Technology

Paxos acquires Fordefi, a New York&based startup that helps customers store their digital assets, for $100M+; PitchBook: Fordefi was last valued at $83M (Fortune)

Paxos acquires Fordefi, a New York&based startup that h...

Fortune: Paxos acquires Fordefi, a New York-based startup that helps customers s...

Families of October 7 victims sue Binance and Changpeng Zhao in US federal court, alleging Binance facilitated millions in payments to Hamas after October 7 (Financial Times)

Families of October 7 victims sue Binance and Changpeng...

Financial Times: Families of October 7 victims sue Binance and Changpeng Zhao in...

Google is starting to bridge OpenAI's product moat, like with Gemini's "dynamic view" option, which converts a text answer into an interactive, visual output (M.G. Siegler/Spyglass)

Google is starting to bridge OpenAI's product moat, lik...

M.G. Siegler / Spyglass: Google is starting to bridge OpenAI's product moat, lik...

India's November 21 labor law has granted legal status to millions of gig workers, but benefits are unclear and access to social security remains elusive (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

India's November 21 labor law has granted legal status ...

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: India's November 21 labor law has granted legal stat...

Internal memo: Amazon asks engineers to use its in&house AI coding assistant Kiro over third&party tools like Cursor, aiming to gather feedback for improvement (Greg Bensinger/Reuters)

Internal memo: Amazon asks engineers to use its in&hous...

Greg Bensinger / Reuters: Internal memo: Amazon asks engineers to use its in-hou...

AWS announces a commitment to invest up to $50B to build AI and HPC infrastructure for the US government, starting in 2026 and adding nearly 1.3 GW of capacity (Eric Revell/Fox Business)

AWS announces a commitment to invest up to $50B to buil...

Eric Revell / Fox Business: AWS announces a commitment to invest up to $50B to b...

Sources: Shopify salespeople engaged in a sales fraud scheme inflating deal values for over a year, leading to internal investigations in mid&2024 and firings (Aleksandra Sagan/The Logic)

Sources: Shopify salespeople engaged in a sales fraud s...

Aleksandra Sagan / The Logic: Sources: Shopify salespeople engaged in a sales fr...

Dutch online grocery store Picnic raised €430M from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and others, after raising €355M in January 2024 (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)

Dutch online grocery store Picnic raised €430M from The...

John Reynolds / Tech.eu: Dutch online grocery store Picnic raised €430M from The...

Changes to CISA have left some states without support during elections; California said CISA provided little support during the Nov. 4 election on redistricting (Associated Press)

Changes to CISA have left some states without support d...

Associated Press: Changes to CISA have left some states without support during e...

Major insurers have recently sought permission from US regulators to offer policies excluding liabilities tied to businesses deploying AI chatbots and agents (Financial Times)

Major insurers have recently sought permission from US ...

Financial Times: Major insurers have recently sought permission from US regulato...

Flexion, which is building a full autonomy stack for humanoid robots, raised a $50M Series A from DST Global Partners, NVentures, and others, after a $7M+ seed (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)

Flexion, which is building a full autonomy stack for hu...

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Flexion, which is building a full autonomy s...

Chip companies in South Korea, Taiwan, and China have been raising pay and bonuses as global competition intensifies for a limited pool of chip engineers (June Yoon/Financial Times)

Chip companies in South Korea, Taiwan, and China have b...

June Yoon / Financial Times: Chip companies in South Korea, Taiwan, and China ha...

An in&depth look at the humanoid robotics industry, which currently relies heavily on hype to rally interest and investors, as AI fuels the humanoid boom (James Vincent/Harper's)

An in&depth look at the humanoid robotics industry, whi...

James Vincent / Harper's: An in-depth look at the humanoid robotics industry, wh...

Bedrock Data, which has debuted ArgusAI to show enterprises what data their AI models access during training and to prevent data leakage, raised a $25M Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios)

Bedrock Data, which has debuted ArgusAI to show enterpr...

Chris Metinko / Axios: Bedrock Data, which has debuted ArgusAI to show enterpris...

How a semiconductor investment boom is turning Arizona into "America's Semiconductor HQ", attracting more than $200B in investments in the last five years (Justine Calma/The Verge)

How a semiconductor investment boom is turning Arizona ...

Justine Calma / The Verge: How a semiconductor investment boom is turning Arizon...

While the AI bubble feels like the internet bubble of 1999, it may actually be larger and scarier with an unstable US economy and greater exposure for Big Tech (Fred Vogelstein/Crazy Stupid Tech)

While the AI bubble feels like the internet bubble of 1...

Fred Vogelstein / Crazy Stupid Tech: While the AI bubble feels like the internet...

How the launch of Gemini 3, which surged ahead of models from OpenAI and other competitors on benchmark tests, has pushed Google ahead in the AI race (Katherine Blunt/Wall Street Journal)

How the launch of Gemini 3, which surged ahead of model...

