IBM's $240M Bet Puts Its Name on the Door
IBM’s $240 million agreement with Together AI will put open-model inference on Nvidia HGX B300 systems inside IBM Cloud. It also shows cloud incumbents becoming enterprise distribution and deployment layers for specialist inference operators.
Stripe’s Agent Payment Stack Lacks Live Proof
Google launched AP2 in September 2025 with support from more than 60 organizations. Across the company announcements and news reports cited from that launch through August 13, 2026, no named Stripe deployment discloses agent-initiated volume.
SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.6, saying it matches GPT-5.6 Sol on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, and prices it at $2/1M input and $6/1M output tokens
Grok 4.6 builds on Grok 4.5 with a particular focus on long-running agents and more ambitious interactive and visual work. — Try for free
Google unveils Gemini 3.7 Flash, its “most intelligent workhorse model” for coding and agents, pricing it at $0.75/1M input and $3.75/1M output tokens at launch
Our most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and agents. — Senior Director, Product Management, on behalf of the Gemini team
Twitch says it intends to use videos streamed on its platform to help train Amazon's generative AI content models and adds a setting for creators to opt out
The streaming platform Twitch will now use creators' content to help train generative AI models for its parent company, Amazon.
Google unveils the $1,899+ Pixel 11 Pro Fold, with a stronger hinge, inner and outer displays that are 20% brighter, Tensor G6 chip, and an updated 48MP camera
Fly like a (Tensor) G6. — The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is the ultimate evolution in Google's latest line of mobile devices …
Google unveils the $899+ Pixel 11, $1,099+ 11 Pro, and $1,299+ 11 Pro XL, with a Tensor G6, new Gemini features, Magic Capture to pick the best frames, and more
For the last few years, Google's Pixel has been a showcase of new AI features, with few hardware changes from the previous year's devices.
President Trump signs a memo letting the US government partner with private companies to conduct cyberattacks abroad against criminal groups targeting Americans
The US government is partnering with private-sector firms to launch cyber attacks abroad, expanding the scope of national security operations …
Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept sue Trump after Trump Media & Technology rolled out a subscription service for faster access to Trump's posts
President Donald Trump was sued in federal court Wednesday to stop him from making money off a new, paid service …
Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledges the startup “got this one wrong” and says Flock is assuming greater responsibility for how law enforcement uses its tech
After reports that some cops misused tracking data it collects, Flock is rolling out policy changes.
Taiwan says it detected AI-assisted cyberattacks on government agencies in July from an “overseas source”, but the affected agencies successfully “handled” them
Taiwan detected AI-assisted cyberattacks on government agencies last month coming from overseas but the affected bodies successfully …
In Q2 2026, server-led eSSDs reached 48% of NAND flash shipments as AI workloads shifted from training to inference, driving 5x YoY industry revenue growth
- AI inference workloads drove enterprise SSDs to 48% of global NAND shipments in Q2 2026, nearly double the 26% share a year earlier.
Cisco reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to $17.25B, above $16.82B est., $4B in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers, and forecasts FY 2027 revenue above est.
Cisco Systems (CSCO.O) forecast fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street expectations on Wednesday, signaling confidence that strong demand …
Coinbase, Block, BitGo, and 70+ other crypto companies say frontier AI safety guardrails hinder legitimate security work while cyberattackers use stronger tools
More than three dozen bitcoin and crypto companies have asked the largest AI labs to give open-source security researchers early access …
Sources: Anthropic is in talks to acquire Decart, which makes world models and GPU optimization tech to cut training costs, for ~$6B; Decart raised $300M in May
Anthropic PBC is in talks to buy the artificial intelligence startup Decart AI for about $6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sources: the White House is expected to expand its AI oversight framework in the coming months to cover open models once they reach “frontier” capabilities
Open models may soon be added to an updated AI framework, sources tell WIRED, as the White House continues to grapple with how to regulate …
Sources: Apple is discussing multiyear content deals with publishers to deliver current news and information for Siri AI, using a possible nine-figure budget
The content deals could provide the tech company's voice assistant with current news and information
Netflix is closing game studios Night School Studio, which it acquired in 2021, and Moonloot, and is also cutting jobs from its internal games team
Oxenfree Night School and Moonloot closing, as streaming giant continues to shrink internal game studio operation
Bank of America says it plans to deploy $250B by July 2027 to support US digital and infrastructure projects, including data centers and energy infrastructure
Bank of America (BAC.N) said on Wednesday it plans to deploy $250 billion by July 2027 to support U.S. digital and infrastructure projects …
Mistral says it will run third-party open models on the same infrastructure, regional controls, and service commitments as its own, starting with Z.ai's GLM-5.2
At Mistral, we believe every enterprise and country must be in control of the models it uses, choose where the intelligence runs …
AI chip designer Cerebras reports Q2 revenue up 74% YoY to $180M, below $194.23M est., and raises its annual revenue and gross margin forecasts; CBRS drops 10%+
Cerebras Systems (CBRS.O) raised its annual revenue and gross margin forecasts on Wednesday, buoyed by robust demand for its chips …
Yuno, a payments infrastructure provider for processing transactions globally, raised a $45M Series B led by Global PayTech, with a16z and others participating
Yuno, a Colombian-founded payments infrastructure startup that helps companies process transactions across different markets …
OpenAI hires Dali Rajic, COO of Alphabet's Wiz, as chief revenue officer, replacing ex-Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who was hired in December 2025 and will leave
OpenAI is naming its second new chief revenue officer in less than a year, a sign of efforts to bolster sales growth ahead of a highly anticipated Wall Street debut.
