Big Tech on Pulse

Amazon Is Shutting Down Mechanical Turk After 21 Years

Amazon will fully close Mechanical Turk, the crowdsourced task platform Jeff Bezos once called 'artificial artificial intelligence,' on September 30, 2026, after AI-labeling startups hollowed out its demand.

Netflix is reportedly considering letting other streaming services sell inside its app, a shift from walled garden toward distribution platform.

Independent merchants increasingly rely on Amazon as their primary sales channel, a dependency that has grown even as sellers complain about rising fees and shrinking margins.

Aug 24, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 24, 2026

Memory Prices Go Stratospheric, Chipmakers Cash In

Aug 24, 2026BY THE NUMBERS

Memory Prices Go Stratospheric, Chipmakers Cash In

DRAM and high-bandwidth memory pricing has climbed to levels that are transforming memory makers' margins while raising the bill for everyone building AI systems.

BIG TECH· Aug 23, 2026

Alibaba Seeks $10B Share Sale to Fund AI

BIG TECH$10B

Alibaba Seeks $10B Share Sale to Fund AI

Alibaba is seeking to raise about $10 billion through a share sale to fund AI infrastructure investment, adding equity issuance to the list of ways hyperscalers are financing compute.

Aug 23, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 21, 2026

Amazon Hikes Echo, Kindle, Eero Prices on Memory Costs

Amazon Hikes Echo, Kindle, Eero Prices on Memory Costs

Amazon quietly raised prices on Echo, Fire TV, Kindle and eero devices overnight, citing a sharp rise in memory-chip costs that AI infrastructure demand has driven across the entire consumer electronics industry.

Aug 21, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 21, 2026

New York Overtakes Bay Area on Tech Talent

BIG TECH$7.5B acquisition

New York Overtakes Bay Area on Tech Talent

Aug 20, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 19, 2026

Stripe-OpenRouter Deal Confirmed at $7.5B, Final Terms Revealed

Stripe-OpenRouter Deal Confirmed at $7.5B, Final Terms Revealed

Stripe's acquisition of AI model gateway OpenRouter is now confirmed at roughly $7.5B, with $1.5B going to founders and $6B to investors -- a 5.4x markup over its three-month-old Series B valuation.

Amazon is expanding Prime Air drone delivery roughly 6x to nearly 500 US cities and towns by year-end, targeting 1 million deliveries in 2026 after over a decade of slower-than-planned rollout.

Aug 19, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 18, 2026

Einride to Add 500 Tesla Semis to Its Fleet

Einride to Add 500 Tesla Semis to Its Fleet

Einride struck a deal to add 500 Tesla Semis to its electric trucking fleet over the next 24 months, making Tesla's long-delayed truck the backbone of a rival's fleet-as-a-service business rather than Tesla's own logistics arm.

Alibaba is selling its gaming studio Lingxi Games to private equity firm Trustar Capital for more than $1.5 billion, the clearest sign yet that CEO Eddie Wu is stripping the conglomerate down to AI and cloud.

Aug 17, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 17, 2026

Nvidia's Stock Comes Alive: Three Reasons Why

Nvidia's Stock Comes Alive: Three Reasons Why

Nvidia shares have started rebounding after a sluggish stretch, with analysts pointing to hyperscaler capex increases, an upcoming earnings report and renewed AI infrastructure financing deals as the drivers.

Aug 17, 2026TRACE'S TAKE

BIG TECH· Aug 16, 2026

Nvidia's $51 Billion Bet Shows AI's Money Never Leaves

Nvidia's $51 Billion Bet Shows AI's Money Never Leaves

Nvidia's newly disclosed $21 billion SpaceX stake and $30 billion Intel position -- 80% of its entire public portfolio -- are the clearest evidence yet that AI-era capital keeps circulating through the same handful of companies rather than spreading out.

Aug 16, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 16, 2026

Zuckerberg's 6,500-Word AI Manifesto Isn't Landing

Zuckerberg's 6,500-Word AI Manifesto Isn't Landing

Mark Zuckerberg's essay 'The Future is for Everyone' pitched Meta's Glimmer and Muse Spark models as universal personal AI, but critics questioned both the messenger and whether hardware requirements make the vision accessible at all.

