The Architect's Chip
For 35 years, Arm designed chips for everyone and competed with no one. Today it unveiled its own AI chip — with Nvidia's biggest customers as first buyers. Regulators spent two years protecting Arm's neutrality from Nvidia. They couldn't protect it from Arm.
Social media addiction trial: a Los Angeles jury finds Meta and YouTube were negligent and failed to warn users about the dangers of using their platforms
A jury in Los Angeles determined on Wednesday that Meta and Google were negligent and failed to warn users of the dangers associated …
President Trump names Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Jensen Huang, and others to the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, co-chaired by David Sacks
Group to advise the president on how to regulate artificial intelligence, among other issues — WASHINGTON—President Trump plans …
Source: Meta on Wednesday laid off around 700 employees in the Reality Labs unit, as well as some in recruiting, sales, and Facebook
Meta on Wednesday laid off around 700 employees, a person with knowledge of the company said, the latest downsizing as the Silicon Valley giant shifts its priorities toward artificial intelligence.
OpenAI says it will discontinue products that use its Sora models, including its consumer app, a Sora version for developers, and a video feature inside ChatGPT
OpenAI is planning to discontinue the app for its Sora video platform, a product it released to great fanfare last year …
A New Mexico jury finds Meta violated the state's unfair practices act by not safeguarding its apps from child predators; Meta must pay $375M in civil damages
A jury has reached a verdict in a major New Mexico trial in which the state's attorney general alleged that Meta failed to safeguard its family of apps from child predators.
SCOTUS rules unanimously that Cox could not be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online, after music labels sued the internet provider in 2018
Leading music labels sued Cox Communications for failing to terminate accounts of subscribers flagged for distributing copyrighted music.
Apple rolls out mandatory UK age verification with iOS 26.4, requiring users to provide a credit card or ID, a first in Europe, after UK government pressure
Move follows pressure from government on smartphone makers to do more to protect children online
Meta confirms plans to lay off staff; sources say the cuts impact a few hundred people; a source says across Reality Labs, social media, recruiting, and sales
Meta Platforms will lay off a few hundred people across the company on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter …
Google Research details TurboQuant, a quantization algorithm to enable massive compression of LLMs and vector search engines without sacrificing accuracy
Amir Zandieh, Research Scientist, and Vahab Mirrokni, VP and Google Fellow, Google Research — We introduce a set …
Arm unveils AGI CPU, its own AI chip, a departure from its traditional role as a designer of chips for others; Meta and OpenAI are early clients; ARM jumps 10%+
SoftBank-owned tech group projects fivefold revenue increase in five years — Meta and OpenAI will be among the first customers …
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez plan to introduce legislation to pause new data center construction until AI safeguards are in place
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday will announce legislation to pause …
Nintendo says new first-party games exclusive to Switch 2 will have different prices for physical and digital versions in the US, beginning in May
STARTING WITH YOSHI AND THE MYSTERIOUS BOOK, FIRST-PARTY NINTENDO GAMES WILL HAVE DIFFERENT PRICES AS DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL VERSIONS
Source: as part of its Google deal, Apple has full access to the Gemini model in its own data centers and can use distillation to produce smaller models
Before we get to today's column, we wanted to flag OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's major reorg, the company's new “Spud” model and its decision …
Google launches Lyria 3 Pro music generation model, with better creative control and allowing users to create three-minute tracks, up from Lyria 3's 30 seconds
Google announced on Wednesday that it's releasing Lyria 3 Pro, a music generation model, a month after Lyria 3's release.
Legal AI company Harvey raised $200M led by GIC and Sequoia at an $11B valuation, up from $8B in December 2025, and reports 100K+ users at 1,300+ organizations
With OpenAI and Anthropic soaring to a combined valuation of more than $1 trillion, some in the artificial intelligence industry fear …
Memo: Sam Altman says OpenAI's next model finished pretraining, and moves Safety to Research and Security to Scaling; Fidji Simo becomes CEO of “AGI Deployment”
Alex Heath /Sources:
Sources: China bars Manus co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao from leaving the country as it reviews whether Meta's $2B acquisition of Manus violates FDI rules
Reddit says it will label automated accounts that provide a service to users and will require accounts suspected of being bots to verify they are human
Would-be Reddit competitor Digg just shut down because it couldn't get a handle on the bots overrunning its site.