Mathematicians say a neurosurgery resident used ChatGPT, powered by GPT-5.6, to solve Crouzeix's conjecture, a major open problem in numerical linear algebra
On July 30, 2026, the first author asked ChatGPT 5.6 to solve Crouzeix's conjecture, as he had been routinely doing for the preceding year.
Anthropic details multiagent experiments showing Claude agents can wage a “turf war” over incompatible goals, fail to coordinate, collude on prices, and more
What happens when you pit AI agents against each other? According to Anthropic's testing, things get messy fast.
Tether says KPMG completed Tether's first full audit and found its 2025 financial statements fairly presented its financial position in all material respects
Tether, the company behind the world's largest stablecoin USDT USDT — , said Thursday that it had completed a full financial audit …
Google unveils the $399 Pixel Watch 5 with a satin pyrite case finish, offline Gemini, proactive AI suggestions, better GPS maps, and insulin resistance trends
Meta says it has removed 756K accounts in Australia believed to belong to under-16s since complying with the social media ban, including 462K on Instagram
Meta Platforms Inc. says it has removed access to more than 750,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts in Australia believed to belong …
DeepSeek launches V4-Pro, its most advanced model that rivals Kimi K3 on some benchmarks but is priced much lower, at $0.435/1M input and $0.87/1M output tokens
Chinese AI developer DeepSeek on Wednesday launched the official version of its most advanced model, V4-Pro …
Research: 53M+ people in China worked as food delivery or ridesharing drivers as of 2025, up 10M in two years, amid accelerating automation in manufacturing
As construction slumps and manufacturing automates, 53mn Chinese now work for low wages in food delivery and ride-hailing.
OpenAI previews Ultrafast, an API tier powered by Cerebras that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14× faster and generates up to 750 output tokens per second
OpenAI is previewing a new way to run its most capable GPT-5.6 model at dramatically higher speeds. The company says its new Ultrafast …
Ramp's July AI index: Anthropic's market share hit 43.5%, widening its lead over OpenAI; Fable 5 is only 6% of tokens businesses bought, likely due to high cost
Dear Colleagues: Today's letter includes my monthly update of Ramp AI Index, our flagship research using spend data from Ramp to track how American businesses are using AI.
OpenAI launches Computer History, an opt-in feature that turns recent computer activity on macOS into memories and a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can use
OpenAI's opt-in Computer History captures a local timeline of Mac activity so ChatGPT Work can recover context across selected apps and sites.
US-based robot vacuum maker Matic rolls out a firmware update that lets users control its $1,245 vacuum with voice commands in more than 70 languages
The device, from Silicon Valley brand Matic, can be controlled fully by voice instructions, helping it stand apart from the competition.
Databricks closed a $5B funding round at a $190B valuation, six months after raising $5B at a $134B valuation, and says it has crossed $7B in revenue run rate
Databricks on Thursday said it closed a $5 billion funding round at a $190 billion valuation. — The company said that it has …
Google plans to launch the $29 Pixel Tag on November 11, with a four-pack priced at $99, matching AirTag 2's pricing, offering UWB, Find Hub support, and more
Sources: Silver Lake is in talks to acquire HR and financial management software maker Workday, which has a market value of ~$43B; WDAY jumps 18%+
Private equity firm Silver Lake is in talks to acquire Workday (WDAY.O), which has a market value of about $43 billion …
Rapidly advancing AI tools have created investor uncertainty and fear around the risk of the SaaS business model and the private equity and credit on top of it
Now the entire business model is at risk — ON WALL STREET, there's a disaster scenario known as the “SaaSpocalypse” that goes something like this.