Aug 16, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 16, 2026

Stripe Buys OpenRouter in $7B AI Gateway Deal

BIG TECH$7B+ acquisition

Stripe Buys OpenRouter in $7B AI Gateway Deal

Stripe has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, the routing layer that lets developers switch between AI models through one API, for more than $7 billion -- roughly five times the $1.3 billion valuation OpenRouter carried in May.

Aug 16, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 15, 2026

Tech Layoffs in 2026 Have Already Beaten All of 2025

Aug 15, 2026BY THE NUMBERS

Tech Layoffs in 2026 Have Already Beaten All of 2025

Tech industry layoffs in 2026 have already surpassed the full-year 2025 total, with roughly 205,800 workers affected across 322 events even with more than four months left on the calendar.

BIG TECH· Aug 15, 2026

Nobody Knows How Long a Software-Defined Car Lasts

BIG TECH$99/mo vs $49.99/mo

Nobody Knows How Long a Software-Defined Car Lasts

Rivian's software chief says the company plans roughly seven to ten years of functional feature updates, while Tesla's reversal on 2016-era full self-driving hardware shows how quickly a car's compute can be declared obsolete.

Aug 15, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 15, 2026

Tesla FSD vs Rivian Autonomy+: $99 Against $49.99

Tesla FSD vs Rivian Autonomy+: $99 Against $49.99

A head-to-head drive of Tesla's Full Self-Driving and Rivian's Autonomy+ hands-free systems highlights a widening price gap, with Tesla at $99 a month and Rivian at $49.99 a month or $2,500 for the life of the vehicle.

Aug 15, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 14, 2026

PayPal-Stripe-Advent Buyout Talks Heat Up Again

BIG TECH$53B (prior bid)

PayPal-Stripe-Advent Buyout Talks Heat Up Again

Talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and private-equity firm Advent International have reignited, TechCrunch reports, weeks after PayPal's board left the door open to a higher offer than the $53 billion joint bid it rejected in July.

SanDisk shares jumped nearly 17% after an investor day growth strategy presentation, extending a memory-chip rally that has the stock up more than 450% year-to-date as AI-driven demand tightens supply.

Aug 13, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 13, 2026

SK Hynix Bets $720B on the World's Largest Memory Buildout

BIG TECH$720B buildout

SK Hynix Bets $720B on the World's Largest Memory Buildout

SK Hynix is spending roughly $720 billion to triple its memory-chip capacity by 2034 via a new Yongin Cluster campus, betting the current AI memory shortage outlasts the industry's boom-and-bust cycle.

Aug 13, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 12, 2026

Kospi Roars Back Into Bull Market on Chip Rebound

BIG TECHKospi +20%+ from July low

Kospi Roars Back Into Bull Market on Chip Rebound

Aug 12, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH· Aug 12, 2026

Tencent Beats on Revenue as Gaming, AI Ads Accelerate

BIG TECH204.78B yuan revenue

Tencent Beats on Revenue as Gaming, AI Ads Accelerate

Tencent posted 204.78 billion yuan in Q2 revenue, up 11% and ahead of estimates on gaming and AI-driven advertising growth, even as profit missed forecasts and the stock stayed down 26% YTD.

Aug 12, 2026DEEP DIVE

Manus Goes Independent Again as China Unwinds Meta Deal

Manus Goes Independent Again as China Unwinds Meta Deal

Manus resumed independent operations after Chinese regulators forced Meta to fully unwind its $2 billion acquisition of the AI agent startup, an unprecedented case of Beijing clawing back a completed foreign takeover months after it closed.

Aug 11, 2026DEEP DIVE

OpenAI's Latest Exec Exit Is Worth Watching, Not Panicking Over

OpenAI's Latest Exec Exit Is Worth Watching, Not Panicking Over

Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's longtime chief operating officer, is leaving after eight years to 'start something new,' the latest in a string of 2026 senior departures as the company weighs a potential IPO.

