A startup with a bankrupt fintech CEO and a president’s son wants to build America’s robot army
A startup with a bankrupt fintech CEO and a president’s son wants to build America’s robot army

Foundation Future Industries, a San Francisco startup founded in April 2024, has secured $24 million in research contracts with the US Army, Navy, and Air Force to test humanoid robots designed to breach enemy positions. The company’s Phantom MK-1 is a…

Brockman’s diary called it a lie. Now a jury will hear it.
Brockman’s diary called it a lie. Now a jury will hear it.

Jury selection begins Monday in Oakland federal court for the trial that will determine whether OpenAI’s conversion from a nonprofit to one of the most valuable companies in the world was a breach of charitable trust. Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI i…

The EU sanctioned Chinese firms for arming Russia. China retaliated by threatening Europe’s ability to arm itself.
The EU sanctioned Chinese firms for arming Russia. China retaliated by threatening Europe’s ability to arm itself.

China’s Ministry of Commerce issued a formal condemnation on Saturday after the European Union included approximately 27 Chinese and Hong Kong entities in its 20th sanctions package against Russia, the largest round of listings in two years. Beijing sa…

China orders its apps to stop sending orders to exhausted drivers. The algorithm is now subject to collective bargaining.
China orders its apps to stop sending orders to exhausted drivers. The algorithm is now subject to collective bargaining.

China’s most powerful governing bodies, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council, issued comprehensive labour rules for gig workers on Sunday, the first time the party’s highest authority has formalised protections for the mo…

OpenAI knew. It chose not to call the police. Now Sam Altman is sorry.
OpenAI knew. It chose not to call the police. Now Sam Altman is sorry.

Sam Altman published an open letter to the community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Thursday, apologising for OpenAI’s failure to alert law enforcement after its own systems flagged a user who went on to carry out the deadliest school shooting …

The US wants to cut off China’s chip equipment. China says the supply chain will break for everyone.
The US wants to cut off China’s chip equipment. China says the supply chain will break for everyone.

China’s Ministry of Commerce warned on Friday that US legislation advancing through Congress would “severely disrupt the international economic and trade order and seriously undermine the stability of the global semiconductor industry chain and supply …

The AI rally looks like the dot-com bubble. The companies do not.
The AI rally looks like the dot-com bubble. The companies do not.

The Shiller cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 stands at approximately 38 to 40, depending on the day you check. In 155 years of recorded data, the CAPE has been higher exactly once: March 2000, when it reached 44.19, one m…

Oracle needed the world’s biggest bond fund to finance the world’s biggest data centre
Oracle needed the world’s biggest bond fund to finance the world’s biggest data centre

In short: Oracle closed a $16.3 billion financing for a single data centre campus in Saline Township, Michigan, the largest single-facility technology debt package ever assembled. PIMCO anchored roughly $10 billion of the bond tranche because US banks …

Meta signs multibillion-dollar deal for Amazon Graviton5 chips as AI compute demand outstrips $135B capex budget
Meta signs multibillion-dollar deal for Amazon Graviton5 chips as AI compute demand outstrips $135B capex budget

Summary: Meta signed a multibillion-dollar, multi-year deal to deploy tens of millions of Amazon’s Graviton5 ARM CPU cores in AWS data centres for agentic AI workloads. The chips are general-purpose processors, not AI accelerators, handling the CPU-int…

Meta is firing 8,000 people. Microsoft is paying 8,750 to leave. Both are spending the savings on AI.
Meta is firing 8,000 people. Microsoft is paying 8,750 to leave. Both are spending the savings on AI.

Summary: Meta and Microsoft announced workforce reductions on the same day, April 23, affecting up to 23,000 positions combined. Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs (10% of staff) and cancelling 6,000 open roles effective May 20, while Microsoft launched its fi…