Katherine Blunt / Wall Street Journal: How the launch of Gemini 3, which surged ...

Q&A with Fei&Fei Li on ImageNet, her startup World Labs' focus on spatial intelligence, superintelligence, regulation, AI bubble, US&China AI arms race, more (Mishal Husain/Bloomberg)

Q&A with Fei&Fei Li on ImageNet, her startup World ...

Mishal Husain / Bloomberg: Q&A with Fei-Fei Li on ImageNet, her startup World La...

Thoma Bravo acquires a majority stake in Java platform Azul, which received a $340M majority investment from Vitruvian Partners and Lead Edge Capital in 2020 (Chris Metinko/Axios)

Thoma Bravo acquires a majority stake in Java platform ...

Chris Metinko / Axios: Thoma Bravo acquires a majority stake in Java platform Az...

A look at Indian startups like TuluAI, which are building LLMs for low&resource languages by creating data sets nearly from scratch with community involvement (Rest of World)

A look at Indian startups like TuluAI, which are buildi...

Rest of World: A look at Indian startups like TuluAI, which are building LLMs fo...

Filing: Airbnb says CTO Ari Balogh, who joined seven years ago from Google, plans to step down in December (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)

Filing: Airbnb says CTO Ari Balogh, who joined seven ye...

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: Filing: Airbnb says CTO Ari Balogh, who joined seven y...

Sources: Trump's team recently discussed letting Nvidia sell H200 chips to China, a major departure from the administration's earlier public stances (Bloomberg)

Sources: Trump's team recently discussed letting Nvidia...

Bloomberg: Sources: Trump's team recently discussed letting Nvidia sell H200 chi...

A US judge is expected to rule next year on breaking up Google's ad tech monopoly, after the DOJ and Google delivered closing arguments in a remedies hearing (David McCabe/New York Times)

A US judge is expected to rule next year on breaking up...

David McCabe / New York Times: A US judge is expected to rule next year on break...

GE HealthCare acquires Intelerad, which sells cloud imaging software and digital workflow tools primarily to outpatient and ambulatory sites, for $2.3B (Brock E.W. Turner/Axios)

GE HealthCare acquires Intelerad, which sells cloud ima...

Brock E.W. Turner / Axios: GE HealthCare acquires Intelerad, which sells cloud i...

Foxconn Chair Young Liu says the company will spend $2B to $3B per year in AI in the next three to five years and is discussing potential investments with Japan (Reuters)

Foxconn Chair Young Liu says the company will spend $2B...

Reuters: Foxconn Chair Young Liu says the company will spend $2B to $3B per year...

The UK announces a £100M plan to support local AI hardware startups via guaranteed "first customer" payments, and estimates its AI market to be worth over £72B (Financial Times)

The UK announces a £100M plan to support local AI hardw...

Financial Times: The UK announces a £100M plan to support local AI hardware star...

Method Security, which specializes in dual&use cyber capabilities, raised $26M across seed and Series A rounds led by a16z and General Catalyst, respectively (Colin Demarest/Axios)

Method Security, which specializes in dual&use cyber ca...

Colin Demarest / Axios: Method Security, which specializes in dual-use cyber cap...

OpenAI expands group chats in ChatGPT globally to all logged&in users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans, after piloting the feature in select regions (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

OpenAI expands group chats in ChatGPT globally to all l...

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: OpenAI expands group chats in ChatGPT globally to all ...

Profluent, which wants to use AI for protein design in drug discovery, raised $106M led by Bezos Expeditions and Altimeter, bringing its total funding to $150M (Amy Feldman/Forbes)

Profluent, which wants to use AI for protein design in ...

Amy Feldman / Forbes: Profluent, which wants to use AI for protein design in dru...

Filing: Nvidia says it plans to rent $26B worth of servers over the next six years, doubling the cloud spending commitments it disclosed three months ago (Anissa Gardizy/The Information)

Filing: Nvidia says it plans to rent $26B worth of serv...

Anissa Gardizy / The Information: Filing: Nvidia says it plans to rent $26B wort...

Shipments of AI servers from Taiwan to the US are set to double in 2025 vs. 2024, as Foxconn, Quanta, and Wistron ramp up production to meet demand (Hideaki Ryugen/Nikkei Asia)

Shipments of AI servers from Taiwan to the US are set t...

Hideaki Ryugen / Nikkei Asia: Shipments of AI servers from Taiwan to the US are ...

AI academic research hub alphaXiv, which lets users comment on, annotate, and discuss arXiv papers, raised a $7M seed co&led by Menlo Ventures and Haystack (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE)

AI academic research hub alphaXiv, which lets users com...

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: AI academic research hub alphaXiv, which lets user...

Sources: Warner Music settles its suit with AI startup Udio, which is planning a service that lets users create songs from licensed tracks of artists who opt&in (Anna Nicolaou/Financial Times)

Sources: Warner Music settles its suit with AI startup ...

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times: Sources: Warner Music settles its suit with AI ...