Aug 11, 2026TRACE'S TAKE

Uber Sells Its Entire Stake in Serve Robotics

BIG TECHFull stake exit

Uber Sells Its Entire Stake in Serve Robotics

Uber sold its entire stake in delivery-robot company Serve Robotics in the second quarter, a surprise to Serve, capping a partnership dating to Serve's 2020 spinout from Postmates.

Aug 11, 2026DEEP DIVE

Nvidia's $500B AI Financing Bet Runs Into a China Problem

Nvidia's $500B AI Financing Bet Runs Into a China Problem

Jensen Huang defended Nvidia's plan to help assemble $500 billion in financing for AI data centers after bond investors flagged that cheaper Chinese chips flooding the market could depreciate the GPUs backing that debt faster than expected.

Aug 11, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECH$20B stock offering

Intel Prices Upsized $20B Stock Sale to Fund AI Foundry Bet

Intel Prices Upsized $20B Stock Sale to Fund AI Foundry Bet

Intel priced an upsized $20 billion common stock offering at $95 a share to fund AI-driven chip manufacturing expansion, one of the largest equity raises by a legacy US tech company in years.

Teledyne to Acquire Varex Imaging for $1.1B

BIG TECH~$1.1B

Teledyne to Acquire Varex Imaging for $1.1B

Teledyne Technologies agreed to acquire Varex Imaging for roughly $1.1 billion, adding the company's X-ray tubes and digital detectors to Teledyne's medical and industrial imaging portfolio.

Intel priced a $15 billion common stock offering on August 10, its first public share sale since the company's 1971 IPO, to fund AI, foundry and advanced-packaging expansion.

Canva Slashes Revenue Growth Forecast as AI Costs Bite

Canva Slashes Revenue Growth Forecast as AI Costs Bite

Canva cut its 2026 revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20%, citing unsustainably high costs of serving AI features built on frontier models -- a warning shot for every SaaS company that rushed AI to market without solving unit economics.

Zoox Starts Charging for Robotaxi Rides Today

Zoox Starts Charging for Robotaxi Rides Today

Zoox began charging for robotaxi rides in Las Vegas on August 10 under the first NHTSA exemption ever granted for a steering-wheel-free vehicle, and named Miami and Austin as its next early-rider cities.

Ford's $28,350 Fathom Bets Big on Affordable EVs

BIG TECH$28,350 starting

Ford's $28,350 Fathom Bets Big on Affordable EVs

Ford unveiled the Fathom, a midsize electric pickup starting at $28,350, its first vehicle built on a new low-cost 'Universal EV Platform,' with deliveries beginning in 2027.

Twilio shares jumped as much as 16.7% after beating Q2 estimates and raising full-year revenue growth guidance from 14-15% to 18-18.5%, extending software's earnings-season divergence.

Aug 7, 2026BRIEF

BIG TECH$16.8B first phase

Tesla and SpaceX Commit $16.8B to Texas Chip Fab

Tesla and SpaceX Commit $16.8B to Texas Chip Fab

Tesla and SpaceX will spend $16.8 billion on a first-phase chip plant in Grimes County, Texas, built to supply Optimus robots, robotaxis and orbital data centers rather than the Nvidia GPUs SpaceX still buys for AI training.

Activists and a state high court are challenging Google's $15 billion Andhra Pradesh data center project over water use and its proximity to a wildlife sanctuary, with a hearing set for August 24.

Aug 6, 2026BRIEF

SoftBank Borrows $10B Against Its OpenAI Bet

SoftBank Borrows $10B Against Its OpenAI Bet

SoftBank secured a $10 billion margin loan against its OpenAI shares the same quarter an $8.2 billion Intel stake gain carried its earnings beat, while OpenAI itself contributed no investment gain at all.

Aug 6, 2026DEEP DIVE

BIG TECHup to $116B unlocked

SpaceX Faces Test as 911M Shares Unlock

SpaceX Faces Test as 911M Shares Unlock

SpaceX's first major post-IPO lockup expiration freed 911.5M shares worth as much as $116B for sale on August 6, more than doubling the public float as the stock trades near $108, down from a post-IPO high above $225.

