with customers to help deploy AI systems
Microsoft is launching a new AI “company.” It won't be a separate legal entity, and most of its 6,000 people already work at Microsoft.
Stockholm's Patent and Market Court orders Google to pay nearly $2B to Klarna's PriceRunner in a dispute over abuse of power in the shopping comparison market
German software giant SAP says it's encouraging workers to invent new, more valuable jobs aided by AI, to try to avoid layoffs; SAP cut nearly 10K staff in 2024
The German software giant SAP says it is betting that employees can reinvent jobs instead of eliminating them. Experts are divided on whether it will work.
Sources: Anthropic has initiated early-stage development of a custom AI server chip and held preliminary discussions with Samsung about manufacturing the chip
Anthropic has begun early-stage work on its own AI chip and held talks with Samsung Electronics as a potential manufacturing partner …
Lime's shares closed up 4% in its Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, valuing the company at ~$1.7B, after Lime and existing stockholders raised ~$174M in its US IPO
Kling AI, the Kuaishou AI video generator spin-off, raised $2B at a $15B pre-money valuation and says the round could extend to as much as $3B
China's Kling AI has raised an initial $2 billion in venture capital funding as the spinoff from Kuaishou Technology seeks to expand its video AI operations.
Tripo AI, which is developing 3D foundation models and world models for use in games, raised $150M, a month after it said it raised $200M
Tripo AI, a global artificial intelligence company building AI 3D foundation models and world models, said it raised a new round of $150 million in funding.
UK lawyers say the tide of AI-assisted employment claims is straining an already overloaded employment tribunal system, whose backlog is up 55% YoY to 64K
Meta names Chief Marketing Officer Alex Schultz as its first-ever chief data officer, to manage AI analytics across the company, and names Denise Moreno as CMO
Internal memo: Tesla plans to impose a $200-per-week limit for staff's AI spending beginning July 6; the tally excludes beta versions of xAI products
Tesla told staff last month it would impose a $200 per week limit for staff's AI spending beginning July 6, according to an internal memo …
Source: crypto payments and settlement startup Mesh is raising funding led by Binance at a ~$2B valuation, six months after raising $75M at a $1B valuation
Binance is set to lead Mesh's funding round that will value the crypto payments and settlement company at up to $2 billion, Axios Pro has learned.
A UN panel co-chaired by Yoshua Bengio warns that AI capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding, the “potential benefits of AI are enormous”, and more
Memo: Microsoft is merging the consumer and enterprise versions of its Copilot chatbots into a single app featuring coding tools and AI agents dubbed AutoPilot
Microsoft is merging the consumer and enterprise versions of its Copilot AI chatbots into a single application as it tries …
Travel app Hopper agrees to a $35M FTC settlement over allegations the company misled users by imposing hidden fees and misrepresenting the total costs
Hopper, the travel app known for its AI-driven flight and hotel price predictions, has agreed to a $35 million settlement following …
Taiwanese authorities detain two Super Micro staff and an Albatron manager after a raid of Super Micro's local offices this week over Nvidia shipments to China
An EU draft proposal dated June 30 shows the bloc is weighing weaker climate impact rules for gas-powered data centers, after heavy lobbying from tech groups
Nvidia promises to financially backstop young cloud providers, like Firmus and Sharon AI, by renting back unused GPUs, in exchange for a share of their revenues
Sources: ElevenLabs held early talks with investors on a secondary share sale for staff that would value the startup at ~$22B; it was valued at $11B in February
ElevenLabs has held early talks with investors to let employees sell shares in a secondary offering that would value …
Filings: Trump purchased up to $5M each in Broadcom, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia stocks on July 23, the same day he unveiled his AI action plan
www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/u...Ken Bazinet /@kenbazinet:“It is hard to wrap your head around that the president of the United States would engage in this level of self-enrichment at the expense of so ...
India-based short video app ShareChat's parent company Mohalla Tech plans to raise up to $400M in an IPO in 2027; ShareChat has ~65M monthly micro-drama viewers
Emails disclosed in a court filing detail the uneasy back-and-forth between Dario Amodei and DOD's Emil Michael and how Anthropic's relationship with DOD soured
Undersecretary Emil Michael and CEO Dario Amodei went back and forth for months over safety guardrails