The Wire · Funding
Who raised, who bought whom, and at what price — funding rounds, valuations, and deals across the AI stack, tracked as they break.
OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna API prices by 80% to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output, while Terra fell 20% to $2 and $12. Fast mode gives Sol up to 2.5 times Standard speed at twice the price. OpenAI says Sol-assisted kernel work lowered serving cost by 20% and improved token-generation efficiency by more than 15%, while Luna delivers year-old frontier performance at roughly six cents per task-dollar and nearly nine times the speed. The edition connects cheaper models to Amazon's reported $1.8m, 860%-over-budget coding task, Gemini Robotics 2 whole-body control, Nscale's Anyscale acquisition and Okta's roughly $200m Permiso deal.
SpaceX is preparing to build a terrestrial mobile network to "acquire quite a few" of the customers now subscribed to T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. The message to compete head-to-head with the US carriers was delivered by SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk during the Q&A section of the company's first earnings call. "The […]
Read full story →AMD has posted strong second quarter results and forecast even better future financials once its Helios rack systems and Instinct MI400-series GPUs reach buyers. “In data center AI, the growing number and scale of Helios and MI450-series deployments position the [datacenter] business for significant growth in the second half of the year, with growth accelerating in 2027,” CEO Lisa Su told investors on Tuesday during the chip design company's Q2 earnings call. “We now expect data center segment revenue to more than double year over year in 2027,” she added. Yet, despite reporting Q2 profits surging 163 percent year-over-year on revenues of $11.5 billion, and several multi-gigawatts worth of Helios commitments from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in the bag, Wall Street isn’t buying it. The company's share plunged 10.5 percent after its results announcement, before settling 8.7 percent below opening price at the time of publication. The apparent cause for concern: AMD's growing exposure to the AI bubble. Much of the company's growth potential across both CPUs and GPUs is tied to AI adoption by a handful of companies that are yet to prove they can operate profitably. On Tuesday's earnings call, Su attempted to assuage investor fears, but in the same breath she said the quiet part out loud. “When we talked about the large frontier-model companies, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, they will be consuming through a number of CSPs,” Su said. “There are additional customers or lots of customers who are interested in Helios at, let's call it, a more regular scale than gigawatt scale.” In other words, while AMD can sell plenty of GPUs, most are sold to a handful of customers. And while other entities have AMD on their shopping lists, they don't buy in bulk. Microsoft, another flagship customer for AMD's latest generation of AI picks and shoves, serves both OpenAI and Anthropic, while Meta is reportedly looking to enter the GPU cloud biz itself. Despite this, AMD remains optim
Read full story →Google will reveal the Pixel 11 series later this month, but leaks and teasers so far have painted a picture of phones that have barely changed since last year . One notable exception seems to be the illuminated dot from some of the teasers. This has been rumored as "Pixel Glow," but a new leak all but confirms a different (and less interesting) name. Say hello to HiLight. A post on Bluesky by WinFuture's Roland Quandt shows the new LED inside the camera module of the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. We can see the actual body of the device rather than a shadowy outline as in Google's teasers, and it does look a bit different than the previous Pixel Fold. The camera bump on the Pixel 11 Pro Fold is smaller, with no separate section for the flash off to the right. It appears that HiLight is the flash. Presumably, it still works as a flashlight and camera flash, but it can also produce a range of colors. Read full article Comments
Read full story →<p data-block-key="hzs34">Exclaim Robotics secures $4.95m in pre-seed funding to build first bots</p>
Chevrolet provided flights from Albany, New York, to Denver and accommodation so Ars could drive the Grand Sport X. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. When Chevrolet introduced a hybrid system to the Corvette lineup in 2023, creating the E-Ray , many fans were confused. If it was meant to be a performance option, where did it fit alongside the ZR1 and ZR1X ? Was this a concession to emissions, or was it a sign of the fabled Stingray getting soft? Promises of silent cruising through neighborhoods and the application of all-season tires didn't help the situation. Three years later, the E-Ray is dead , but the hybrid system lives on in the new Grand Sport X. This, though, isn't intended to be a direct successor. A series of subtle and not-so-subtle software tweaks, plus some additional drive modes and a whole new engine, conspire to create a machine that sounds and feels far more edgy and exciting. From E-Ray to Grand Sport X "There were some customers who didn't necessarily understand the car," Keith Badgley said of the E-Ray. He was the lead development engineer for that machine, as well as the Grand Sport X and the ZR1X. I spoke with him after spending a few days behind the wheel of the Grand Sport X. Read full article Comments
