Week of May 24 – May 30, 2026
Sun 2026-05-24 → Sat 2026-05-30 · 102 stories
AI model & product releases
- DeepSeek says it will lower V4 Pro API prices by 75% to $0.435/1M input and $0.87/1M output tokens, making permanent the discount prices set to expire on May 31 Bloomberg · 2026-05-24
- Hands-on with a pre-release build of Google Docs Live, an AI-powered voice tool for drafting documents, rolling out this summer to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers Nicole Nguyen / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-24
- Robinhood launches a feature that lets users connect AI agents to a dedicated account and virtual Gold Card to automate stock trades and credit card purchases Hannah Erin Lang / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-27
- ElevenLabs launches Music v2, which can switch genres mid-track and handle complex vocal compositions, built on licensed data and cleared for commercial use Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch · 2026-05-27
- Amazon MGM Studios announces the GenAI Creators' Fund, greenlights three AI animated series for Prime Video, and launches an AI production platform with AWS Todd Spangler / Variety · 2026-05-27
- Illustrations based on sources detail Apple's Siri overhaul, like a new UI and chatbot-style app, and major iOS 27 changes, ahead of the WWDC keynote on June 8 Mark Gurman / Bloomberg · 2026-05-28
- Anthropic launches Opus 4.8, saying it's “more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims”, at the same price as 4.7 Russell Brandom / TechCrunch · 2026-05-28
- OpenAI says it has briefed the White House on its new biodefense program, which uses GPT-Rosalind to help develop biodefense and pandemic preparedness tools Maria Curi / Axios · 2026-05-29
- Sources: Microsoft is working on an app that will include GitHub Copilot, Copilot chat, Copilot Cowork, and a new agentic workflow tool called Autopilot Sebastian Herrera / Fortune · 2026-05-29
Revenue & scale milestones
- SpaceX filing: X's ad revenue was $1.8B in 2025, $1.7B in 2024, and $2.3B in 2023, below Twitter's $4B in 2021; X and Grok now have 6.3M active paid subscribers Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter · 2026-05-26
- Micron hit a $1T market value for the first time on May 26 after its stock closed up 19.29%, rising from $700B earlier in May, driven by high memory chip demand Samantha Subin / CNBC · 2026-05-26
- AI coding startup Cognition AI raised more than $1B at a $26B valuation, and says its revenue run rate has increased to $492M from $37M in May 2025 Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg · 2026-05-27
- Salesforce reports Q1 revenue up 13% YoY to $11.13B, vs. $11.05B est., Agentforce annual recurring revenue up 205% to $1.2B, and forecasts Q2 revenue below est. Jordan Novet / CNBC · 2026-05-27
- Kuaishou reports Q1 revenue up 3.4% YoY to ~$5B and Kling AI revenue up 300%+ YoY to ~$96M; Kling reached a ~$500M annualized revenue run rate in March 2026 Coco Feng / South China Morning Post · 2026-05-27
- Anthropic raised a $65B Series H at a $965B post-money valuation, overtaking OpenAI's $852B valuation, and says its revenue run rate crossed $47B this month New York Times · 2026-05-28
- Dell reports Q1 revenue up 88% YoY to $43.84B, vs. $35.43B est., and forecasts FY 2027 revenue above estimates; DELL jumps 38%+ after hours Jordan Novet / CNBC · 2026-05-28
User behavior & adoption
- Demand for security engineers is surging, with job postings up 11% YoY in Q1, driven by threats from AI-generated code and models like Mythos and GPT-5.4-Cyber Kate Conger / New York Times · 2026-05-24
- A surge in AI-generated “pro se” cases, or lawsuits filed by self-represented litigants, is democratizing the US legal system but consuming more court resources New York Times · 2026-05-25
- A growing number of execs are creating AI digital twins to manage tasks; Reid Hoffman says “Reid AI” has delivered 75+ addresses and presentations since 2024 Joann S. Lublin / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-25
- Analysis: the share of entry-level hiring in India's tech sector fell to ~15% in 2025 from 28% in 2024 as companies shifted focus to AI and automation roles Tanya Pandey / The Economic Times · 2026-05-27
- Kirkland & Ellis, the world's highest-grossing law firm, is setting aside $500M to build its own AI platform rather than rely on tools available to its rivals Financial Times · 2026-05-28
- After hitting their annual AI budget in months or seeing their AI bills double or triple due to “tokenmaxxing”, some companies are rationing or tracking AI use Bradley Olson / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-29
- Tencent bets on smaller AI models in the race with Chinese rivals, as EVP Dowson Tong says AI now contributes 20%+ of its revenue and 95%+ of new internal code Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia · 2026-05-29
Platform & policy
- A deep dive into Apple Watch and Health efforts; sources: iOS 27 to get a revamped AirPods control panel and default support for AirPlay rivals like Google Cast Mark Gurman / Bloomberg · 2026-05-24
