The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• Why "Dark Output", the AI-generated economic value that is currently invisible to national statistics, may be one of the hardest measurement problems in history (SemiAnalysis) [44d]
• PitchBook: VC investment in global robotics and physical AI jumped to $26B in 2025 from $4.2B in 2019, and has already topped $23B as of May 20 this year (Kate Clark/Wall Street Journal) [44d]
• Antenna: bundles make up 33% of new major streaming service subscriptions in the US, and 28% of all subscriptions, up from just 10% of new subscriptions in 2024 (John Koblin/New York Times) [44d]
• SoftBank pledges to invest up to €75B in AI computing clusters in France, first leading a €45B investment to build 3.1GW of capacity by 2031 in Hauts-de-France (Financial Times) [44d]
• China's tech boom is creating a new kind of tech tourism where visitors pay for curated robotaxi rides and tours of EV factories and AI and robotics companies (Kinling Lo/Rest of World) [44d]
• A look at the nasty fight between Anthropic-backed super PAC Public First and OpenAI-backed Leading the Future to sway midterms, especially Democratic primaries (Theodore Schleifer/New York Times) [44d]
• Anthropic cuts its list of unauthorized secondary market sellers from eight to four after the initial notice caused panic and pushback from investors (Yazhou Sun/Bloomberg) [44d]
• How Schneider Electric is using AI in call centers and manufacturing to complement employees' work and boost productivity, rather than to replace them (Patricia Cohen/New York Times) [45d]