An independent congressional candidate in Tennessee faces four felony vandalism charges after allegedly shooting four automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras between July 14 and 22. According to the Blount County Sheriff's Office (site geo-restricted), Adam Lee Heimerman, 37, is accused of targeting three cameras in Blount County and one in Maryville. Local news reports citing an affidavit say at least one was manufactured by Flock. Police said Heimerman allegedly reached one of the cameras through the grounds of a place of worship while a service was under way. Heimerman is running for election [PDF] to represent Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 3, 2026. One of Heimerman's opponents in the 2nd Congressional District, Republican incumbent Tim Burchett, has also tried to tackle the Flock cameras across the state, albeit through less drastic means. Last week, Burchett introduced a bill that would prevent federal agencies from buying or accessing automated surveillance systems and bar state and local agencies from using federal funds to purchase them, citing Fourth Amendment abuses. The bill would allow individual counties to secure contracts with Flock and install its cameras, but if passed, the proposal would see that the county bears all the costs of doing so. Flock told local news that it welcomed legislation that both increased the guardrails around its tech and retained individual authorities' power to deploy cameras to support law enforcement. The case joins a series of attacks on ALPR cameras across the US amid growing opposition to the technology. From allegations of police officers using the cameras to stalk ex-partners, to controversial ties with ICE and CBP immigration investigations, Flock, the best-known brand of ALPRs in the US, has struggled with continued stories of its tech being abused. Georgia police arrested and fired five officers on suspicion of misusing ALPR cameras "for non-la
You have to imagine that the team at Game Freak is bursting with ideas. The studio puts out new mainline Pokémon adventures with a machinelike precision. But every so often it launches a curious experiment, whether it's an action title about a militarized elephant or turning horse races into a card game, showing that it's […]
We first covered Baseten last year when DeepSeek mania was at peak hype. Now they have raised a monster $13B round and become one of the new cohort of AI Infra decacorns that are (with Nvidia, Intel, and the semis complex) chief beneficiaries of the Inference Inflection . We return to Baseten at the peak of the 2026 edition of Open Weights debate . Ali has published a viral breakdown of Kimi K3 : And since you last saw him, Philip has spoken at AI Engineer and written the definitive book on Inference Engineering spotted all over SF: Three years ago, inference engineering barely existed as a category. Today, it is one of the most critical disciplines in AI. Inference engineering inherently tackles a different question than standard model training: “How do you turn those weights from training into a product that is fast, reliable, and affordable at scale?” Focusing on these creates an entirely new optimization problem. baseten.com/inference-engi… ","username":"philipkiely","name":"Philip Kiely","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1644827140641153024/ExLuda2F_normal.jpg","date":"2026-02-23T18:03:01.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1BR1!,w_1028,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/l_play_button_usfui2,w_88,e_colorize:0/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F__ss-rehost__tw-video-preview-13_2025989166333616128.jpg","link_url":"https://t.co/QTNdMrypqR"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":190,"retweet_count":230,"like_count":2367,"impression_count":1396109,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2025989166333616128/vid/avc1/1280x720/fBFnlcAf_0wCVPNv.mp4","video_preview_media_key":"13_2025989166333616128","belowTheFold":false}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM"> In one recent GLM-5.2 experiment, quantizing more of the model actually preserved its benchmark quality while increasing throughput by 20% , because the errors introduced in different