ARC Prize Foundation unveils ARC-AGI-3, an AI benchmark with simple video-game-like scenarios designed to measure on-the-fly reasoning rather than memory recall
ARC-AGI-3 tests whether models can reason through novel problems, not just recall patterns, a task even top systems still struggle to do.
X says it is updating its revenue-sharing incentives to give more weight to engagement from a user's home region, hoping to “disincentivize” gaming US attention
The website's location transparency feature revealed dozens of pro-Trump accounts were based in other countries.
Elon Musk says X will “pause” new creator monetization rules that would base payouts on engagement from a user's local audience, after criticism from creators
Social media platform X swiftly backtracked on its announcement regarding new rules for creator monetization …
Filing: Meta offers top executives stock options for the first time since its 2012 IPO to retain talent, if it hits stock-price milestones over the coming years
AI note taking startup Granola raised $125M led by Index Ventures at a $1.5B valuation, and plans Claude integrations and agentic AI features in the next year
Granola Inc., a startup whose artificial intelligence software has been gaining traction as a notetaking tool among Silicon Valley workers …
Musk's lawyers ask a Delaware judge to step back from cases involving him, after her account “liked” a LinkedIn post celebrating his defeat in a California case
Quinn Emanuel says Delaware judge must recuse herself over post, which she says she may have liked ‘accidentally’
Sources: some Sora team employees were surprised by OpenAI's move to end Sora support, just a day after OpenAI posted a blog post about Sora safety standards
On Monday evening, Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and OpenAI teams were working together on a project linked to Sora, OpenAI's AI video tool.
Singapore-based Startale, developer of the Strium blockchain for tokenized securities and JPYSC and USDSC stablecoins, raised a $63M Series A from SBI and Sony
The Singapore-based company builds blockchain tools for financial firms and retail users, including a blockchain for tokenized securities, stablecoins, and a consumer app.
Sources: cloud provider Vultr is seeking to raise $1B+ to expand its AI computing capacity, after raising $333M at a $3.5B valuation in 2024
Vultr, one of the oldest independent cloud providers, is seeking to raise at least $1 billion in new capital so it can compete with a growing list …
Charlotte-based Lucid Bots, which manufactures autonomous drones for cleaning windows, raised a $20M Series B co-led by Cubit and Idea Fund
Andrew Ashur, the founder and CEO of window cleaning robot startup Lucid Bots, likes to joke that his company is the antithesis of the robotics industry right now.
Meta debuts Meta Small Business, a company-wide priority to support entrepreneurship and drive AI use, led by Dina Powell McCormick and others
- Zuckerberg asks product managers, designers, engineers and other employees to reach out if they want to work on the new effort.
Temu owner PDD reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to ~$18B and net profit down 11% YoY to ~$3.56B, below ~$4B est., as it seeks to retain merchants on its platform
The comphad cautioned that its performance could fluctuate as it rolled out support to keep merchants from defecting to other platforms
Disney ends its three-year OpenAI licensing deal, signed in December 2025, in which it agreed to invest $1B in OpenAI and license 200+ of its characters to Sora
OpenAI said it will discontinue Sora, the generative-AI video creation platform it launched last year, without providing a reason for the decision.
Epic Microsystems, which designs power delivery architecture for better thermal and efficiency management of AI data centers, raised a $21M Series A
What to read next
Glimpse, which uses AI agents to let 200+ brands automate financial deduction processes, raised a $35M Series A led by a16z, bringing its total raised to $52M
Dispute-tracking fintech Glimpse announced Wednesday that it raised a $35 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from 8VC and Y Combinator.
Notch, which is developing an OS designed for high-compliance sectors, raised a $30M Series A led by Headline, after pivoting from being a specialty insurer
Notch Ltd., a startup offering an artificial intelligence operating system for regulated industries, today announced …
Normal Computing, which uses AI to help chip companies design chips more efficiently, raised $50M led by Samsung Catalyst and says it has 5+ top chip clients
Normal Computing has raised $50 million in a round led by Samsung Catalyst as the startup pursues a two-pronged bet on the future of AI hardware …
Sources: AI science startup Periodic Labs, founded by ex-OpenAI VP Liam Fedus and DeepMind's Ekin Cubuk, aims to raise hundreds of millions at a ~$7B valuation
Periodic Labs, an artificial intelligence research startup founded last year by former OpenAI and DeepMind staffers …
Q&A with Arm CEO Rene Haas on changing Arm's culture, working with Arm owner SoftBank, developing Arm's AGI CPU data center chip fabricated by TSMC, and more
Lauren Goode /Wired:
Kansas-based NoTraffic, which uses AI-driven operating systems and sensor data to optimize intersection traffic flow, raised a $90M Series C led by PSG Equity
What to read next
OpenAI releases a set of prompts designed to be used with its open-weight safety model gpt-oss-safeguard that lets developers make their apps safer for teens
Chinese AI company Kuaishou reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to ~$5.7B, meeting est., adjusted net income up 16% YoY, and Kling AI revenue up 13% YoY to ~$49M
Kuaishou Technology said the rapid scaling up of its generative artificial intelligence tools drove revenue growth.
