Since 2023, Chinese investors, including Alibaba and Tencent, have valued 6+ China-based startups developing LLMs, dubbed "Little AI Dragons", at $1B+ each (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Since 2023, Chinese investors, including Alibaba and Tencent, have valued 6+ China-based startups developing LLMs, dubbed “Little AI Dragons”, at $1B+ each  —  Since 2023, 40% of Alibaba's deals in China and 30% of Tencent's have targeted AI startups

Xiaomi reports Q2 revenue up 32% YoY to ~$12.5B, above ~$12.2B est., and a ~$715M net income, above ~$533M est., as its core smartphone business recovers (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Xiaomi reports Q2 revenue up 32% YoY to ~$12.5B, above ~$12.2B est., and a ~$715M net income, above ~$533M est., as its core smartphone business recovers  —  Sales rose a better-than-projected 32% to 88.9 billion yuan ($12.5 billion), versus the average analyst estimate of 86.9 billion yuan.

TSMC breaks ground on its €10B chip fab in Dresden, Germany, its first European plant; the EU approves Germany's ~€5B subsidy for the project (Kamil Kowalcze/Bloomberg)

Kamil Kowalcze / Bloomberg:
TSMC breaks ground on its €10B chip fab in Dresden, Germany, its first European plant; the EU approves Germany's ~€5B subsidy for the project  —  - Taiwanese firm begins work on its first European chip plant  — German subsidies will cover about half of the fab's costs

Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges as Mike Lynch over Autonomy's sale, died after a road accident, per his lawyer, days before Lynch went missing (Reuters)

Reuters:
Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges as Mike Lynch over Autonomy's sale, died after a road accident, per his lawyer, days before Lynch went missing  —  Stephen Chamberlain, once Mike Lynch's co-defendant in the U.S. fraud trial over the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard …

Girls In Tech, Women Who Code, and other groups that aimed to diversify Silicon Valley are closing or rebranding to stay afloat, as critics attack DEI efforts (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Girls In Tech, Women Who Code, and other groups that aimed to diversify Silicon Valley are closing or rebranding to stay afloat, as critics attack DEI efforts  —  Groups like Girls In Tech and Women Who Code promised to attract women and people of color to the tech industry.

In Q2, Walmart said its ad business grew 30% in the past year; eMarketer says Walmart will claim 6.8% of 2024 US retail media spending, for $3.7B in ad revenue (Gregory Meyer/Financial Times)

Gregory Meyer / Financial Times:
In Q2, Walmart said its ad business grew 30% in the past year; eMarketer says Walmart will claim 6.8% of 2024 US retail media spending, for $3.7B in ad revenue  —  A high-margin and fast-growing ad business is changing the chain's relationship with brands  —  Walmart last week reported rising sales …

AMD agrees to buy New Jersey-based ZT Systems, founded in 1994 to design and make servers, server racks, and other infrastructure, for $4.9B, closing in H1 2025 (Asa Fitch/Wall Street Journal)

Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal:
AMD agrees to buy New Jersey-based ZT Systems, founded in 1994 to design and make servers, server racks, and other infrastructure, for $4.9B, closing in H1 2025  —  ZT Systems produces servers, other equipment used in data centers for artificial intelligence

How Worldcoin is building its World ID identity system, trying to assuage government and privacy activists' concerns about its iris scanning tech and data usage (Angus Berwick/Wall Street Journal)

Angus Berwick / Wall Street Journal:
How Worldcoin is building its World ID identity system, trying to assuage government and privacy activists' concerns about its iris scanning tech and data usage  —  More than a dozen jurisdictions have either suspended the project's operations or looked into its data processing

Arize AI: 56% of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a "risk factor" in their recent annual reports, up from 9% in 2022; 86% of software firms cited AI as a risk (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
Arize AI: 56% of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a “risk factor” in their recent annual reports, up from 9% in 2022; 86% of software firms cited AI as a risk  —  Study finds more than half of Fortune 500 groups cited new technology as a potential hazard in their latest annual reports

A look at Apple's work on its in-house modem chip, which may debut in some niche models next year, with the full rollout taking a few years to complete (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's work on its in-house modem chip, which may debut in some niche models next year, with the full rollout taking a few years to complete  —  Apple's move to drop Qualcomm modem chips won't have a payoff at the outset, but it could set the stage for bigger things later.

A survey of 2,012 people in Germany finds ~50% wouldn't use the digital euro over privacy fears; the European Central Bank will decide on a rollout by 2025 end (Marilen Martin/Bloomberg)

Marilen Martin / Bloomberg:
A survey of 2,012 people in Germany finds ~50% wouldn't use the digital euro over privacy fears; the European Central Bank will decide on a rollout by 2025 end  —  - ECB officals to decide on rollout by end of next year  — Half of people in Germany can't imagine using e-euro

Runway debuts Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, a faster and cheaper model than Gen-3 Alpha, capable of generating 5- or 10-second-long video clips, available for all plans (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat)

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Runway debuts Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, a faster and cheaper model than Gen-3 Alpha, capable of generating 5- or 10-second-long video clips, available for all plans  —  After showing it off in preview late last month, Runway has officially released Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, the latest version …

X says it's closing its operations in Brazil, claiming a judge threatened arrest if X didn't comply with "censorship orders"; the service remains available (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
X says it's closing its operations in Brazil, claiming a judge threatened arrest if X didn't comply with “censorship orders”; the service remains available  —  X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said today that it's ending operations in Brazil …

Nancy Pelosi issues a statement in opposition to California's AI safety bill, saying it's "well-intentioned but ill-informed" and "more harmful than helpful" (Representative Nancy Pelosi)

Representative Nancy Pelosi:
Nancy Pelosi issues a statement in opposition to California's AI safety bill, saying it's “well-intentioned but ill-informed” and “more harmful than helpful”  —  San Francisco - Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi issued this statement in opposition to California Senate Bill 1047:

A profile of Anthony Tan, the solo developer of Way to the Woods, a game that received Epic Games funding and remains unreleased nine years after its conception (Jackson Ryan/New York Times)

Jackson Ryan / New York Times:
A profile of Anthony Tan, the solo developer of Way to the Woods, a game that received Epic Games funding and remains unreleased nine years after its conception  —  Anthony Tan was 16 when his idea for a video game about a deer caught the industry's eye.  Nine years later, he's still working on it.