Uber Backs Kalanick’s Atoms Before Fleet-Scale Proof
Nine years after Uber investors ousted Travis Kalanick, Uber joined Andreessen Horowitz’s $1.7 billion round for Atoms. Its other autonomy bets show how far a financing relationship remains from a working fleet.
TSMC’s $2 Billion Deal for the Slot Behind AI Chips
Nvidia has reserved most of TSMC’s CoWoS capacity even as TSMC says it is growing at an 80% annual rate. TSMC’s $2 billion agreement with GlobalFoundries adds a five-year commitment for silicon interposers.
Meta Delayed Muse for Safety. Then It Launched
AI agent safety controls are becoming a product question: Instinct raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, while sources said Meta held Muse for months over safety concerns before deciding to release it.
AT&T's $23B Spectrum Deal Has No Stated JV Role
AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon formed a satellite venture in October 2026 after a May pact to pool spectrum resources. AT&T’s separate $23 billion agreement for roughly 50 MHz of EchoStar spectrum has no stated role in the venture.
Why Toshiba Is Doubling HDDs as Enterprise SSDs Surge
Enterprise SSDs rose from 26% to 48% of global NAND shipments in a year, according to Counterpoint. Toshiba plans to double AI-data-center HDD capacity by FY2027, relative to 2025.
Microsoft denies JD Vance's claim it replaced thousands of US workers with foreign workers in 2025, saying 80% of H-1B applications were for existing employees
President Donald Trump's administration announced Thursday it was suspending Microsoft and several other firms …
Sources: Apple is planning an event on or around October 27 for its first touchscreen MacBook, an OLED iPad mini, a 14" MacBook Pro with M6, and an iMac with M6
Apple Inc., already set to introduce a revamped smart home strategy next week, is planning a second launch in October to introduce …
President Trump awards Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, and Sergey Brin the National Medal of Science at a White House summit promoting US innovation
President Donald Trump joined Michael Kratsios to award the Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su and Sergey Brin amid announcements about new science funding.
Anthropic updates its usage policy to ban “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude; ending chats is “the primary enforcement mechanism”
The usage policy update also adds new rules addressing propaganda campaigns, surveillance, and weapon development.
Amazon unveils Alexa Tablets, replacing Fire tablets, with Android and Google Play Store: 12 Pro for $500+, 11 for $330+, and 8 for $230+, shipping October 14
They're powerful, priced to move, and filled with AI ideas. Don't you dare call them Fire tablets.
Docs: OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was nearing $50B at the end of September, well below the $70B reported by the media based on investor docs
AI giant recently told investors the key figure was approaching $50bn in September, far less than the $70bn that was widely reported
AI researcher Mikita Balesni says he believes OpenAI fired him, Tomek Korbak, and Jasmine Wang “for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI”
Two other safety researchers and I were fired from OpenAI last week. We wrote this letter to leadership. I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a cor...
Xbox launches XP, a unit that will manage four non-gaming “investment areas”: Xbox Pictures for film and TV, Xbox Products, Xbox Places, and Xbox Partnerships
Xbox's new ‘XP’ arm will oversee Xbox experiences outside of video games, including movies, consumer products, and live events.