- A look at the UK's AI Safety Institute, whose researchers probe AI models for safety gaps, as its work becomes a blueprint for other governments' AI policies New York Times · 2026-05-25
- X says it is cracking down on large accounts that have been gaming its revenue-sharing program by “programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts” Lakshmi Varanasi / Business Insider · 2026-05-25
- YouTube makes its AI content labels more prominent on desktop and mobile, and will apply them automatically if it detects “significant photorealistic AI use” Todd Spangler / Variety · 2026-05-27
- Meta rolls out Plus plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp globally, and tests $7.99/month and $19.99/month Meta AI plans, and a $49.99/month creator plan Sarah Perez / TechCrunch · 2026-05-27
- Microsoft faces backlash after a blog post implied criminal referral and legal action against security researcher Nightmare Eclipse over public bug disclosures Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch · 2026-05-29
Infrastructure & compute
- At an IEEE conference, Huawei proposed a new chip scaling law and said it aims to design chips with transistor density equivalent to 1.4nm by 2031 Nikkei Asia · 2026-05-24
- The UK, outpaced by the US and China in AI, is turning to experimental technologies like neuromorphic computing in search of computing sovereignty Charles Clover / Financial Times · 2026-05-25
- OpenRouter raised $113M led by CapitalG, a source says at a $1.3B valuation, and now processes 25T tokens across 400+ models weekly, up from 5T six months ago Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times · 2026-05-26
- Sources: Qualcomm reached a deal with ByteDance to supply millions of ASICs for AI data centers to support AI agents in the Doubao chatbot; QCOM jumps 4%+ Ian King / Bloomberg · 2026-05-26
- Initial benchmarks: Nvidia's Vera Rubin CPU, which features 88 Nvidia-designed Olympus cores, packs a heavy-hitting punch, beating Intel's and AMD's x86_64 CPUs Michael Larabel / Phoronix · 2026-05-26
- Jensen Huang says Nvidia is spending $100B-$150B annually on its Taiwan supply chain, up from $10B-$15B four years ago, and will boost its Taiwan staff to 4,000 Nikkei Asia · 2026-05-27
- Sources: ByteDance is discussing capex of up to $70B in 2026 as it builds out data centers and AI infrastructure, underwriting it with its $50B profit from 2025 Bloomberg · 2026-05-27
- Surging AI demand causes shortages and price increases across the entire optical supply chain, from lasers and substrates to optical fibers and connectors Nikkei Asia · 2026-05-28
- As Google plans to build a $15B AI data center hub in Visakhapatnam, India, locals and rights groups are raising concerns over “extremely high” water stress Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-28
- Source: the Shanghai Futures Exchange is in the early stages of designing futures contracts for AI tokens; US exchanges are set to launch GPU compute futures Reuters · 2026-05-28
- Taiwanese tech companies have completed a record $14.5B of debt deals so far this year, as they race to secure financing to meet soaring demand for AI capacity Aileen Chuang / Bloomberg · 2026-05-28
- Sources: Apollo Global and Blackstone are working to bring additional investors into a ~$36B debt financing deal to purchase Google TPUs for Anthropic to lease Bloomberg · 2026-05-28
- Sources: ByteDance is developing its own CPUs to support its growing AI infrastructure needs, as chip price hikes and supply shortages constrain expansion plans Reuters · 2026-05-28
- Samsung says it has started shipping its first 12-layer HBM4E samples to major clients; SK Hynix said in April that it aimed to ship HBM4E samples in H2 2026 Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg · 2026-05-29
- MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia · 2026-05-29
- Xcena, whose MX1 chip performs data orchestration and KV cache management directly within memory modules, raised a $135M Series B at a $570M valuation Kate Park / TechCrunch · 2026-05-29
- Sources: ByteDance has partnered with chipmaker InnoStar to develop an AI inference chip modeled after Groq's LPUs, which are built to run AI models at low cost The Information · 2026-05-29
Deals & funding
- Sources: Uber weighs a higher bid after it approached a major Delivery Hero shareholder with a €38-per-share bid, valuing the group at €11.5B+, but was rebuffed Financial Times · 2026-05-24
- Moment, which develops AI tools for automating fixed-income and equities trading tech, raised a $78M Series C led by Index Ventures, with a16z participating Paige Smith / Bloomberg · 2026-05-24
- Source: AI inference provider Baseten is in talks to raise $1B at an $11B post-money valuation, up from $5B after its $300M Series E announced in January 2026 The Information · 2026-05-26
- Sources: Fireworks AI, which helps companies run AI models, is in talks to raise funding at a $15B valuation, up from $4B after raising $254M in October 2025 Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg · 2026-05-26
- Filing: Amazon will acquire Apple's 20% stake in Globalstar as part of its acquisition of the satellite provider and create a subsidiary to conduct the merger Michael Kan / PCMag · 2026-05-27
