The Brutalist Report - techmeme
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- Sources: Qualcomm is in advanced talks to acquire Modular in a transaction valuing the AI chip startup at ~$4B, up from a $1.6B valuation in September 2025 (Bloomberg) [20d]
- Filing: Oracle's global workforce fell by 21,000 employees in the past 12 months to 141,000 as of May 31; the company says AI adoption has led to reductions (Brody Ford/Bloomberg) [20d]
- President Trump signs two executive orders aimed at speeding the development of advanced quantum computers and mitigating the security threats they present (Amrith Ramkumar/Wall Street Journal) [20d]
- Sources: Meta internally exposed data from its employee-tracking program meant to help train its AI models, including full prompts and private conversations (Wired) [20d]
- Air Space Intelligence won an $875M, 12-year FAA contract to develop AI tools that map flight trajectories and identify areas of congestion to reduce delays (Allyson Versprille/Bloomberg) [20d]
- Sakana AI launches Fugu, a multi-agent orchestration system accessible through a single model API, claiming Fugu Ultra matches Fable and Mythos on benchmarks (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat) [20d]
- Sources: Vimeo owner Bending Spoons seeks to raise ~$1.62B in a US IPO, selling 58M shares at $26 to $28 apiece, at a valuation of $19B at the top of the range (Echo Wang/Reuters) [20d]
- Valve Steam Machine review: much smaller than PS5, surprisingly smooth, and navigable with any modern gamepad but very expensive and needs manual configuration (Sean Hollister/The Verge) [20d]
- Valve says Steam Machine, its new living room-friendly PC, will start at $1,049 for the 512GB base model, and go on sale starting June 29 (Jay Peters/The Verge) [20d]
- OpenAI unveils an updated GPT-5.5-Cyber model, launches the Patch the Planet initiative in partnership with Trail of Bits to fix open source bugs, and more (Lily Hay Newman/Wired) [20d]
- Alphabet stock fell as much as 7.2%, the most intraday since February, after Google DeepMind VP John Jumper became its second top AI exec to leave in a week (Felice Maranz/Bloomberg) [20d]
- Sources: marketing tech startup AppsFlyer raised a $1B Series E at a $2.7B post-money valuation; Moloco, Google, Meta, and Unity acquire minority stakes (Kerry Flynn/Axios) [20d]
- SpaceX announces a senior unsecured notes offering and discloses that it has about $100.8B in cash; SPCX drops 8%+ (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [20d]
- SpaceX signs a computing deal worth up to $6.3B with Reflection AI for access to Nvidia GB300s at Colossus 2; Reflection will pay $150M per month through 2029 (Deirdre Bosa/CNBC) [20d]
- Groq raised $650M led by Disruptive and Infinitum after its Nvidia deal, aiming to hit 200 MW in capacity by the end of 2027, following a $750M raise in 2025 (Zsana Hoskins/Bloomberg) [20d]
- Instagram is testing horizontal video on Instagram for TV, plans to experiment with longer-form storytelling and episodic series, and launches on Samsung TV (Katie Kilkenny/The Hollywood Reporter) [20d]
- Crypto trading app Fomo raised a $75M Series B led by Index at a $550M valuation, taking its total funding to ~$94M, and claims to add 3,500 new users per day (Ben Weiss/Fortune) [20d]
- Google invests in independent movie studio A24 as part of a new AI partnership; sources say Google is investing $75M, equal to what Thrive invested in 2024 (Ben Fritz/Wall Street Journal) [20d]
- Upscale, which is building AI networking infrastructure to rival Cisco, raised a $190M Series A-1 at a $2B valuation, up from $1B after raising $200M in January (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune) [20d]
- Nvidia unveils Halos, a new safety-focused OS derived from autonomous vehicle tech, designed to run on IGX Thor hardware for humanoid robots, and opens a lab (Ian King/Bloomberg) [20d]
- In a rare joint statement, Five Eyes leaders warn AI models capable of taking down governments and businesses are mere months away, urging leaders to "act now" (Sarah Basford Canales/The Guardian) [20d]
- Meta invests $900M into Indian fintech startup Cred, and plans to appoint Cred founder Kunal Shah as the new leader of WhatsApp, replacing Will Cathcart (Kurt Wagner/Bloomberg) [20d]
- UK-based AI law firm Garfield, which received regulatory approval in 2025, wins a case in the English courts for the first time; the case focused on unpaid fees (Suzi Ring/Financial Times) [20d]
- NYC-based Prosper AI, whose health care AI tool is designed to answer patient phone calls, raised a $30M Series A led by a16z, for $35M in total funding (Brock E.W. Turner/Axios) [20d]
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