Google Cloud unveils the Gemini agent, which can handle multiday enterprise workflows in Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack using Gemini and other AI models
Google is unveiling a new universal AI agent for the workplace that can research information, create documents, write code …
SpaceX agrees to acquire a low-band spectrum portfolio to help Starlink “become a major mobile carrier in the US”; AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon shares fall 5%+
Elon Musk's SpaceX said it acquired low-band spectrum that will enable it to use its Starlink satellites to become a …
Anthropic launches OSS Scanner, which provides free, opt-in security audits for open-source projects by sending AI-generated reports without human review
We're launching OSS Scanner, an opt-in vulnerability scanner for the open-source ecosystem informed by our experience using Claude …
Trump says the WH considers as “THE ENEMY” anyone who uses the term Artificial Intelligence, not “the highly accepted” and “more accurate” Super Intelligence
The White House considers anyone that uses the term, “Artificial Intelligence,” …
USV raised $900M, including a $500M early-stage fund, up from $275M in 2024, cuts its general partnership to four investors, and aims to lead more AI rounds
New York City-based venture firm Union Square Ventures is reinventing itself to better compete in the artificial intelligence race …
Sources: Apple promotes Carson Oliver to VP of the App Store and names Steve Smith as M&A chief, replacing Adrian Perica, who keeps iCloud, Fitness+, and News
Apple Inc. is naming a new mergers and acquisitions chief, according to people familiar with the matter …
Sources: top execs at Anthropic, OpenAI, and others are gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt following a catastrophic AI event
- The first example of significant real-world harm caused by unsafe AI would turn an already wary public further against the technology and its leaders …
A US judge sentenced Raheim Hamilton, co-creator of the dark web marketplace Empire Market, to 40 years in prison for facilitating $430M in illegal transactions
The co-creator of Empire Market, one of the largest dark web marketplaces before its shutdown, has been sentenced to 40 years …
Tesla renames Full Self-Driving to Tesla Assisted Driving in Europe after pushback from Germany, whose transport minister will now back its EU-wide approval
Tesla has changed the name of its advanced driver assistance system in Europe after pushback from Germany's transportation ministry.
Apple announces a “Welcome home” event on October 13 at 9am ET in NYC, where it is expected to unveil a “HomePad”, a new Apple TV, LG home accessories, and more
Here's What to Expect on October 13Tom Sykes /The Apple Post:Apple October 13 event: What to expect from HomePad, HomePod mini and Apple TVEd Hardy /Cult of Mac:Apple teases new smart-home products wi...
Meanwhile, a Sam Altman-backed bitcoin life insurance provider, raised $37.5M led by Bain Capital, sources say at a $350M valuation, up from $190M in April 2025
Meanwhile, a Sam Altman-backed company offering life insurance in bitcoin, raised $37.5 million in funding, CEO Zac Townsend tells Axios exclusively.
Meta bans ByteDance's ads and paid marketing, plus third-party campaigns that link to TikTok, in the US, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam
Meta Platforms Inc. banned advertisements in the US from ByteDance Ltd., the former controlling owner of TikTok, intensifying the competition with the popular social video site.
OpenAI disrupts a Russian influence campaign tied to the Politology network that targeted schools, media, and foreign officials, and gives it a 5/6 impact score
OpenAI says the campaign is the most far-reaching influence operation it has disrupted. — A Russian propaganda operation tricked schools …
Global PC shipments dropped 20.1% YoY in Q3 to 62.7M units due to higher prices and supply issues; Lenovo dropped 22.6% YoY, HP 30.9%, Dell 25%, and Apple 11.3%
Q3 delivered the widely expected PC downturn, with supply constraints, high price points, and logistical disruption eroding the usual seasonal lift
Arena, which develops the popular AI model leaderboard, raised $200M at a $3.1B valuation, up from $1.7B in January, and launches an Alignment Index
Arena Intelligence Inc., the startup behind a popular artificial intelligence model leaderboard, has raised $200 million in funding …
Verizon closed down 8.75%, its worst day since 2002, while T-Mobile fell 13.27% and AT&T 9.81% after SpaceX announced a nationwide spectrum deal on Thursday
NY AG announces an up-to-$35M settlement with ex-Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky that permanently bars him from the securities, commodities, and crypto industries
New York Attorney General Letitia James said Friday she secured up to $35 million from former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky …
Philadelphia police say Anthropic informed them on Oct. 7 that one of its models submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder via a public web form on July 18
Watch the 6abc Philadelphia 24/7 stream featuring Action News, AccuWeather and Entertainment — ShareFollow 6abc on Google
Sources: Flock plans to let go of ~270 employees, or 18% of its staff, at the end of October; the layoffs come after a voluntary buyout program in September
Flock Safety plans to let go of about 18% of its employees, people with direct knowledge of the plans said on Thursday …
Nvidia commits $1B over five years to build out the US' “capacity for super intelligence R&D” in fields like quantum computing, healthcare, and energy security
Commitment comes as GPUzilla prepares to fortify Uncle Sam's arsenal with at least seven AI-optimized supers
The US suspends Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, and others from a program that lets skilled foreign workers gain permanent residency, citing alleged fraud