Aug 6, 2026BRIEF

Tesla, SpaceX to Build $16.8B Chip Factory

BIG TECH$16.8B initial

Tesla, SpaceX to Build $16.8B Chip Factory

Tesla and SpaceX will jointly build Terafab, a $16.8B initial-phase chip factory in Grimes County, Texas, to make chips for Optimus, Cybercabs and space-based data centers, with total spending potentially reaching $119B.

Aug 6, 2026BRIEF

Google's AI Shake-Up Raises Pichai Succession Questions

Google's AI Shake-Up Raises Pichai Succession Questions

Google moved Demis Hassabis from DeepMind CEO to chair and chief scientist while Jeff Dean departed, a reshuffle analysts read as an early signal in the succession conversation around CEO Sundar Pichai.

A consortium led by Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners completed a $55B take-private of Electronic Arts, financed by a $20B JPMorgan loan -- the largest leveraged buyout on record.

AMD Sinks as Musk Commits SpaceX Exclusively to Nvidia

AMD Sinks as Musk Commits SpaceX Exclusively to Nvidia

AMD shares fell as much as 9% after Elon Musk said SpaceX will build exclusively on Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture going forward, even as AMD beat Q2 estimates and CEO Lisa Su guided to 80% second-half server revenue growth.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners completed the largest leveraged buyout on record, taking Electronic Arts private at $210 a share with $20B borrowed from JPMorgan.

Google Assistant Is Disappearing From Phones Next Month

Google Assistant Is Disappearing From Phones Next Month

Google is shutting down the classic Google Assistant on phones and tablets next month, completing its transition to Gemini as the default AI assistant across Android.

SpaceX Beats, Musk Vows Moon Robots and $1T Sales

BIG TECH$7.8B Q2 revenue

SpaceX Beats, Musk Vows Moon Robots and $1T Sales

SpaceX's debut public earnings report beat estimates with revenue nearly doubling to $7.8B, but a promise of moon-based robots and a pulled-forward $1 trillion revenue target didn't stop shares from sliding on the size of its AI capex.

BIG TECH$6.7B data center rev.

BIG TECH· Aug 4, 2026

SpaceX's First Public Earnings Spook Wall Street

BIG TECH$7.8B Q2 revenue

SpaceX's First Public Earnings Spook Wall Street

SpaceX posted 92% revenue growth to $7.8B in its first quarterly report since June's IPO, but shares reversed to a loss after hours once investors saw quarterly capex nearly double to $18.4B.

Aug 4, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 4, 2026

AMD Data Center Revenue Doubles, Stock Still Falls

AMD Data Center Revenue Doubles, Stock Still Falls

AMD's data center revenue rose 107% to $6.7B and beat the Street, but shares fell more than 8% after-hours on concerns about what sustaining that growth will cost.

Aug 4, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 4, 2026

OpenAI Fires Back at Apple's Trade Secret Suit

BIG TECH$1.94B Q2 revenue

OpenAI Fires Back at Apple's Trade Secret Suit

OpenAI published internal chats and emails calling Apple's trade-secret lawsuit over its hardware plans careless, aggressive and oddly personal, escalating a fight that began when Apple sued in July.

Bending Spoons, fresh off its own July IPO, agreed to acquire Airtable for $1.285B -- a steep discount to Airtable's 2021 peak valuation of over $11B but a premium to recent secondary pricing near $4B.

Amazon just crossed $3 trillion and Palantir posted its best quarter ever on real enterprise deployment, while SpaceX's stock and AI pricing power keep getting cheaper -- the money is bifurcating into what's shipped and what's still promised.

Aug 4, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 3, 2026

Palantir Posts Blowout Quarter, Revenue Up 93%

Palantir Posts Blowout Quarter, Revenue Up 93%

Palantir's Q2 revenue jumped 93% to $1.94B, with U.S. commercial revenue up 149%, and the company raised full-year guidance well above what Wall Street expected.