Apple releases iOS 26.4, with Playlist Playground, which generates an Apple Music playlist from a prompt, eight new emojis, improved keyboard accuracy, and more
How internet censorship tech maker Sandvine, a vendor to repressive regimes like Egypt's, nearly collapsed before US restrictions forced new owners and a pivot
Sandvine built a business offering network management tools that, in the wrong hands, could be used for censorship, until the US government intervened.
OpenAI hires Kiran Mani, the CEO of Indian streaming platform JioStar, for a newly created role leading its Asia-Pacific operations, reporting to CSO Jason Kwon
OpenAI is tapping Kiran Mani, the chief executive officer of Indian streaming platform JioStar, for a newly created role leading its Asia-Pacific operations.
Circle shares fell as much as 18%, and Coinbase dropped about 8%, after a draft of the US Clarity Act raised the prospect of strict limits on stablecoin yield
US-based digital rights group Holistic Resilience launched Mahsa Alert to offer Iranians offline mapping and strike notifications, hitting 100K+ DAUs in days
The crowdsourced website and app Mahsa Alert provides citizens in Iran with crucial information amid the country's ongoing war …
EQT and McKinsey study: between 2014 and 2025, European tech companies with a current combined value of ~€1.2T listed abroad or were acquired by foreign buyers
European technology companies with a combined value of €1.2 trillion ($1.4 trillion) have debuted on overseas exchanges …
Meta announces new shopping and ad features, including more affiliate marketing tools for Instagram and Facebook creators and a “buy now” button on Facebook ads
How AI is helping geologists identify thousands of slopes around the world at high risk of landslides by analyzing data from satellites and ground-based sensors
Sudden and unexpected, landslides and avalanches claim thousands of lives each year and cause billions of dollars in damage.
Spotify is beta testing Artist Profile Protection, allowing artists to review releases before they go live to prevent AI tracks from being attributed to them
At a time when AI slop is flooding music streaming platforms, Spotify is beta testing a new “Artist Profile Protection” …
Large US corporations are not ditching core business software for AI yet, instead seeking better vendor deals and “vibe-coding” smaller apps and customizations
Tech leaders at large corporations say that, for now, they're vibe-coding their own small, custom apps, and putting pressure on their software vendors
Meta names CTO Andrew Bosworth to oversee its “AI for Work” initiative, which aims to drive AI adoption across its workforce, replacing Guy Rosen
OpenAI plans to invest $1B in AI-related causes in 2026 via the OpenAI Foundation, and names co-founder Wojciech Zaremba to lead its AI resilience initiatives
A US judge dismisses a lawsuit against Meta by Attaullah Baig, a former head of cybersecurity at WhatsApp and who alleged Meta ignored critical security flaws
A judge ruled WhatsApp's former head of cybersecurity did not bring sufficient facts to the case when claiming violations by Meta and retaliation after the disclosure.