- Asana acquires StackAI, a no-code platform for building AI agents, for $75M as part of Asana's broader AI pivot; PitchBook: StackAI raised ~$20M Russell Brandom / TechCrunch · 2026-05-28
Regulation & legal
- The ECB summons Eurozone banks to a meeting on Tuesday to discuss risks posed by the latest AI models and hopes US banks with Mythos access will share lessons Martin Arnold / Financial Times · 2026-05-24
- How the Trump admin gutted the CFTC, ousting enforcers and appointing industry-friendly officials, as Trump family got into crypto and prediction markets New York Times · 2026-05-24
- Handelsblatt: the EU plans to fine Google a high triple-digit million euro amount as part of a 2025 probe over concerns it favors its own services in Search Reuters · 2026-05-25
- Massachusetts formally recognizes the App Drivers Union, which says it represents ~70,000 workers and is the first state-certified rideshare union in the US Bryan Hecht / The Boston Globe · 2026-05-25
- Spain says it is blocking Polymarket and Kalshi as a precautionary measure while it probes possible gambling law violations over the next three to four months Mauro Orru / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-26
- US prosecutors charge Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo with using inside information to make ~$1.2M via Polymarket bets on Google's Year in Search 2025 results ABC News · 2026-05-27
- Illinois Legislature passes SB 315, a bill requiring annual independent third-party safety audits of leading AI companies; the bill heads to the governor's desk Jared Perlo / NBC News · 2026-05-27
- The European Commission fines Temu €200M under the DSA for allegedly failing to adequately stop the sale of illegal products; further penalties could follow Foo Yun Chee / Reuters · 2026-05-28
- Filing: CNN sues Perplexity in New York for allegedly unlawfully copying and distributing CNN content, after failing to agree on terms with Perplexity in 2025 Brian Stelter / CNN · 2026-05-28
- Former Tesla data labelers say FSD relies on laborious mapping for hazards; crash data analysis shows Tesla exaggerates FSD's safety via flawed methodology Reuters · 2026-05-29
- Filing: a Kentucky school district secured ~$27M in settlements from Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube in a social media harms lawsuit; Meta paid the most, at $9M Diana Novak Jones / Reuters · 2026-05-29
Geopolitics & trade
- Sources: Princeton Digital Group to sell its Chinese data center assets for as much as $1B, as global buyout firms retreat from China's data center market Financial Times · 2026-05-24
- Iranian state media: President Masoud Pezeshkian issues an order to reopen international internet access, after a blackout lasting 87 days, per Netblocks Reuters · 2026-05-25
- Sources: Chinese government agencies begin imposing overseas travel restrictions on individuals involved in advanced AI work, including at Alibaba and DeepSeek Bloomberg · 2026-05-26
- Sources: Taiwan suspects three people smuggled at least one Nvidia chip shipment to China after first exporting them to Japan; Taiwan detained them last week Bloomberg · 2026-05-27
- The Shanghai Stock Exchange says memory maker CXMT cleared a listing review for the exchange's Nasdaq-like STAR Board, in what could be China's top IPO in 2026 Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-27
- Sources and documents detail China's effort to modernize its decade-old domestic surveillance network with new generations of AI-enabled cameras and software Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times · 2026-05-27
- Doc: the EU is preparing emergency powers to intervene in Europe's chip supply chains during shortages, including by forcing chipmakers to override contracts Barbara Moens / Financial Times · 2026-05-28
- Global AI hardware demand is easing China's concerns over a stronger yuan hurting exports, as AI hardware exports surge and chip equipment imports rise Bloomberg · 2026-05-28
- Allegations that China is behind US data center protests draw criticism from allies of the AI industry, who say the industry and politicians are in denial Evan Halper / Washington Post · 2026-05-29
Hardware & devices
- Xreal launches a new sub-brand, X by Xreal, and the $299 a01 display glasses with micro OLED displays, 50° FOV, and 62g weight, set for July release in the US Scott Stein / CNET · 2026-05-27
- Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon C, an entry-level ARM-based SoC for Windows 11 devices starting at $300 and shipping in 2026, to compete with the MacBook Neo Zac Bowden / Windows Central · 2026-05-28
- Intel unveils its first dedicated handheld gaming chips, the Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme, featuring Xe3 GPU cores, arriving first in the Acer Predator Atlas 8 Sean Hollister / The Verge · 2026-05-28
- Waymo unveils Ojai, a vehicle designed in partnership with Zeekr for robotaxi use, initially for select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg · 2026-05-28