Aug 3, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 3, 2026

Palantir's Commercial Business Just Tripled Its Bet

BIG TECH$1.94B Q2 revenue

Palantir's Commercial Business Just Tripled Its Bet

Palantir posted 93% revenue growth and raised its full-year commercial guidance after U.S. commercial revenue surged 149% -- the clearest evidence yet that enterprise AI deployment, not just government contracts, can carry a real growth story.

An Apple iCloud policy reportedly made it easier for departing employees to retain company data, now central to leak allegations underpinning a lawsuit tied to OpenAI.

Aug 3, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 1, 2026

Big Tech's AI Capex Verdict: Discipline Beats Scale

Big Tech's AI Capex Verdict: Discipline Beats Scale

This week's earnings split investors sharply on AI capex: Microsoft's spending got rewarded, Meta's crushed free cash flow and its stock -- the market has stopped treating all AI infrastructure spending as equally good news.

Aug 1, 2026

BIG TECH· Aug 1, 2026

Uber Is Quietly Building an Autonomous Vehicle Empire

Uber Is Quietly Building an Autonomous Vehicle Empire

Uber has stitched together partnerships with more than a dozen self-driving companies -- including Waymo and Wayve -- betting it can win the robotaxi era as an aggregator rather than a manufacturer.

Aug 1, 2026

SpaceX Won't Remove All of xAI's Turbines Until 2027

SpaceX Won't Remove All of xAI's Turbines Until 2027

SpaceX confirmed it will keep running dozens of unpermitted gas turbines powering xAI's Memphis data centers for another year, even as it builds a permanent 1.2-gigawatt gas plant to replace them.

BIG TECH$60.8B Q2 revenue

Meta Tops $60B in Quarterly Revenue, Lifts AI Capex to $145B

Meta Tops $60B in Quarterly Revenue, Lifts AI Capex to $145B

Meta reported second-quarter revenue of $60.8 billion, up 28% year-over-year, and raised the top end of its 2026 AI infrastructure spending range to $145 billion as advertising and large-language-model investment both accelerated.

BIG TECHAMZN +12-14%, AAPL -8-9%

Amazon Surges, Apple Falls as Investors Pick AI Winners

Amazon Surges, Apple Falls as Investors Pick AI Winners

Amazon jumped after AWS posted its fastest cloud growth in 18 quarters while Apple fell on soft guidance and supply constraints, in Tim Cook's final earnings call before handing the CEO role to John Ternus.

Amazon Completes Additional $35B Investment in OpenAI

BIG TECH$35B completed

Amazon Completes Additional $35B Investment in OpenAI

Amazon has funded the remaining $35 billion of its $50 billion OpenAI commitment, a tranche that was contingent on OpenAI hitting an IPO or AGI-linked milestone, deepening Amazon's stake in the AI leader it also competes with through AWS.

BIG TECH$1.8B acquisition

IonQ Completes $1.8B Acquisition of SkyWater Technology

IonQ Completes $1.8B Acquisition of SkyWater Technology

IonQ closed its $1.8 billion cash-and-stock purchase of SkyWater Technology on Friday, creating what it calls the only vertically integrated, full-stack quantum computing company with its own domestic chip foundry.

Amazon's Q2 revenue topped $200 billion for the first time, with AWS growing 37% -- its fastest pace in 18 quarters -- as the company raised its 2026 capex outlook to $220 billion.

Apple beat Wall Street's revenue and profit estimates for a 13th consecutive quarter, posting $109.4 billion in Q3 revenue and EPS of $2.02, up 29% year-over-year, on strong iPhone sales.

Meta posted $60.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 28% and ahead of estimates, but adjusted EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.13 consensus as AI infrastructure costs compressed margins and full-year capex guidance ticked up to $130-145 billion.

Meta and BlackRock-managed funds formed an $14 billion joint venture to build a Texas data center campus, with BlackRock taking 80% ownership and financing a third of its stake with debt.

SpaceX's 13th Starship test flight successfully deployed 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites for the first time and relit a Raptor engine in space, with both stages splashing down under control.