US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that the federal government was suspending Microsoft from a program …
Firmus abandons its IPO and plans to pursue a private funding round instead, after some investors suggested its pricing strategy is aggressive
Firmus Grid Ltd. abandoned its attempt at one of Australia's biggest-ever initial public offerings, after the Nvidia Corp.-backed data center company failed …
Vitalik Buterin says “we should take the risks to cryptography from AI-accelerated math seriously”, replying to a “bunker mode” call for the blockchain industry
Vesta, which uses AI agents to automate much of the loan origination process, raised $30M led by Conversion, bringing its total funding to $85M
A slew of cyberattacks hit Japanese companies in September, exposing the data of millions and prompting calls for security checks, as AI lowers hacking barriers
A cascade of cyberattacks has hit Japanese companies over the past few weeks, prompting the government to call for security checks …
Sources: Netflix is preparing to cut ~5% of employees, or ~850 jobs, as early as next week, amid pressure over weakened engagement and a depressed stock price
Facing pressure over weakened engagement and a depressed stock price, the streamer is prepping for a round of layoffs in the near future, per sources.
The Association for Human Mathematics says OpenAI's new math documents show power, not scholarship, and urges mathematicians to stop working with the startup
Filing: the US FTC is probing Block over inadequate customer service for frozen or deactivated Square accounts amid staffing cuts, following 1,500+ complaints
The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Block Inc., the parent of Square and Cash App, violated US consumer protection laws …
Hone, founded by former OpenAI and Cognition staffers to create AI agents that can help run a business, raised a $60M seed at a $285M valuation
A group of former employees from some of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence firms, including OpenAI and Cognition AI Inc. …
President Trump awards Satya Nadella and Michael Dell the National Medal of Technology and Innovation during a White House summit attended by US tech leaders
President Donald Trump celebrated tech billionaires such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event with arguably awkward timing
Sources: Apple told some suppliers to cut iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max component production by 15% to 20% as higher memory costs pushed up prices, hurting demand
TAIPEI — Apple has told some of its suppliers to cut production of components for its newly launched iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max …
Sources: as Google prepares to roll out its Gemini 4 Argon, staff are testing a new version internally named Carbon; one staffer says it “feels like Opus 5.5”
As Google prepares to roll out its new Gemini 4 ‘Argon’ model to the public, staff inside the company are testing better versions …
A man US authorities called a “fixer”, who was charged alongside Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw with smuggling restricted chips to China, pleaded guilty
A man charged along with Super Micro Computer Inc. co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw of conspiring to send cutting-edge chips …
Sources detail Mark Zuckerberg's decision to launch Muse despite safety concerns, after seeing that AI startup Instinct's similar agent product gained traction
Meta had delayed releasing Muse, its A.I. agent app, for months over safety concerns. Then new competition forced Mr. Zuckerberg's hand.
Blockchain.com seeks CFTC approval to offer event contracts and cryptocurrency derivatives in the US; it already offers some prediction markets internationally
Anthropic is setting up a “presidential engagement” program for the 2028 US elections that will offer AI policy education to candidates in both parties
Anthropic is setting up a “presidential engagement” program ahead of the 2028 elections, building an in-house team …
Sources: SoftBank is seeking to raise up to $100B from Gulf investors for a fund to buy companies and improve their operations with AI and other advanced tech
Founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son has held talks with senior figures in the UAE in recent weeks
Spotify and Joe Rogan renew their multiyear licensing and ad sales deal; sources say the terms are similar to the 2024 deal that had an estimated $250M earnout
GlobalFoundries signs a five-year, $2B deal to provide silicon interposer production capacity to TSMC, manufactured at GlobalFoundries' Malta, New York facility
Analysis: the hacker who targeted South Korean banks is likely Chinese-speaking, financially motivated, and used LLMs and open-source Chinese agentic tool ARTEX
The UK plans to curb non-compete rules that force employees to wait before moving jobs or starting companies, an issue that has drawn complaints from startups
Jev developer TypeSafe AI raised a $870M Series A led by a16z at a $7.5B valuation with Sequoia and others participating, says ~33% of the Fortune 500 use Jev
TypeSafe AI, the startup behind Jev, a new artificial intelligence model that went viral after it launched only a few weeks ago, has raised about $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation …
Sabi, which is building a baseball cap that uses 100K non-contact neuro-sensors to convert neural signals into text prompts for AI systems, raised a $50M seed
A record 42 startups became decacorns so far in 2026, beating 2021's 34; PitchBook: the average time to hit $10B dropped to 5.5 years in 2025 vs. 9.4 in 2020
Sources: Ramp raised about $1.85B led by Dragoneer and Thrive Capital at a $60B pre-money valuation, up from $44B in June, when it raised $750M
Fintech startup Ramp has reached a roughly $60 billion valuation with its latest fundraising effort, according to people familiar with the matter.
