The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• Sources: Google is in talks with the DOD on a new effort to secure the data that feeds into software being built for the Golden Dome missile defense program (Bloomberg) [7d]
• Filing: Vancouver, WA-based Powerlattice, which makes a power delivery chiplet to reduce AI compute power needs by 50%+, raised $86M, after raising $31M in 2025 (Kurt Schlosser/GeekWire) [7d]
• OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic say they will adopt a new standard that publishers can use to opt out of being scraped by AI across multiple crawlers (Emma Roth/The Verge) [7d]
• OpenAI tightens limits on the weapons-related information that ChatGPT provides teens, even when a question appears harmless, as part of new safeguards (Reuters) [7d]
• Intel stock closed down 28.58% on Friday, its worst day since the 1970s and wiping ~$12B off US government's stake, after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance (CNBC) [7d]
• Reddit closed down 29.27% on Friday, the worst drop since becoming a public company in 2024, after it forecast weak Q4 revenue (Caleigh Keating/CNBC) [7d]
• Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle have a collective $3T+ in AI spending commitments over the coming years, including Alphabet's $1T and Meta's $800B (Brody Ford/Bloomberg) [7d]
• Chainalysis says Binance hackers used automated money-laundering patterns not seen before; Elliptic: almost all of the $6.3B was taken in the first 30 minutes (Financial Times) [7d]
• Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle returned just 9.3% of cash to shareholders in the first three quarters of 2026, a 15-year low amid AI spending (Patturaja Murugaboopathy/Reuters) [7d]
• Anthropic renames its $100 per month Max 5x plan as Max and the $200 per month Max 20x plan as Ultra, and removes the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts (Claude/@claudeai) [7d]
• Google says its Suncatcher prototype data center satellite is online after an October 1 launch, with Gemma 4 generating a haiku about being in space (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch) [7d]
• Salesforce acquires Rune, which makes AI military logistics software, sources say for $375M in cash and stock; Rune raised $30m from a16z and others (Margaux MacColl/Resilience Media) [7d]
• Salesforce agrees to acquire Rune, which raised ~$30M to make AI military logistics software, as it expands its year-old Missionforce defense business (Chris Metinko/Axios) [7d]
• London's High Court dismisses Meta, TikTok, and X's challenge to Ofcom's Online Safety Act information requests, rejecting arguments they were disproportionate (Sam Tobin/Reuters) [7d]
• Binance says it has reserved $6.34B+ in company funds, including $5B already held in impacted token assets, to deal with the fallout from the $6.3B hack (Rajveer Singh Pardesi/Reuters) [7d]
• FEC data: AI-oriented PACs spent nearly $80M on the 2026 US elections, mostly before the primaries; pro-regulatory PACs outspent Leading the Future's network (Ian Krietzberg/Puck) [7d]
• CXMT reports Q3 revenue of ~$16.7B, up 613.2% YoY, and a net profit of ~$8.17B, swinging to profitability on the back of rising AI-driven memory chip prices (Reuters) [7d]
• NAND maker Kioxia reports FY Q2 operating profit up 22x YoY to ~$12.7B, in line with est., but forecasts Q3 operating profit of ~$12.7B, below ~$14.9B est. (Takashi Mochizuki/Bloomberg) [7d]
• The UK CMA opens a probe into whether Meta imposed exploitative terms on publishers and advertisers to use their content to develop its AI and other services (Reuters) [7d]
• Binance reveals that a follow-up investigation has found "additional points of breach" beyond a possibly compromised laptop and says this was a "complex attack" (@binance) [7d]
• Dream, which is training AI world models on US building data to automate construction design and engineering, emerges from stealth with a $17M seed led by a16z (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch) [7d]
• Ravical, whose AI-powered platform helps accounting and tax firms manage their operations, raised a $17M seed led by MMC, bringing its total funding to $25M (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu) [7d]
• Inside Nscale's 2,250-acre, 8GW Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, which has been hit by construction issues, local opposition, and financing risks (Financial Times) [7d]
• Sources: Spotify aims to launch an AI product in Q1 2027 that lets subscribers create their own remixes and covers for ~$5 per month, pending licensing deals (Anna Nicolaou/Financial Times) [7d]
• How a wave of startups are betting on AI to make formal software verification practical and essential, including &Truth, which launches with a $70M seed (Paresh Dave/Wired) [7d]
• TRM Labs attributes the Binance hack to North Korea-based TraderTraitor, which drained ~$6.36B from Binance wallets across 10 blockchains, mostly in ~20 minutes (Tom Westbrook/Reuters) [7d]
• Binance pledges to cover all losses from a ~$6.3B hack, potentially the largest crypto theft ever, surpassing the $1.5B Bybit hack in February 2025 (South China Morning Post) [7d]
• CrowdStrike: China-linked hackers used AI tool ARTEX with a DeepSeek LLM and another model to target 200+ organizations in 11 days, compromising at least nine (Kevin Collier/NBC News) [7d]
• Sources: DeepSeek doubled its latest round's size due to surging black market Nvidia Blackwell chip prices, with Chinese state-owned investors representing 27% (The Information) [7d]
• S-1: Anthropic says it heavily depends on TSMC chips made in Taiwan and warns of risks from "potential disruption" amid geopolitical tensions with China (Joseph C. Sternberg/Wall Street Journal) [7d]
• Sources: Indian AI infrastructure company AM Intelligence seeks to raise as much as $3B to fund a previously announced purchase of Nvidia Vera Rubin systems (Bloomberg) [7d]
• NYSE owner ICE plans US-regulated Hyperliquid-based perpetual markets with Trade.xyz, a market operator on the crypto platform, and takes a stake in Trade.xyz (Katherine Doherty/Bloomberg) [7d]
• Binance "temporarily suspended" all deposits and withdrawals as it investigates security issues and works with law enforcement; Binance.US says it's unaffected (George Steer/Financial Times) [7d]
• Twilio reports Q3 revenue up 20% YoY to $1.56B, vs. $1.52B est., net income up 333% to $161M, and expects slower Q4 revenue growth; TWLO drops 15%+ after hours (Elias Schisgall/MarketWatch) [7d]
• Andy Jassy says Prime Video has "a revenue run rate in the tens of billions of dollars and is now profitable in its own right" (Julie Bort/TechCrunch) [8d]
• Meta quietly launches Style Sketch, an AI fashion app that helps users put together outfit ideas using clothes they own, in Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch) [8d]
• On Amazon's earnings call, Andy Jassy says outside AI shopping agents are "still not great, nor more convenient than coming to a retailer directly" (Sebastian Herrera/Fortune) [8d]