Jul 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 24, 2026

Intel Beats Earnings by $1.7B, Then Craters 11% on Capex

BIG TECH-11% Post-Earnings

Intel Beats Earnings by $1.7B, Then Craters 11% on Capex

Intel posted its best revenue growth in over 15 years and doubled EPS estimates, but shares fell 11% Friday as investors focused on a capex hike to more than $20 billion and a warning that 2027 spending goes higher still.

Jul 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 24, 2026

Meta, Microsoft Face Renewed AI-Spending Unease Pre-Earnings

BIG TECH$112.1B net profit

Meta, Microsoft Face Renewed AI-Spending Unease Pre-Earnings

Jul 23, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 23, 2026

Google Posts First-Ever Negative Free Cash Flow on AI Spend

BIG TECH-$5.9B FCF

Google Posts First-Ever Negative Free Cash Flow on AI Spend

Alphabet reported negative free cash flow of roughly $5.9 billion in Q2, the first negative quarter in its history as a public company, after capex hit $44.9 billion and 2026 guidance rose to as much as $205 billion.

Jul 23, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 23, 2026

Alphabet's Record $112B Profit Gets Punished Anyway

Alphabet's Record $112B Profit Gets Punished Anyway

Alphabet posted a record $112.1 billion quarterly profit, up 298% year-over-year and driven largely by gains on its SpaceX and Anthropic stakes, yet shares fell alongside Tesla on capex worries.

Jul 23, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 22, 2026

Google Cloud Soars 82%, Yet Alphabet Stock Sinks on Capex

BIG TECH$24.8B Cloud Revenue (+82%)

Google Cloud Soars 82%, Yet Alphabet Stock Sinks on Capex

Alphabet's Q2 2026 results showed Google Cloud revenue up 82% to $24.8 billion and a $514 billion backlog, but investors sent shares lower after the company raised 2026 capex guidance to $195-205 billion.

Jul 22, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 22, 2026

Meta Cuts 1,400 More Jobs as AI Bet Underdelivers

BIG TECH1,400 Jobs Cut

Meta Cuts 1,400 More Jobs as AI Bet Underdelivers

Meta is cutting 1,400 positions across Washington state starting July 22, the latest round in a restructuring that has already eliminated 8,000 jobs this year as Zuckerberg admits the AI push "hasn't really accelerated" as expected.

PayPal's board is convening as soon as today to weigh a $53 billion buyout offer from Stripe and Advent International at $60.50 a share, a bid that would make Stripe co-owner of the payments company it once tried to disrupt.

Jul 20, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 20, 2026

AMD Jumps as Microsoft Bets Azure on Helios Over Nvidia

BIG TECHAMD +4-5% on deal news

AMD Jumps as Microsoft Bets Azure on Helios Over Nvidia

Microsoft will deploy AMD's Helios rack-scale AI platform across Azure data centers, an expanded partnership that sent AMD shares up as much as 5% and handed the chipmaker its most direct challenge yet to Nvidia's AI infrastructure dominance.

Jul 20, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 20, 2026

Samsung Biologics Buys PolyPeptide in $1.8B Cash Deal

BIG TECH$1.8B all-cash

Samsung Biologics Buys PolyPeptide in $1.8B Cash Deal

Samsung Biologics agreed to acquire Switzerland's PolyPeptide Group in an all-cash deal valuing the contract drugmaker's equity at roughly $1.8 billion, extending a wave of large biotech and pharma manufacturing consolidation through 2026.

Jul 20, 2026

BIG TECHSOX -20%+ from peak

Moonshot's Kimi K3 Sends Chip Stocks Into a Bear Market

Moonshot's Kimi K3 Sends Chip Stocks Into a Bear Market

China's Moonshot AI unveiled a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model that benchmarks competitively with GPT-5.6 and Claude Fable 5, dragging the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index into a technical bear market and handing Wall Street its worst week in a month.

Apple, Nvidia Battle for Most Valuable Company

BIG TECHMarket-cap race

Apple, Nvidia Battle for Most Valuable Company

Apple and Nvidia are trading blows for the title of world's most valuable public company, a symbolic marker of how completely AI-driven chip demand has reshaped the market-cap hierarchy that Apple's iPhone business once dominated alone.