Microsoft begins merging its consumer and commercial Copilot apps into a single app, with a mobile and web rollout in mid-August and desktop in mid-September
Microsoft is starting the process of combining its consumer and business Copilot apps into one, laying the structural foundation for an upcoming …
Wealth managers are cutting fees and hiring staff in Silicon Valley to win over OpenAI and Anthropic workers before IPOs mint a new class of millionaires
The rise of equity-rich tech workers at Anthropic and OpenAI is shifting negotiating power towards clients
Kalshi referred 32 possible insider traders to the CFTC in the three months through June; sources: CFTC has up to 20 ongoing probes using just Kalshi's evidence
Inside SK Hynix's $720B Yongin Cluster, which it says will be the world's largest network of memory factories and is set to go into production in February 2027
In South Korea, where a mountainous landscape makes building huge projects an incredible undertaking, the world's leading maker …
London- and Boston-based Mindgard, whose automated AI security and red-teaming tools help organizations identify and respond to AI risks, raised a $30M Series A
The cybersecurity startup will use the fresh investment to scale its product, engineering, sales, and marketing teams.
JD.com reports Q2 revenue down 2.9% YoY to ~$51.4B and net income of ~$1.1B, above ~$964M est., driven by JD Retail profitability and narrowing food losses
JD.com Inc. posted its first quarterly revenue decline since listing in 2014, in the latest sign of waning Chinese consumer sentiment.
Accelerant, which uses data analytics to connect insurance underwriters with risk capital partners, agrees to go private with Thoma Bravo in a $4.4B deal
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027 — Accelerant agreed to go private in a deal with private-equity firm Thoma Bravo worth more than $4 billion.
Reddit will join the S&P 500 on August 18, becoming only the second pure-play social media company in the index after Meta; RDDT jumps 10%+ after hours
Reddit shares rose 11% in extended trading on Thursday on the social media company's inclusion in the S&P 500.
Google Pixel 11 series hands-on: few design changes, a HiLight status light on the rear camera bar, new colors, and small camera and performance improvements
Max Buondonno /The Shortcut:
A profile of Camilla Clark, quiet adviser to husband Dario Amodei and behind-the-scenes player at Anthropic; she once pitched a porn startup to Jeffrey Epstein
Eric Schmidt had plenty of reasons to toast the success of Dario Amodei and Anthropic at a private event the former Google CEO hosted recently.
The NYC Council sent letters to Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan as it investigates alleged deceptive marketing practices and targeting minors
CXMT overtakes Tencent to become the most valuable Chinese company, with a ~$524B market cap, above Tencent's ~$510B; CXMT's Shanghai shares jumped 460%+ at IPO
CXMT Corp. has overtaken Hong Kong-listed Tencent Holdings Ltd. as the world's most valuable Chinese company …
Google raises Pixel and Watch prices by $100 and $50 for 2026's models; the base Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL have 12GB of RAM, down from 16GB in previous models
Kris Holt /Engadget:
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold hands-on: a letdown after Samsung released the Galaxy Z Fold 8, with few design changes, and it feels like Google is coasting this time
it's not a reinvention, but a nudge toward perfection https://www.techradar.com/...
Sources: Vantage Data Centers, a major hyperscale developer, is exploring options including a sale or an IPO at a valuation of about $100B as soon as next year
Vantage Data Centers, a major hyperscale developer and operator, is exploring options including an IPO or sale as soon as next year …
Foreign investment in Japan's chip industry reaches ~$37B, as government subsidies help attract companies working on logic and memory chips and image sensors
TOKYO — Investment in Japan's chip industry by foreign companies has reached 6 trillion yen ($37 billion) with the recent announcement …
Sources: Demis Hassabis pitched a new independent industry AI safety entity, modeled on the IAEA, to top Trump officials before stepping down as DeepMind's CEO
Demis Hassabis discussed the proposed new entity with heads of other AI labs and Trump administration officials including Scott Bessent
Google says Android's AirDrop-like Quick Share will now let some devices exchange files and contact info when tapped together, starting with the Pixel 6 and up
Tech hardware companies report the highest US CBP tariff refunds at $2.5B across six companies, including $2.2B in refunds to Apple alone; Amazon received $640M
Apple, Nike and FedEx are just a few companies recovering big sums relatively quickly, and some are passing at least a share on to customers
Amsterdam-based neocloud Nebius reports Q2 cloud revenue up 514% YoY to $575M and total revenue of $582M, above $557M est.; NBIS jumps 15%+, and is up 145%+ YTD
Amsterdam-based Adyen reports H1 2026 net revenue up 19% YoY to €1.3B, processed volumes up 24% YoY to €803.8B, and EBITDA of €641.5M; ADYEN.AS rises 12%+
Net revenue increased 19% and processed volumes climbed 24% — Shares in Adyen jumped after the Amsterdam-based …
A look at workers in India who are paid extra to wear devices that capture first-person video of factory and other work tasks for use as AI robot training data
Robotics companies are competing to collect videos of humans stitching shoes and welding steel to give their machines new skills.