ICANN receives 1,615 TLD applications from 481 applicants; Meta, OpenAI, and eight others applied for .agent, seven companies applied for .agi, and six for .asi
Warehouse robotics startup Ultra raised a $12M seed and a $50M Series A, and expands its deal with Physical Intelligence to supply AI software for its robots
Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave, and other AI stocks fell after a report that OpenAI's annualized revenue at September's end was $20B less than previously reported
Oxide Computer, which helps companies build their own clouds, raised a $445M Series D led by Eclipse at a $6B valuation, taking its total funding to ~$835M
Drones struck a data center owned by Yandex in Sasovo, Russia, marking the first major attack on a Russian data hub since Russia started the war with Ukraine
Google debuts Google AI Edge Foresight, a macOS note-taking app for capturing meetings with Google's local 740M-parameter EmbeddingGemma 2 and Gemma 4 assistant
The US Federal Reserve's September meeting shows officials are increasingly citing surging AI investments, not tariffs, as the driver of rising goods inflation
OpenAI says it didn't fire three researchers for “raising safety concerns or speaking out”, but for violating “clear policies on handling sensitive information”
OpenAI on Friday defended its decision to fire three safety researchers, saying they had committed a “significant breach of trust.”
Analysis of 857 releases from nine Chinese AI labs from 2021 to September 2026: just 3.6% included safety results from the developer and only 1.1% did at launch
AI hardware startup Natura unveils Interface, a $99 smart ring that connects to AI agents and apps, including Claude, ChatGPT, Muse, Grok Bot, and Instinct
Quantum startup Oratomic raised a $475M Series B at a $5.4B valuation, up from $1.5B after raising a $300M Series A in July, taking its total funding to $775M
Gallatin AI, which uses AI to digitize and streamline military logistics data, raised a $50M Series A, bringing its total funding to $70M
Anthropic debuts the Critical Infrastructure Defense Program to provide AI models, threat research, and on-site engineers, starting with CrowdStrike and others
Sam Sabin /Axios:
AI retail trading agent startup Catalyst raised a $30M seed led by Sequoia and says a pilot generated hundreds of millions in trading volume over two weeks
Manus' parent company Butterfly Effect raised $500M+, led by Boyu Capital and IDG, in its first funding since Beijing forced Meta to unwind its $2B acquisition
The Chinese developer of ARTEX says they have converted the AI agent into a closed-source project after CrowdStrike said it was used to hack South Korean banks
Brenda Goh /Reuters:NEW
European venture funding rose 77% YoY to $25B in Q3, the region's strongest funding quarter in four years, representing 16% of global VC and led by AI startups
India's Global Capability Centers, which employ 2.4M people across companies like JPMorgan, are automating entry-level tasks and hiring far fewer graduates
Analysis: planned and active data center investments in Finland top €67B, as the cool climate, renewable power, and grid connections attract AI-tied companies
Trump admin says it's now mandating AI companies “immediately disclose incidents involving their models” and move swiftly to remedy harm from security incidents
Trump administration officials say they are now mandating that AI companies notify and correct security incidents …