Amazon Fixes Bug That Billed AWS Customers Billions

Amazon Fixes Bug That Billed AWS Customers Billions

Amazon is fixing a software billing error that generated erroneous invoices showing billions owed by some AWS customers, a stumble landing the same week investors scrutinize execution across AI infrastructure.

AI Chip Trade Wobbles as SoftBank, Asia Semis Slide

AI Chip Trade Wobbles as SoftBank, Asia Semis Slide

A steep global tech selloff hit AI chip stocks hardest, with SoftBank falling over 9% and Asian semiconductor names tracking a Wall Street rout, as investors questioned whether AI infrastructure spending has outrun near-term demand.

BIG TECH· Jul 16, 2026

Apple Intelligence Clears China Launch With Alibaba's Qwen

Apple Intelligence Clears China Launch With Alibaba's Qwen

Jul 12, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 12, 2026

Tech Workers Are Retiring Early to Avoid AI

Tech Workers Are Retiring Early to Avoid AI

A growing number of tech workers are choosing early retirement rather than adapt to AI-driven workplace changes, Fortune reports, as automation reshapes roles faster than some employees want to manage.

Jul 12, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 11, 2026

Meta Tests "Super-Sensing" AI Glasses That Record Nonstop

BIG TECH~3,200 jobs, 5 studios cut

Meta Tests "Super-Sensing" AI Glasses That Record Nonstop

Meta added a safeguard disabling its Ray-Ban AI glasses if the recording LED is tampered with, even as reports say it's testing a prototype that would continuously record audio and photos without necessarily lighting that LED.

Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications and Sam Altman's top deputy, is stepping down to a part-time advisor role after a severe flare-up of a chronic illness she's managed for seven years.

The Bank for International Settlements has compared AI capex to the dot-com bubble, citing over $700 billion in combined hyperscaler spending this year and Oracle's stock down more than 40% on doubts about its Stargate lease payments.

Jul 6, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 6, 2026

Microsoft Guts Xbox and Commercial Teams, Cites AI's Pace

Microsoft Guts Xbox and Commercial Teams, Cites AI's Pace

Microsoft cut five Xbox studios and roughly 3,200 jobs this week, telling staff the world is 'changing faster than we can keep up,' the clearest sign yet that AI-driven restructuring has reached even the biggest AI winners' most profitable legacy divisions.

Jul 6, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 6, 2026

Microsoft Guts Commercial, Xbox Teams Citing AI-Era Pace

BIG TECH4,800 roles cut

Microsoft Guts Commercial, Xbox Teams Citing AI-Era Pace

Microsoft cut 4,800 roles on July 6, hitting its commercial sales unit and Xbox division hardest, with HR leadership saying the pace of AI-driven change now outstrips the company's ability to keep up.

Jul 6, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 4, 2026

Google's AI Boom Drives Record 37% Jump in Power Use

BIG TECH+37% electricity use YoY

Google's AI Boom Drives Record 37% Jump in Power Use

Google's 2026 Environmental Report shows electricity consumption rose 37% year-over-year, its largest annual jump ever, as AI data-center buildout outpaces the company's own grid decarbonization.

Jul 4, 2026

BIG TECH$2.5B / 6,000 employees

Microsoft Commits $2.5B and 6,000 Staff to New AI Deployment Unit

Microsoft Commits $2.5B and 6,000 Staff to New AI Deployment Unit

Microsoft is investing $2.5 billion to launch Frontier Company, a 6,000-person unit that embeds engineers directly with enterprise customers to get AI deployments actually working, following similar moves from Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic.

BIG TECH480,126 vehicles delivered

Tesla Deliveries Jump 25% to a Record 480,126 Vehicles in Q2 2026

Tesla Deliveries Jump 25% to a Record 480,126 Vehicles in Q2 2026

Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter of 2026, a company record and a 25% jump from a year earlier, beating even the most bullish Wall Street estimates of roughly 418,000-420,000 by more than 60,000 units, according to Ars Technica and.