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GPU prices are set to increase in South Korea starting this month, specifically Nvidia’s desktop GeForce RTX 50 series. According to a recent report , the price increase is primarily due to the recent increase in price for advanced process wafers from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), along with the rising price for GDDR7 memory. Perhaps most troubling is that, due to global market dynamics, pricing doesn't exist in a vacuum for any single region, suggesting that price hikes could be in store for other areas in the future. For context, TSMC recently asked its customers to prepare for price increases across its advanced chipmaking portfolio. This hike was extended beyond the newer 3nm process to include 7nm and other legacy products. ZDnet Korea’s report additionally cites market research firm TrendForce, claiming that GDDR7 2GB modules used in the RTX 50 series GPUs have increased to $20 per unit. As fabrication and memory costs have increased, Nvidia has raised the prices of the RTX 50 series GPU packages it sells to board partners. These board partners, thus, have little choice but to pass those higher costs on to consumers. Multiple officials from domestic importers and distributors in the region have reportedly confirmed the price rise and have announced that major graphics card manufacturers plan to raise the prices of RTX 50 series models by up to 30% starting this month. According to a manufacturing company official, "Major manufacturers have temporarily suspended shipments ahead of the August price hike, and to my knowledge, few companies have secured inventory prior to the price increase." Similarly, a local distributor said, "One manufacturer with a low domestic market share is considering a price increase of about 20% compared to existing levels, and other manufacturers are also preparing for price increases of up to around 30%." High-end graphics cards with larger GDDR7 memory configurations are expected to see the biggest increase in pr
Drone flyovers of Elon Musk’s new Advanced Technology Chip Fab (ATCF) in Texas have been shared on social media. The videos and photos come courtesy of flight instructor and drone videographer Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), who regularly documents the progress of Giga Texas and Starbase projects. Considering that the fab was only announced on March 21 this year, groundwork has been brisk, and in a follow-up post, Tegtmeyer states progress has “hit another gear.” How does the Advanced Technology Chip fab (joint venture between @Tesla and @SpaceX) look today? Most of the progress is on the main foundation which for now appears rectangular, GeoPiers are at work on the part of the foundation that has had gravel mix placed on the top soil and… pic.twitter.com/bCGjveCqIp July 22, 2026 In the above post, the all-things-space enthusiast notes that the ATCF already appears to be very well defined. “GeoPiers are at work on the part of the foundation that has had gravel mix placed on the top soil and more work grading on the south end,” he explains. Progress at the @SpaceX & @Tesla joint Advanced Technology Chip Fabrication factory has hit another gear, with the foundation not only taking shape, but expanding longer to the S. The beveled corners that we saw in the original render have yet to emerge, so I’m not sure if this… pic.twitter.com/rQOBfEMLPS July 27, 2026 A few days later, there was an update with progress clearly accelerating, according to Tegtmeyer. As well as commenting on the shape of the facility becoming ever clearer and construction materials continuing to be stockpiled, there are other important signs of progress. Specifically, “4 new permits were filed in the past few days for the large trailer complex that houses the general contractors and the temporary Tesla offices for the new facility,” noted the enthusiast. “[It is] a great sign that things are progressing rapidly behind the scenes to fit out the facility when construction progresses far enough to allow
Storage and memory manufacturer Lexar has listed a new 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-7200 CL38 memory kit in China with a price tag of 3,999 yuan (roughly $592). Part of the second-generation Thor RGB series, the kit features a sandblasted aluminum heat spreader, thermal pads, and eight LEDs that support a variety of RGB lighting effects. It is rated for 38-48-48-86 timings at 1.40V and supports both Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO profiles. Lexar says the modules use carefully selected domestically produced DRAM, although it does not specify the actual manufacturer. While there is no confirmation, the company may be using DRAM chips made by CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies). Lexar has also published a compatibility list covering 43 motherboards, including 30 Asus models and 13 MSI models across Intel Z890, Intel B860, and AMD B850 platforms. The compatibility list also includes supported boards for a faster 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-7600 CL38 memory kit. Interestingly, none of AMD's X870 or previous-generation motherboards appear on the list. That said, the kit should work on most DDR5 boards that Lexar hasn't tested, but the absence of AMD's flagship consumer chipset from the compatibility list is a bit odd. Notably, major motherboard manufacturers, including MSI and Gigabyte, have already started optimizing their motherboards to support CXMT memory ICs. A few months ago, Corsair began adopting CXMT DDR5 chips in select memory kits, including its popular Vengeance lineup. Likewise, major PC manufacturers such as HP and Dell have started qualifying CXMT DRAM , while Acer and Asus have reportedly asked their Chinese manufacturing partners to source locally made memory chips. The arrival of CXMT-made DDR5 chips earlier this year raised hopes that a new DRAM supplier could ease supply constraints and eventually lower memory prices. So far, there seems to be little evidence of that happening. At around $592, Lexar's new DDR5-7200 kit is priced in line or only slightly below many comparable
