Friday, December 12, 2025

EU finance ministers agreed to set a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on cheap Chinese imports from brands like Shein (Reuters)

Reuters:
EU finance ministers agreed to set a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on cheap Chinese imports from brands like Shein  —  European Union finance ministers agreed on Friday to set a 3 euro ($3.52) custom duty on low-value parcels arriving in the bloc …



Papua New Guinea says Google will build three subsea cables for the country, a $120M effort funded by Australia, amid China's rising influence in the region (Kirsty Needham/Reuters)

Kirsty Needham / Reuters:
Papua New Guinea says Google will build three subsea cables for the country, a $120M effort funded by Australia, amid China's rising influence in the region  —  Papua New Guinea said on Friday that Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google will build three subsea cables, funded by Australia under a mutual defence treaty …



Taiwan opens its largest AI supercomputing data center using Nvidia's Blackwell chips, a major effort in its push for sovereign AI and chip industry innovation (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia:
Taiwan opens its largest AI supercomputing data center using Nvidia's Blackwell chips, a major effort in its push for sovereign AI and chip industry innovation  —  TAINAN, Taiwan — Taiwan has opened its latest and largest AI supercomputing data center with Nvidia's most advanced Blackwell chips …



Thursday, December 11, 2025

Israeli startup Port, which offers a proprietary developer portal competitor to Spotify's open-source Backstage, raised a $100M Series C at an $800M valuation (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)

Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
Israeli startup Port, which offers a proprietary developer portal competitor to Spotify's open-source Backstage, raised a $100M Series C at an $800M valuation  —  Spotify may be synonymous with music streaming, but it's also got a wildly popular developer-tool side-hustle called “Backstage.”



Harness, which uses AI to automate code testing, verification, security, and governance, raised a $240M Series E led by Goldman Sachs at a $5.5B valuation (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Harness, which uses AI to automate code testing, verification, security, and governance, raised a $240M Series E led by Goldman Sachs at a $5.5B valuation  —  AI DevOps tool Harness, founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, is on track to exceed $250 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025, Bansal tells TechCrunch.



An Ai2 research scientist argues that AGI, as commonly conceived, will not emerge because it ignores, among other things, the physical realities of computation (Tim Dettmers)

Tim Dettmers:
An Ai2 research scientist argues that AGI, as commonly conceived, will not emerge because it ignores, among other things, the physical realities of computation  —  If you are reading this, you probably have strong opinions about AGI, superintelligence, and the future of AI.



China approves two cars from state-owned automakers with Level 3 autonomous capabilities, the first such approvals; the cars can drive in Chongqing and Beijing (Reuters)

Reuters : China approves two cars from state-owned automakers with Level 3 autonomous capabilities, the first such approvals; the cars can...