Thailand-based Amity, which provides generative AI tools to businesses like retail and telecom, raised $100M in a Series D, as it plans for an IPO in 2027
Sources: worsening supply constraints of Intel and AMD CPUs add a fresh blow to PC and server makers already hammered by an unprecedented memory chip shortage
Google launches Android Automotive OS for Software-Defined Vehicles, expanding its “open infrastructure” from infotainment to non-safety internal systems
Finland suspends a plan to move its election platform to AWS, opting to remain on domestic servers through the 2027 general election, as trust in the US frays
Sources: Anduril, Palantir, and Scale AI are part of the group developing software to run President Trump's planned $185B Golden Dome antimissile shield
The Trump administration settles Murthy v. Missouri from 2022, preventing the Surgeon General, CDC, and CISA from having social media companies suppress speech
The Trump administration has agreed to a settlement that will bar three federal agencies from pressuring social media companies …
Sources: Microsoft agrees to a deal with Crusoe to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas, representing ~700 MW of capacity, after Oracle and OpenAI walked away
Source: Meta's rollout of Meta Ray-Ban Display in the EU has been hampered by regulations on AI features and removable batteries, as well as supply constraints
Meta Platforms Inc.'s rollout of new display-equipped Ray-Ban smart glasses in the European Union has been hampered by battery …
Source: SpaceX is aiming to file its IPO prospectus with regulators later this week or next week, and could try to raise $75B+, up from a previous $50B estimate
SpaceX is aiming to file its initial public offering prospectus with regulators later this week or next week, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans.
Baltimore sues xAI, accusing it of violating consumer protection laws and engaging in deceptive trade practices by marketing Grok as generally safe
Lawsuits against Elon Musk's xAI are piling up, with Baltimore becoming the first major U.S. city to file a complaint against the company concerning issues …
Neal Stephenson says he no longer believes head-mounted displays are the future, citing public discomfort with the devices and a general distrust of the users
Reflections on the latest and greatest Death of the Metaverse — It feels incumbent upon me to write something about last week's big news …
At a hearing, a US federal judge says the Pentagon's three actions toward Anthropic are “troubling” and that they look “like an attempt to cripple Anthropic”
A federal judge on Tuesday called the Pentagon's treatment of Anthropic “troubling” as the AI company urged the court …
Two versions of LiteLLM, an interface for accessing LLMs, have been removed from PyPI after a supply chain attack injected them with credential-stealing code
Two versions of LiteLLM, an open source interface for accessing multiple large language models, have been removed from the Python Package Index …
SK Hynix submits a confidential filing to the US SEC for a potential listing of American Depositary Receipts in 2026; a source says SK could raise up to $14B
South Korea's SK Hynix (000660.KS) said on Wednesday it has submitted a confidential filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission …
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says OpenAI is raising an additional $10B from a16z, D.E. Shaw, MGX, TPG, and others, bringing its record fundraise to “north of $120B”
OpenAI is raising an additional $10 billion from investors as part of its historic funding round, CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Tuesday.
Databricks launches Lakewatch, a security information and event management service currently used by Adobe, and acquires security startups Antimatter and SiftD
Databricks has grown from startup into major software company, generating billions by processing data and running generative artificial intelligence models for clients.
Epic cuts 1,000+ jobs, saying it is “spending significantly more” than it is making and that the layoffs and $500M in savings put it “in a more stable place”
The company is seeing a downturn in engagement on Fortnite — Epic Games Inc. is cutting …
Amazon last week acquired NYC-based Fauna Robotics, which is building a human-like, 42"-tall robot that can interact with people, walk, grip items, and dance
Tether says it has engaged a Big Four accounting firm to conduct its first full independent audit of reserves behind its USDT stablecoin
Anthropic announces an “auto mode” that enables Claude Code to make permission-level decisions while preventing destructive commands like mass file deletion
ZDNET's key takeaways — Claude's auto mode reduces permission prompts for developers.
Sources: Apple's Siri reboot plans include a standalone Siri app, an overhauled interface in the Dynamic Island, and “Ask Siri” and “Write with Siri” features
Apple Inc. is testing a standalone app for its Siri voice assistant alongside a new “Ask Siri” feature that will work across …
Sam Altman told staff he has ceded oversight of OpenAI's safety and security teams to focus on fundraising, supply chains, and building data centers at scale
OpenAI believes its next model could meaningfully accelerate the economy. …
Arm says its AGI CPU offers up to 136 Arm Neoverse V3 cores, 6GB/s of memory bandwidth per core, and more than 2x performance per rack compared with x86 systems
Arm launches AGI CPU, its first data center chip — Arm has announced the AGI CPU, its first production silicon product and its first Arm-designed data center CPU.
Arm CEO Rene Haas projects $25B in revenue in 2031, up from $4B in 2025, including $15B from sales of Arm's first in-house chip, sold at a ~50% gross profit
Katie Tarasov /CNBC:
The jury in Los Angeles' social media trial awards the plaintiff $3M in compensatory damages and $3M in punitive damages; Meta will pay 70% and YouTube 30%
New York Times:NEW