SpaceX and the state of Louisiana are close to finalizing a deal for the launch company to acquire about 130,000 acres along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There have been persistent rumors about such an agreement for months, but now The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate reports that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to announce the agreement later this month. The deal would give SpaceX control of an 18-mile stretch of marshland southwest of Lafayette. The site, known as Pecan Island, became available as part of a legal settlement that resolves dozens of lawsuits that blame ExxonMobil for pollution and coastal land loss, the newspaper reports. Read full article Comments
Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek is lining up $5 billion in financing to expand into AI datacenter silicon, targeting a slice of a market it expects to be worth up to $80 billion next year. The fabless chip producer is perhaps best known for its Arm-based smartphone and Chromebook chipsets, plus wireless silicon for Wi-Fi products. But the firm is the latest to see a "compelling growth opportunity" in the market for compute to power AI and so-called agentic AI in particular. MediaTek is targeting application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) rather than GPUs and reckons it can capture 15 to 20 percent of the market. The company's board has also approved $5 billion in financing to secure supply chain capacity and fuel an expansion from AI ASIC chips to full-scale systems and platforms, MediaTek stated. Chief exec Dr Rick Tsai spelled it out during an analyst call for the company's Q2 2026 earnings. "Recently, the release of increasingly capable frontier AI models, together with the rapid transition toward agentic AI, has become a key driver of compute demand across both cloud and edge AI," he stated. "Agentic AI, which executes a series of actions, including planning, reasoning, execution, and self-correction, further increases workloads. This represents a compelling growth opportunity for MediaTek, as we are well-positioned to support both the scaling of AI datacenters and the proliferation of agentic AI experiences across a broad range of edge devices." MediaTek says that its first ASIC family has been developed in "close partnership with major US cloud service provider customers," and is scheduled to enter production in the fourth quarter of this year. A second AI accelerator design is also progressing well and aims to offer a step up in compute performance. The chip biz expects its AI datacenter ASIC revenue to exceed $2 billion in 2026, scaling substantially next year, primarily driven by increasing customer demand for its technology, which boasts optimized perfo
This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals When two OpenAI models hacked into Hugging Face last month, they weren’t trying to make money or commit sabotage—they were just looking for answers to a test question. According to OpenAI, the models decided to solve a cybersecurity exercise by hacking out of the environment in which OpenAI had attempted to contain them and into Hugging Face’s databases, where—they reasoned—the correct answer to the problem might be stored. The incident has attracted intense attention over the past couple of weeks. It’s a dramatic illustration of just how good AI models have gotten at hacking. But it’s perhaps even more striking as an example of how and why AI systems lie and cheat. Read our story explaining why AI engages in this sort of behavior—known as ”reward hacking.” —Grace Huckins This story is from our ‘Explains’ series, where our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. Read more from the collection . The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 It looks like Iran is conducting cyberattacks on US water systems That’s according to preliminary investigations on hacks in at least seven states. ( NYT $) + Will this be a wake-up call? ( Forbes ) 2 Google briefly made it easy to fake satellite images Literally the last thing the world needs right now. ( NPR ) + AI companies keep moving fast and breaking things. ( The Atlantic $) + Apple is struggling to keep pace with incoming AI-assisted software bug reports. ( FT $) 3 Why wildfires have got so bad in Europe this summer It’s a mix of climate change, land abandonment, and outdated firefighting tactics. ( New Yorker $) + How Europe can be
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