- BYD announces the Xuanji A3 chip, which it calls China's most powerful chip for ADAS and the centerpiece of its new laptop-sized central computing platform Bloomberg · 2026-05-29
- Internal memo: Meta plans to start testing an AI pendant in 2027, release new AI glasses next month, start a “Wearables for Work” unit for enterprises, and more Jyoti Mann / The Information · 2026-05-29
Research & ideas
- Study: the rate of fabricated references in biomedical papers has grown 12x+ since 2023; in early 2026, one in 277 papers had at least one non-existent citation Tristan Bove / Fortune · 2026-05-25
- Biohub, a Mark Zuckerberg- and Priscilla Chan-funded institute, releases “a world model of protein biology” to researchers for prediction, design, and discovery Ina Fried / Axios · 2026-05-27
- Anthropic and OpenAI seem to have finally found product-market fit with coding agents, which are quickly becoming daily drivers for very well-paid professionals Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-05-28
- IBM plans to invest more than $10B in quantum computing over five years as it aims to build the first large-scale, error-free quantum computer by 2029 Reuters · 2026-05-28
Voices & interviews
- Pope Leo XIV presents Magnifica humanitas, his encyclical on AI, calling for AI regulation, protection for children against hypersexualized AI images, and more New York Times · 2026-05-25
- Q&A with Sundar Pichai about reshaping the information ecosystem with Search changes, putting AI agents in everything, when AI will replace him as CEO, and more Nilay Patel / The Verge · 2026-05-26
- Demis Hassabis says he still broadly expects AGI around 2030, though he now sees 2029 as a possibility, and 2026's “agentic era” is a “bit like a practice run” Ina Fried / Axios · 2026-05-27
- Q&A with Claude Code creator and head Boris Cherny on how the title “software engineer” could disappear, why AI may create more jobs than it destroys, and more Casey Newton / Platformer · 2026-05-27
Industry narratives
- How the AI boom is transforming global M&A, now dominated by the AI-driven race to control the world's energy, fiber networks, and computing capacity Financial Times · 2026-05-24
- A look at the Pentagon's embrace of autonomous weapons before its fight with Anthropic over “red lines”, and the debate over AI use in military operations Hayden Field / The Verge · 2026-05-27
- The Trade Desk's market cap is down ~70% from its December 2024 peak, as it contends with frustrated agency partners and competition from Google and Amazon Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-28
- Mistral says it is accelerating superintelligence development to ensure Europe's independence from US tech giants, and signs deals to supply Airbus and BMW Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal · 2026-05-28
- Israel-based web development company Wix is cutting 20% of its workforce, citing the “fast evolution of AI capabilities” and currency exchange rate difficulties CJ Haddad / CNBC · 2026-05-28
- A look at Anthropic's hiring process, which prohibits AI use in interviews and features a culture interview that candidates describe as highly intense Jo Constantz / Bloomberg · 2026-05-29
- The DOD's $9.7B contract with Dell has raised eyebrows as a potential payback for Michael and Susan Dell's $6.25B donation to 25M US children's Trump Accounts CNBC · 2026-05-30
Beyond AI
- Tether buys out SoftBank's ~26% stake in bitcoin treasury company Twenty One Capital, taking Tether's stake to ~71%; SoftBank's stake was worth ~$679M Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg · 2026-05-24
- Tether plans to launch GELT, an “official” stablecoin representing the Georgian lari, with the support of Georgia's government in an unusual partnership Reuters · 2026-05-25
- SoFi makes SoFiUSD, its US dollar-pegged stablecoin on Ethereum and Solana, available for its 14.7M members to buy, sell, hold, and convert within the SoFi app Brian Danga / The Block · 2026-05-27
- The US CFTC files alongside Gemini to nullify Gemini's $5M January 2025 settlement, arguing that the agency's current management wouldn't have pursued the case Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk · 2026-05-27
- The Steam Deck's huge price hike, from $399 in 2022 to $789 today, is the end of an era for gaming handhelds, coming amid RAMageddon, tariffs, and the Iran war Sean Hollister / The Verge · 2026-05-28
- Paxos says the US SEC has approved its registration as a clearing agency, allowing it to provide clearing and settlement services for eligible transactions Danny Park / The Block · 2026-05-29
- US Space Force says SpaceX won a $4.16B contract to build a space-based tracking network as part of President Trump's Golden Dome defensive shield Sana Pashankar / Bloomberg · 2026-05-29
- Coinbase and Kalshi introduce perpetual crypto futures, marking the first time the contracts will be available to US investors via domestic, regulated exchanges Pritam Biswas / Reuters · 2026-05-29
- Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which exploded during testing on Thursday, was set to ferry 48 Amazon Leo satellites on Monday; Amazon paid Blue Origin $2.7B Financial Times · 2026-05-29