The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

Cadence unveils AuraStack AI Super Agent, an AI platform for PCB and advanced chip packaging design, with Nvidia, TSMC, and Schneider Electric among early users (Marco Chiappetta/Forbes) [58d]
Sources: Microsoft security chief Hayete Gallot, who took over in February, has prioritized AI tools, cut several hundred roles, replaced senior execs, and more (The Information) [58d]
Venture funding of fintech startups grew 22.7% YoY in H1 2026 to $28.6B globally, but deal count fell 25.7% and funding fell 17.3% vs. H2 2025's $34.6B funding (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News) [58d]
Coinbase's Jesse Pollak says Jordan Fish, aka "Cobie", will now lead the Base app team after acknowledging some of Base's bets on social features fell short (Daniel Kuhn/The Block) [58d]
SpaceX shares fell for a fourth-straight session on Wednesday, briefly dropping below their $135 IPO price for the first time before closing at $135.27 (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [58d]
Apple publishes a policy for upcoming Maps ads, says home services ads are banned, medical services ads will be "evaluated on a case-by-case basis", and more (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [58d]
OpenAI details GPT-Red, an internal automated red-teaming model that helps it find and fix prompt injection vulnerabilities at scale before wider deployment (OpenAI) [58d]
Uber and Waymo are engaged in a DC lobbying battle over AV legislation, with Uber supporting a hybrid human-robotaxi model and Waymo pushing for pure robotaxis (Liam Denning/Bloomberg) [58d]
AWS SVP Dave Brown is leaving after 19 years for a new job; he led compute and machine learning services and is a member of the S-team advising Andy Jassy (Greg Bensinger/Reuters) [58d]
Apple raises AppleCare+ prices for Macs and iPads by $0.50 per month and $5 per year; the increases are exclusively for new sign-ups (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [58d]
Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area (Thinking Machines Lab) [58d]
Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman's $1.5B AI implementation company, announced in May, launches with the name Ode with Anthropic and 100 engineers (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch) [58d]
Lumin Digital, which provides cloud-based digital banking software to banks and credit unions, raised more than $115M at a $1.6B post-money valuation (Ryan Lawler/Axios) [58d]
OpenAI employees donated a combined $215K+ to Guardrails Alliance, a super PAC seeking stricter AI rules and opposing Greg Brockman-backed Leading the Future (Maxwell Zeff/Wired) [58d]
OpenAI launches Codex Micro, a $230 desktop keypad built in collaboration with keyboard maker Work Louder, with backlit keys, a rotary knob, and a tiny joystick (Megan Morrone/Axios) [58d]
Sources: ASML has discussed raising prices for its EUV systems with TSMC and plans to charge 10% more for its DUV systems; TSMC is resisting ASML's plans (Qianer Liu/The Information) [58d]
Source: OnePlus will begin to cease operations in the US and Europe as early as this week and Realme will exit China as part of a restructuring by parent Oppo (Bloomberg) [58d]
Hyundai's South Korea auto workers have gone on a partial strike over wages, AI, and the prospect of the company deploying its new humanoid robot in factories (Jiyoung Sohn/Wall Street Journal) [58d]
Sources: Apple is looking for chip companies to buy to boost its AI server chip efforts as it struggles with the performance of its servers running on M2 Ultra (The Information) [58d]
Spectro Cloud, an AI infrastucture company helping manage token costs, raised a $100M Series D from AMD, LG, others at a $1B+ valuation, up from $750M in 2024 (Lucinda Shen/Axios) [58d]
How TikTok Shop sellers are using AI creators and AI twins to boost sales; eMarketer: US sales on TikTok Shop are expected to hit $23.4B in 2026, up 48% YoY (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal) [58d]
Israel-based Hemispheric, whose AI model can analyze brain activity measured non-invasively and turn it into quantitative metrics for diagnoses, raised $52M (Meytal Vaizberg/Globes) [58d]
Amsterdam-based Monumental, which develops autonomous robotics and software for the construction industry, raised a $32M Series B led by Khosla Ventures (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu) [58d]
Miami-based Cyclops, which sells an infrastructure platform that bundles crypto and stablecoin services to payments companies, raised a $20M Series A (Camila Grigera Naón/Fortune) [58d]
Rime, which helps companies field calls using AI voice models trained on conversational data it records in a studio, raised a $24M Series A led by M13 (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [58d]
How Anthropic is pursuing a state-by-state push for ever-tougher AI safety laws, in contrast with OpenAI's "reverse federalism" strategy for common state rules (Politico) [58d]
Sources: the EU is set to fine Google hundreds of millions of euros over alleged self-preferencing of its services in Search and restrictions on app developers (Barbara Moens/Financial Times) [58d]
American Growth Insurance, which aims to acquire struggling independent insurance firms and transform them using AI, raised almost $70M (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE) [58d]
Gavin Newsom is tempering his pro-tech instincts with economic populism ahead of a likely presidential bid, proposing giving Americans equity in AI companies (Jeremy B. White/Politico) [58d]