Perplexity plans to roll out a free agentic shopping product for US users next week in partnership with PayPal (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)

Perplexity plans to roll out a free agentic shopping pr...

Ashley Capoot / CNBC: Perplexity plans to roll out a free agentic shopping produ...

Elon Musk says xAI plans to develop a 500 megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia with state&backed AI startup Humain; the data center will rely on Nvidia chips (Mark Bergen/Bloomberg)

Elon Musk says xAI plans to develop a 500 megawatt data...

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg: Elon Musk says xAI plans to develop a 500 megawatt data...

Google DeepMind plans to open an AI research lab in Singapore, collaborating with institutions across the Asia&Pacific in education, public services, and more (Lila Ibrahim/Google DeepMind)

Google DeepMind plans to open an AI research lab in Sin...

Lila Ibrahim / Google DeepMind: Google DeepMind plans to open an AI research lab...

A look at Inception Point AI, whose podcast network makes 3,000 AI&made podcasts per week and has 400K subs; an episode needs only 20 listeners to turn a profit (Tess Patton/The Wrap)

A look at Inception Point AI, whose podcast network mak...

Tess Patton / The Wrap: A look at Inception Point AI, whose podcast network make...

Sources: xAI is in advanced talks to raise $15B at a $230B valuation, up from the $113B it reported after merging with X in March 2025 (Wall Street Journal)

Sources: xAI is in advanced talks to raise $15B at a $2...

Wall Street Journal: Sources: xAI is in advanced talks to raise $15B at a $230B ...

Agentio, which uses AI to help brands automate and scale campaigns with YouTube creators, raised a $40M Series B led by Forerunner at a $340M valuation (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Agentio, which uses AI to help brands automate and scal...

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Agentio, which uses AI to help brands automate and scal...

Anthropic commits to buy $30B in Azure capacity in a new deal with Microsoft and Nvidia, which commit to invest up to $5B and $10B, respectively, in Anthropic (Microsoft)

Anthropic commits to buy $30B in Azure capacity in a ne...

Microsoft: Anthropic commits to buy $30B in Azure capacity in a new deal with Mi...

Edtech startup Physics Wallah closed up 44% in its Indian IPO, giving it a ~$5B market cap; it was last valued at $2.8B in 2024 when it raised a $210M Series B (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Edtech startup Physics Wallah closed up 44% in its Indi...

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Edtech startup Physics Wallah closed up 44% in its I...

Artificial Analysis announces AA&Omniscience, a benchmark for knowledge and hallucination across 40+ topics; Claude 4.1 Opus takes first place in its key metric (@artificialanlys)

Artificial Analysis announces AA&Omniscience, a benchma...

@artificialanlys: Artificial Analysis announces AA-Omniscience, a benchmark for ...

Sources: Databricks is in talks to raise money at a valuation of more than $130B, up about 30% from September when it raised a $1B Series K at a $100B valuation (The Information)

Sources: Databricks is in talks to raise money at a val...

The Information: Sources: Databricks is in talks to raise money at a valuation o...

Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talks with potential investors to raise about $5B and is aiming for a valuation of at least $50B (The Information)

Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talk...

The Information: Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talks with p...

Q&A with OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on joining OpenAI, ChatGPT users' mental health, profitability, data center deals, her chronic illness, and more (Zoë Schiffer/Wired)

Q&A with OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on j...

Zoë Schiffer / Wired: Q&A with OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on joining ...

In an informal survey of 300+ Cerebral Valley AI Conference attendees asking which $1B+ valuation startup to short, most voted Perplexity, followed by OpenAI (Ben Bergman/Business Insider)

In an informal survey of 300+ Cerebral Valley AI Confer...

Ben Bergman / Business Insider: In an informal survey of 300+ Cerebral Valley AI...

Voize, an ambient AI voice company targeting skilled nursing facilities, raised a $50M Series A led by Balderton Capital and plans a US launch in Q1 2026 (Brock E.W. Turner/Axios)

Voize, an ambient AI voice company targeting skilled nu...

Brock E.W. Turner / Axios: Voize, an ambient AI voice company targeting skilled ...

BNPL use in the US has grown to 91.5M users, with 25% financing groceries, as default rates accelerate and most loans aren't reported, creating "phantom debt" (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)

BNPL use in the US has grown to 91.5M users, with 25% f...

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: BNPL use in the US has grown to 91.5M users, with 25...

Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center are increasingly leaning on Google's new DeepMind prediction model, though questions about its methods remain (Eric Holthaus/The Guardian)

Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center are inc...

Eric Holthaus / The Guardian: Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center ar...

Tokyo&based Sakana AI becomes Japan's most valuable unicorn at a ~$2.6B valuation, following a ~$130M raise from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and US VC firms (Nikkei Asia)

Tokyo&based Sakana AI becomes Japan's most valuable uni...

Nikkei Asia: Tokyo-based Sakana AI becomes Japan's most valuable unicorn at a ~$...

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