Sunday, August 30, 2026

Sources: OpenAI bought tens of thousands of Macs for RL, Anthropic rents them, Nvidia sees Apple as its main local AI rival as Macs gain traction with AI devs (Aaron Tilley/The Information)

Aaron Tilley / The Information:
Sources: OpenAI bought tens of thousands of Macs for RL, Anthropic rents them, Nvidia sees Apple as its main local AI rival as Macs gain traction with AI devs  —  The hottest products at Apple right now are not the iPhone, the iPad or a buzzy new show on the company's streaming service.



A look at the management changes John Ternus could make as many key Apple execs prepare to leave in the next few years; Apple tested a Pencil for folding iPhone (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at the management changes John Ternus could make as many key Apple execs prepare to leave in the next few years; Apple tested a Pencil for folding iPhone  —  Also: Apple experimented with a Pencil for the coming foldable iPhone.  —  When John Ternus becomes Apple's CEO this week …



A look at the race to build quantum computers, as the tech becomes a geopolitical battleground with potential to transform cybersecurity, finance, and more (Mark Bergen/Bloomberg)

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
A look at the race to build quantum computers, as the tech becomes a geopolitical battleground with potential to transform cybersecurity, finance, and more  —  Companies are racing to create devices that could revolutionize finance, supercharge medical and climate research …



The OpenAI/Hugging Face incident feels "more than 50%" of the way to a full-blown AI takeover and as AI advances rapidly we may not get another warning shot (Ajeya Cotra/Planned Obsolescence)

Ajeya Cotra / Planned Obsolescence:
The OpenAI/Hugging Face incident feels “more than 50%” of the way to a full-blown AI takeover and as AI advances rapidly we may not get another warning shot  —  It's a major warning shot, and might be the last one we get  —  All opinions are my personal view, and don't represent my employer or fellow investigators.



Saturday, August 29, 2026

Sources detail how Meta's $17.1B settlement with state AGs came together as Meta wanted to avoid going to trial following losses in cases in LA and New Mexico (New York Times)

New York Times:
Sources detail how Meta's $17.1B settlement with state AGs came together as Meta wanted to avoid going to trial following losses in cases in LA and New Mexico  —  State attorneys general spent months in negotiations.  Then, as its legal losses mounted, the social media giant's new top lawyer brought a huge settlement to the table.



Cursor co-founder Michael Truell says OpenAI represents just 5% of Cursor's traffic and Cursor trusted OpenAI to be "neutral"; Musk says he "couldn't care less" (Amir Efrati/The Information)

Amir Efrati / The Information:
Cursor co-founder Michael Truell says OpenAI represents just 5% of Cursor's traffic and Cursor trusted OpenAI to be “neutral”; Musk says he “couldn't care less”  —  OpenAI said Friday night that it will terminate its contract to provide its AI models …



New AI-powered video tools have accelerated the surge in AI dramas in China; DataEye: 89 of the top 100 animated dramas on Douyin in May were AI productions (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
New AI-powered video tools have accelerated the surge in AI dramas in China; DataEye: 89 of the top 100 animated dramas on Douyin in May were AI productions  —  Online performers left jobless as new video-generation programmes sweep industry  —  Chinese actors and online influencers have a new rival …



Sunday, August 23, 2026

Ramp data: Fable 5, launched in June, has plateaued at ~11% of spending on Anthropic tools, as companies shift to cheaper models; Opus 5 surpassed Fable 5 (George Hammond/Financial Times)

George Hammond / Financial Times:
Ramp data: Fable 5, launched in June, has plateaued at ~11% of spending on Anthropic tools, as companies shift to cheaper models; Opus 5 surpassed Fable 5  —  AI lab's Fable 5 has met with sluggish demand from corporate clients  —  Anthropic's US customers are using cheaper alternatives …



Alibaba plans to raise ~$10B in a follow-on share offering to fund AI investments; sources: it plans to offer 710M shares at a 3.6% discount to Friday's close (Reuters)

Reuters:
Alibaba plans to raise ~$10B in a follow-on share offering to fund AI investments; sources: it plans to offer 710M shares at a 3.6% discount to Friday's close  —  China's Alibaba (9988.HK) on Sunday launched a HK$80-billion ($10.2 billion) share placement to fund artificial intelligence-related development.



Sources: foldable iPhone feels durable, fits well in a pocket, has useful iPad-like app layouts, excels as a camera viewfinder but lacks telephoto and Face ID (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: foldable iPhone feels durable, fits well in a pocket, has useful iPad-like app layouts, excels as a camera viewfinder but lacks telephoto and Face ID  —  Also: Get ready for iPhone price hikes.  —  Apple is about to bring some of its product magic back with its first foldable iPhone.



The careers of Z.ai's Tang Jie and Moonshot AI's Yang Zhilin, once teacher and pupil at Tsinghua University, show that China's AI leap is no sudden development (Raffaele Huang/Wall Street Journal)

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
The careers of Z.ai's Tang Jie and Moonshot AI's Yang Zhilin, once teacher and pupil at Tsinghua University, show that China's AI leap is no sudden development  —  University lab nurtured the computer scientists who are using ingenuity and imitation to chase down Anthropic and OpenAI; ‘they know perfectly how to monetize their work’



Saturday, August 22, 2026

A look at the narrowing US-China AI gap, as a spate of compelling, low-cost releases makes Chinese AI models increasingly attractive to businesses (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A look at the narrowing US-China AI gap, as a spate of compelling, low-cost releases makes Chinese AI models increasingly attractive to businesses  —  A spate of compelling releases at budget prices have made China the frontrunner in the race for global adoption.



Ox Alpha, a "stealth model" from an unknown AI lab with a 1M-token multimodal context and capacity for 100T tokens/day, goes viral after launching on OpenRouter (Rohail Saleem/Wccftech)

Rohail Saleem / Wccftech:
Ox Alpha, a “stealth model” from an unknown AI lab with a 1M-token multimodal context and capacity for 100T tokens/day, goes viral after launching on OpenRouter  —  When an unknown AI lab drops an anonymous model - Ox Alpha - for free, while declaring that they have the capacity …



Cheap energy, abundant land, and proximity to Beijing have made Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, a data center hub, with ~100 data centers built or under construction (Zeyi Yang/Wired)

Zeyi Yang / Wired:
Cheap energy, abundant land, and proximity to Beijing have made Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, a data center hub, with ~100 data centers built or under construction  —  Cheap energy, abundant land, and proximity to Beijing have turned a city in Inner Mongolia into a crucial hub for data centers.



Inside the World Robot Conference in Beijing, drawing over 300 exhibitors; Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said the industry's "ChatGPT moment" has yet to come (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Inside the World Robot Conference in Beijing, drawing over 300 exhibitors; Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said the industry's “ChatGPT moment” has yet to come  —  Beijing policymakers have made robotics a ‘strategic priority’  —  At the World Robot Conference in Beijing this week …



As the AI wave creates tech fortunes at breakneck speed, a look at the growing ecosystem helping founders navigate the challenges of becoming extremely wealthy (Tiffany Ap/Bloomberg)

Tiffany Ap / Bloomberg : As the AI wave creates tech fortunes at breakneck speed, a look at the growing ecosystem helping founders naviga...