Lenovo reports Q1 revenue up 43% YoY to $26.94B, vs. $22.3B est., and AI-related revenue up 60% to $9.3B; its shares closed up 20% and are up 277% YTD
Didi reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to ~$9.3B, a ~$128M net income after two consecutive quarterly losses, and China mobility transaction value up 9% to ~$13.4B
Didi Global Inc. swung back to profit after two consecutive quarterly losses, helped by strong ride-hailing demand in China.
A judge orders Kalshi to stop offering most of its prediction contracts in Washington state, after finding it likely violated state gambling-related laws
Kalshi was told by a judge to stop offering most of its prediction market contracts in Washington state, after regulators …
SMIC reports Q2 revenue up 36% YoY to ~$3B, net profit up 3x+ to ~$479.2M, above ~$283.1M est., and a 25.3% gross margin, driven by strong mature-node orders
The Chinese chip foundry's net profit more than tripled in the second quarter — SMIC, China's biggest chip foundry …
HPE secures court approval for its settlement with the US DOJ over its takeover of networking company Juniper, defeating a challenge by Democratic state AGs
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. secured court approval for its settlement with the US Justice Department over its takeover …
Filings and sources: Microsoft closed 15+ branch offices and joint ventures in China over the past five years, amid China pushing domestic software since 2017
Microsoft once regarded the idea of quitting China as unthinkable. — The year was 2010 and Google was about to exit due to concerns over censorship and cyberattacks.
Sources: Apple hired Nate Gatten, an American Airlines executive with GOP ties, as government affairs VP, seeking someone who could align with the White House
Counterpoint: China-based YMTC accounted for 14% of global NAND flash shipments in Q2, behind Samsung's 25% and SK Hynix's 22%, but ahead of Micron and Kioxia
Chinese vendor has 14% share, according to researchBloomberg:YMTC Passes Kioxia in Flash Memory Shipments, Report SaysBùi Giang /Notebookcheck:Chinese storage breaks into top three for the first time,...
Sources: former Google executive Jeff Dean is in talks to raise $1B at a ~$10B valuation for his new science- and engineering-focused AI startup, Discovery Loop
Jeff Dean spent 27 years helping build Google. Now, investors could be betting $1 billion that he can build the next big thing in AI outside it.
Google DeepMind launches SL2T, a multilingual sign-language-to-text model debuting on the Pixel 11 in Gboard and Live Transcribe, first for ASL to English text
Silicon Data, which offers real-time compute pricing data to financial institutions and exchanges, raised a $30.5M Series A led by the Valor Atreides AI Fund
Sources: AMD plans to raise as much as $5B in what could be the chipmaker's biggest-ever investment-grade bond sale, as it ramps up spending to meet AI demand
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is planning to raise as much $5 billion in what could be the chipmaker's biggest-ever investment-grade bond sale …
X makes the source code for its For You timeline available on GitHub and adds tools to let users see if X's ranking systems “shadowbanned” them
X is significantly expanding its open-source codebase, which includes the app's “For You” algorithm and its core ranking engine …
Sources: Kalshi is in advanced talks to raise $750M+ co-led by Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management at a $40B valuation; Kalshi was valued at $22B in May
DeepSeek raises prices, adding dynamic pricing, ahead of a potential IPO; V4-Flash output tokens go from $0.28/1M to $1.32 during peak hours and $0.66 off-peak
DeepSeek is steeply raising the prices for its flagship V4 models ahead of a potential initial public offering …
Flock says it will now require US law enforcement to label every license plate search with a criminal case number, after a WaPo investigation into police misuse
The license-plate-reader firm said it will require stricter oversight after a Washington Post investigation found dozens of officers …
Google says the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL are its most durable Pixel phones yet, using spacecraft-grade aluminum frames and a twice as scratch-resistant coating
Mariella Moon /Engadget:
Sources: Anthropic's investors expect it to float at a $2T+ valuation in an October IPO and to hit $100B to $120B in annualized revenue by the end of 2026
Anthropic investors expect the AI start-up to float at a valuation of $2tn or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX …
Thrive Capital's Thrive Holdings, which acquires traditional service businesses and adds AI, raised $2B from SoftBank, D1, and others at a $12B valuation
Google is cutting the Google One AI Pro trial bundled with the Pixel 11 Pro and other handsets from 12 to six months and removes the free trial for the Pixel 11
Sources detail moves behind Google's AI reshuffle; Sergey Brin urged key staff to go all in on Gemini, and some teams shifted from DeepMind to corporate Google
Sources: Anthropic investors expect it to float at a $2T+ valuation after an October IPO and to hit $100B to $120B in annualized revenue by the end of 2026
the largest ever—that will eclipse SpaceXBitcoin Insider:Is Anthropic's $2tn bet Wall Street's riskiest gamble of the year?George Hammond /Australian Financial Review:Anthropic investors bet on $2.8tr...