Monday, January 26, 2026

Chinese autonomous trucking company DeepWay raised ~$173M ahead of its planned Hong Kong IPO, filed in November 2025; DeepWay reported ~$215M in H1 2025 revenue (Dong Cao/Bloomberg)

Dong Cao / Bloomberg:
Chinese autonomous trucking company DeepWay raised ~$173M ahead of its planned Hong Kong IPO, filed in November 2025; DeepWay reported ~$215M in H1 2025 revenue  —  DeepWay Technology Co., a Chinese company that makes technology for heavy-duty trucking, has raised about 1.2 billion yuan …



Sources: SoftBank halts talks about a ~$50B acquisition of US data center operator Switch, a setback to Masayoshi Son's goal to roll out Stargate infrastructure (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank halts talks about a ~$50B acquisition of US data center operator Switch, a setback to Masayoshi Son's goal to roll out Stargate infrastructure  —  SoftBank Group Corp. has halted talks about an acquisition of US data center operator Switch Inc., a setback …



London-based enterprise AI video startup Synthesia raised a $200M Series E led by GV at a $4B valuation, up from $2.1B after raising $180M in January 2025 (Nat Rubio-Licht/The Deep View)

Nat Rubio-Licht / The Deep View:
London-based enterprise AI video startup Synthesia raised a $200M Series E led by GV at a $4B valuation, up from $2.1B after raising $180M in January 2025  —  W  —  hile AI video generators like OpenAI's Sora, Google's Veo, and Kling are best known for creating “AI slop” …



Sunday, January 25, 2026

Power prices surge in Virginia, home to the world's largest data center hub; record demand is expected during the winter storm, partly due to data center needs (Tim McLaughlin/Reuters)

Tim McLaughlin / Reuters:
Power prices surge in Virginia, home to the world's largest data center hub; record demand is expected during the winter storm, partly due to data center needs  —  Power prices in the largest U.S. grid rose sharply on Sunday as demand in a region with the world's largest concentration …



Meta's decision to deprioritize VR in favor of AI and internet-connected glasses has chilled the VR industry, leading to concerns about its future (Jonathan Vanian/CNBC)

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta's decision to deprioritize VR in favor of AI and internet-connected glasses has chilled the VR industry, leading to concerns about its future  —  Meta's deprioritizing virtual reality in favor of artificial intelligence and Internet-connected smart glasses has chilled the industry, leading to concerns about its future.



A deep dive into Apple's AI strategy reset, as it prepares to announce a Gemini-powered personalized Siri next month and a reimagined chatbot-like Siri at WWDC (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A deep dive into Apple's AI strategy reset, as it prepares to announce a Gemini-powered personalized Siri next month and a reimagined chatbot-like Siri at WWDC  —  Apple shakes up its AI efforts with a Google partnership, management changes and two new versions of Siri.



Q&A with David Liu, CEO of PlusAI, which is slated to go public next month, on the ongoing commercial trial of its autonomous truck driving software, and more (Rani Molla/Sherwood News)

Rani Molla / Sherwood News:
Q&A with David Liu, CEO of PlusAI, which is slated to go public next month, on the ongoing commercial trial of its autonomous truck driving software, and more  —  With his company set to hit the public markets in February, Liu envisions a future where most vehicles, commercial or not, are driving themselves.



Saturday, January 24, 2026

Microsoft confirms it does provide BitLocker recovery keys for encrypted data if it receives a valid legal order and the user has stored the keys on its servers (Thomas Brewster/Forbes)

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Microsoft confirms it does provide BitLocker recovery keys for encrypted data if it receives a valid legal order and the user has stored the keys on its servers  —  The tech giant said it receives around 20 requests for BitLocker keys a year and will provide them to governments in response to valid court orders.



Sources: the EU's executive arm is drafting new legislation aimed at promoting tech sovereignty and openly discussing the security risks posed by US tech (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the EU's executive arm is drafting new legislation aimed at promoting tech sovereignty and openly discussing the security risks posed by US tech  —  Trump's Greenland threats inject urgency into region's efforts to reduce its reliance on American technology



Elliptic: ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5 surpassed $100B in transactions in under a year, but demand cooled and daily volume fell from a peak of $1.5B+ to ~$500M (Melos Ambaye/Bloomberg)

Melos Ambaye / Bloomberg:
Elliptic: ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5 surpassed $100B in transactions in under a year, but demand cooled and daily volume fell from a peak of $1.5B+ to ~$500M  —  The ruble-backed stablecoin created to circumvent sanctions on Russia has surpassed $100 billion in transactions in less …



Counterpoint: India smartphone shipments were flat YoY at ~153M; Apple shipped 14M iPhones, raising its share of shipments to a record 9%, up from 7% in 2024 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Counterpoint: India smartphone shipments were flat YoY at ~153M; Apple shipped 14M iPhones, raising its share of shipments to a record 9%, up from 7% in 2024  —  Apple's iPhone is gaining ground fast in India, shipping about 14 million units in 2025, based on market data shared exclusively with TechCrunch.



Some startups and researchers who can't access the most advanced chips are adopting a "frugal AI" approach, building smaller models on open-weight systems (Rina Chandran/Rest of World)

Rina Chandran / Rest of World : Some startups and researchers who can't access the most advanced chips are adopting a “frugal AI” app...