BlackRock wants to run the money behind stablecoins. The world’s largest asset manager has launched two tokenised money market funds built to serve as reserves for stablecoin issuers, deepening its push into blockchain-based finance. The funds are its …
Everyone has been asking what the trillion-dollar AI buildout is actually for. A senior Google DeepMind executive has now given an unusually blunt answer. The spending, he says, is a bet on machines that improve themselves. Jasjeet Sekhon, DeepMind’s c…
Apple delivered its best-ever June quarter for iPhone sales and watched its shares fall anyway, as a warning about supply constraints and rising costs unnerved investors. The stock dropped more than 7% before Friday’s open, wiping out something in the …
Lloyds Banking Group is betting on artificial intelligence to strip £2bn from its costs by 2030, the clearest sign yet that Britain’s biggest high-street lender sees automation as central to its future. The target, unveiled alongside half-year results …
The man who wrote the defining case for the AI boom just got wiped out betting on it. Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has been forced to sell off its portfolio of public stocks after stee…
Meta told investors it will spend even more on artificial intelligence this year, narrowing its capital-expenditure forecast for 2026 by lifting the floor rather than the ceiling. The company now expects to spend between $130 billion and $145 billion, …
Two of the biggest AI spenders reported on the same day. Microsoft’s spending showed up as cloud revenue. Meta’s showed up as a hole in its cash flow. Meta’s revenue rose 28% to $60.8bn, beating forecasts, CNBC reported. But profit fell 14% to $15.8bn,…
Microsoft went into its earnings facing one question: is the vast AI spending working? The numbers said yes, mostly. Revenue rose 18% to $90bn for the quarter to 30 June, and net income climbed 31% to $35.8bn, the company reported. Microsoft Cloud brou…
Apple has become the second company in history worth $5tn. It got there by being the one big-tech giant that refused to bet its balance sheet on AI. The iPhone maker briefly touched a $5.04tn market value on Tuesday. Shares hit a session high of $342.8…
PayPal finally addressed the $53bn offer sitting on its table. Its answer was: not at that price. The company gave its first public response on Tuesday’s Q2 earnings call, alongside a beat. Chief executive Enrique Lores would not comment on Stripe and …