How President Trump is leveraging the US' dominance in AI chips to secure strategic deals with Middle Eastern oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE (New York Times)

New York Times:
How President Trump is leveraging the US' dominance in AI chips to secure strategic deals with Middle Eastern oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE  —  As the president heads to the Middle East, America's dominance over A.I. chips has become a powerful source of leverage for the president.

How India aims to become a regional data center hub, leveraging its low energy pricing and AI-skilled workforce; power supply constraints pose a major challenge (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
How India aims to become a regional data center hub, leveraging its low energy pricing and AI-skilled workforce; power supply constraints pose a major challenge  —  Domestic demand is rising fast and international cloud providers are looking to expand footprints  —  Krishn Kaushik and Chris Kay in Chennai

Q&A with Whitney Wolfe Herd about returning as Bumble CEO, Tinder lawsuit, being bullish about using AI in dating apps, funding for female founders, and more (Lulu Garcia-Navarro/New York Times)

Lulu Garcia-Navarro / New York Times:
Q&A with Whitney Wolfe Herd about returning as Bumble CEO, Tinder lawsuit, being bullish about using AI in dating apps, funding for female founders, and more  —  Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times  —  It feels like a lifetime ago, but when Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded her first company …

As the consumer metaverse falters, the World Economic Forum projects the industrial metaverse will reach $100B by 2030, led by platforms like Nvidia Omniverse (Nicole Kobie/Wired)

Nicole Kobie / Wired:
As the consumer metaverse falters, the World Economic Forum projects the industrial metaverse will reach $100B by 2030, led by platforms like Nvidia Omniverse  —  Forget Mark Zuckerberg's vision of VR meetings; the industrial metaverse bridges digital and physical worlds in a way that's actually useful.

Sources: OpenAI is negotiating with Microsoft to enable a future IPO; Microsoft offers to cut its equity stake for continued access to OpenAI tech beyond 2030 (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI is negotiating with Microsoft to enable a future IPO; Microsoft offers to cut its equity stake for continued access to OpenAI tech beyond 2030  —  High-stakes talks to revise terms of multibillion-dollar partnership are key to plans to adopt for-profit model

Q&A with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark on the parts of the economy AGI will affect last, why he's relatively bearish on AI-fueled economic growth, and more (Tyler Cowen/Conversations with Tyler)

Tyler Cowen / Conversations with Tyler:
Q&A with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark on the parts of the economy AGI will affect last, why he's relatively bearish on AI-fueled economic growth, and more  —  And the inevitable future of AI-enhanced parenting  — SUBSCRIBE - Apple - Google - Stitcher - Spotify - YouTube

Pope Leo XIV says he chose his name to honor Pope Leo XIII's work during the first industrial revolution, as AI poses challenges in a new industrial revolution (Lauren Kent/CNN)

Lauren Kent / CNN:
Pope Leo XIV says he chose his name to honor Pope Leo XIII's work during the first industrial revolution, as AI poses challenges in a new industrial revolution  —  Pope Leo XIV indicated on Saturday that his papacy will follow closely in the footsteps of the late Pope Francis …

The UK stopped asking Uber to pay VAT on the full cost of rides, instead collecting VAT only on its commission, after a setback in a similar dispute with Bolt (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
The UK stopped asking Uber to pay VAT on the full cost of rides, instead collecting VAT only on its commission, after a setback in a similar dispute with Bolt  —  HMRC has stopped demanding ridesharing company pay VAT on the full cost of rides after legal setback in related matter

A look at Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center, staffed largely by ex-intelligence and military personnel, which has become a key pillar of US cyber defense (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A look at Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center, staffed largely by ex-intelligence and military personnel, which has become a key pillar of US cyber defense  —  Over the past decade, the software company has become a pillar of US cyber defenses — a position that could become more complicated under Trump.

A study finds that asking LLMs to be concise in their answers, particularly on ambiguous topics, can negatively affect factuality and worsen hallucinations (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
A study finds that asking LLMs to be concise in their answers, particularly on ambiguous topics, can negatively affect factuality and worsen hallucinations  —  Turns out, telling an AI chatbot to be concise could make it hallucinate more than it otherwise would have.

How Apple's extraordinary measures to keep its App Store commissions after the Epic v. Apple trial led to a civil contempt ruling and weakened its credibility (Tripp Mickle/New York Times)

Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
How Apple's extraordinary measures to keep its App Store commissions after the Epic v. Apple trial led to a civil contempt ruling and weakened its credibility  —  Court documents show the company commissioned a sham report and lied on the stand to justify its actions, which will cast a shadow over future lawsuits.

Sources: CoreWeave plans to raise ~$1.5B through a high-yield bond offering, aiming to refinance part of its massive liabilities, weeks after a muted IPO (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: CoreWeave plans to raise ~$1.5B through a high-yield bond offering, aiming to refinance part of its massive liabilities, weeks after a muted IPO  —  AI data centre provider returns to investors with potential bond offerings that could reduce cost of borrowing

Appfigures estimates Apple's US App Store revenue from commissions was ~$10.1B in 2024, more than doubling from ~$4.76B in 2020 (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures estimates Apple's US App Store revenue from commissions was ~$10.1B in 2024, more than doubling from ~$4.76B in 2020  —  Over $10 billion — that's how much revenue Apple's U.S. App Store raked in last year, according to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures.

Nintendo reports FY 2024-25 revenue down 30% YoY to ~$8B, profit down 43% YoY to ~$1.9B, and says the Switch has 128M+ players globally, ahead of the Switch 2 (Yuri Kageyama/Associated Press)

Yuri Kageyama / Associated Press:
Nintendo reports FY 2024-25 revenue down 30% YoY to ~$8B, profit down 43% YoY to ~$1.9B, and says the Switch has 128M+ players globally, ahead of the Switch 2  —  Japanese video-game maker Nintendo on Thursday reported a 43% decline in profit for the fiscal year through March …

Rockstar says its new Grand Theft Auto VI trailer was "captured entirely in-game from a PlayStation 5, comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes" (Andrew Webster/The Verge)

Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Rockstar says its new Grand Theft Auto VI trailer was “captured entirely in-game from a PlayStation 5, comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes”  —  The trailer was also captured entirely in-game from a PS5. … A second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI had a surprise drop this week …