Indian AI coding startup Emergent raised a $130M Series C at a $1.5B post-money valuation, up from $300M in January, bringing its total funding raised to $230M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch) [58d]
Hinge adds Friend's Take, a new feature that lets daters enlist 10 close contacts to share written feedback, photos, voice notes, or videos on their profiles (Samantha Kelly/Bloomberg) [58d]
Israel-based Oak, which is building an AI-native identity access management system, comes out of stealth with a $60M seed (Anna Heim/TechCrunch) [58d]
China enacts rules forbidding companionship chatbots from encouraging emotional reliance, banning virtual relationships with minors, and more (Stu Woo/Wall Street Journal) [58d]
Neo Security, a cybersecurity startup founded by ex-SentinelOne execs and currently in stealth, raised $50M+, after a $25M seed in 2025 led by a16z and Merlin (Meir Orbach/CTech) [58d]
Samsung unveils a new Flex Titanium foldable display that is slimmer, more durable, and less prone to creasing, debuting in its upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 8 series (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge) [58d]
AI advocates fear New York's moratorium on new data centers could embolden Democrats to enact more state restrictions and seize on the issue in the midterms (Politico) [58d]
India pledges $13.3B to boost domestic chipmaking, building on a $10B incentive program from 2021, which attracted investments from companies like Micron (Sankalp Phartiyal/Bloomberg) [58d]
IBM stock fell 25%+ on Tuesday, sinking further than its previous worst day of October 19, 1987, after reporting preliminary Q2 results below estimates (CNBC) [58d]
Nokia plans to sell its AI-driven RAN platform, developed with Nvidia, to mobile operators by 2027, aiming for a 100% increase in spectrum efficiency by 2028 (Paula Doenecke/Bloomberg) [58d]
China's cyberspace regulator says Apple Intelligence has been registered for use on iPhones in the country; Alibaba says the service will use its Qwen model (Reuters) [58d]
MA-based Walden Robotics, a Toyota robotics spin-off that has started selling humanoid robots, emerges from stealth with a ~$300M seed at a $1.1B valuation (Samantha Kelly/Bloomberg) [58d]
ASML says Intel has decided to use ASML's next-gen High NA EUV machines to make some of its flagship Panther Lake laptop chips; a High NA machine costs ~$400M (Max A. Cherney/Reuters) [58d]
ASML reports Q2 net sales of €9.3B, above €8.8B est., a €2.9B net profit, above €2.6B est., and raises its 2026 net sales forecast from €36B-€40B to €43B-€45B (April Roach/CNBC) [58d]
A profile of PsiQuantum, which raised $1B in 2025, is building a quantum computer with photonic chips made by GlobalFoundries and is closely monitored by DARPA (James O'Donnell/MIT Technology Review) [58d]
As China's rules for humanlike AI interaction take effect, many users are bemoaning the loss of the virtual companions they had created on Chinese AI platforms (Bloomberg) [58d]
Sources: DeepSeek's annualized revenue recently reached $400M to $500M as it seeks to raise ~$7.4B at a ~$74B valuation, up from ~$50B after raising ~$7B in May (The Information) [58d]
Court filing: Google says it is ready to add third-party app stores in Google Play in the US on July 22, as Google and Epic withdraw their joint motion (Sean Hollister/The Verge) [58d]
Sources: Oracle leads the race to sell "air-gapped" cloud services to Japan that the US says are key to secure intelligence sharing between Tokyo and its allies (Financial Times) [58d]
The UAE gained broader US AI chip access after aiding the US in the Iran war, letting G42 buy freely for at least nine months; G42 plans to become a US company (Wall Street Journal) [58d]
Daniel Ek's Neko Health, which offers AI-based full-body scans, raised $700M co-led by Lightspeed and O.G. Venture Partners, sources say at a ~$7B valuation (Bernhard Warner/New York Times) [58d]
NYC-based Hadrius, which provides AI-native compliance tools for financial services, raised a $22M Series A led by CRV with participation from Y Combinator (Ryan Lawler/Axios) [58d]
Sources: Stripe and PE firm Advent International have jointly offered $60.50/share to acquire PayPal, a 28% premium to Tuesday's close, valuing it at $53B+ (Milana Vinn/Reuters) [58d]
Sources: OpenAI researcher Miles Wang is leaving the company to launch an AI drug discovery startup, and is in talks to raise $200M at a $2B valuation (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch) [58d]
Meta is sued by 26 current and former employees, who allege its use of AI in May layoffs unfairly targeted workers with disabilities or on protected leave (Wall Street Journal) [58d]
Sources: multiple GOP governors and large utilities are expected to join Trump's pledge for data center developers to cover their energy use and infrastructure (Politico) [58d]
Monitoring Analytics: PJM's recent electricity auction is expected to add $6.3B to customers' bills in 13 states and DC through 2029 due to data center demands (Ivan Penn/New York Times) [59d]
InstaLILY, which develops AI agents to automate sales, operations, and service workflows, raised a $60M Series B led by Energize Capital (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE) [59d]
Sources: CoreWeave is exploring the use of financial derivatives as a potential hedge against a future drop in memory and storage chip prices (Max A. Cherney/Reuters) [59d]