BIG TECHEarly-stage, no design contract yet

Anthropic in Early Talks With Samsung on Custom 2nm AI Chip

Anthropic in Early Talks With Samsung on Custom 2nm AI Chip

Anthropic is in preliminary discussions with Samsung to manufacture a custom AI accelerator on Samsung's 2nm process, joining a wave of frontier labs building their own silicon to cut Nvidia dependence.

BIG TECH~700 satellites by July

Amazon Now Has Enough Satellites in Orbit to Launch Its Starlink Competitor

Amazon Now Has Enough Satellites in Orbit to Launch Its Starlink Competitor

Amazon's Project Leo satellite broadband service has crossed the deployment threshold needed for commercial launch, The Verge reported July 2, with roughly 700 production satellites expected in orbit by the end of July after CEO Andy Jassy confirmed a 'mid-2026' launch target. The FCC waived Amazon's original July 30 deadline to have half its 3,232-satellite constellation in orbit, but is penalizing spectrum priority on satellites launched after that date to keep pressure on the rollout.

BIG TECH· Jul 1, 2026

Sony to End Physical PlayStation Game Disc Production Starting 2028

BIG TECHDiscs end 2028

Sony to End Physical PlayStation Game Disc Production Starting 2028

Sony announced on July 1 that it will stop producing physical discs for new PlayStation games starting January 2028, citing that digital purchases already account for 85% of PlayStation game sales. The move doesn't affect games already released or shipping before 2028, but it marks the beginning of the end for physical media on the platform that helped define disc-based console gaming.

Jul 1, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 30, 2026

Big Tech's 2026 AI Capex Will Hit $725B, up 77% Year-Over-Year

BIG TECH$725B combined

Big Tech's 2026 AI Capex Will Hit $725B, up 77% Year-Over-Year

Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft collectively guided to roughly $725 billion in 2026 capital expenditure — up 77% from $410B last year — as the AI infrastructure buildout enters its third and most expensive year. Amazon leads at ~$200B, Microsoft ~$190B, Alphabet $175-185B and Meta $115-135B, according to freshly restated guidance from the four companies' most recent updates.

Jun 30, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 30, 2026

Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders

BIG TECH$5B valuation

Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders

Etched, the Harvard-dropout-founded AI chip startup building the transformer-specific Sohu chip, disclosed on June 30 that it has booked more than $1 billion in customer contracts for its 'frontier inference clusters' and sits at a $5 billion valuation following a $500 million round in December. The company says an 8-chip Sohu server can outperform 160 Nvidia H100 GPUs on Llama 70B inference while using less power and space -- a direct challenge to Nvidia's inference dominance from a company that nearly ran out of cash three years ago.

Jun 30, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 30, 2026

Qualcomm's $3.9B Modular Buy Hands GV a 27x Return as Chipmakers Race to Own AI Software

BIG TECH$3.9B

Qualcomm's $3.9B Modular Buy Hands GV a 27x Return as Chipmakers Race to Own AI Software

Qualcomm's roughly $3.9 billion acquisition of Modular -- the AI-software company founded by Swift and LLVM creator Chris Lattner -- has handed early backer GV a 27x return on its initial check, the firm's Dave Munichiello revealed this week. The deal is the clearest sign yet that the strategic battleground in AI is shifting from raw silicon to the software layer that makes chips usable, as Qualcomm bets it can challenge Nvidia's CUDA moat by owning the stack that runs models across CPUs, GPUs and AI accelerators.

Jun 30, 2026

Waymo and Uber Quietly End Their Phoenix Robotaxi Partnership

BIG TECHPartnership ends

Waymo and Uber Quietly End Their Phoenix Robotaxi Partnership

Waymo robotaxis are no longer bookable on Uber's app in Phoenix, ending a nearly three-year partnership in the city where the deal began. Both companies framed it as a planned contract expiration -- Waymo has folded the vehicles back into its own Phoenix fleet, available through the Waymo app, while Uber is preparing to name a new autonomous-vehicle partner in the market. The split lands as the two firms prepare to compete head-to-head in London.

BIG TECHTwo-company split

Comcast to Split Into Two Public Companies, Spinning Off NBCUniversal and Sky

Comcast to Split Into Two Public Companies, Spinning Off NBCUniversal and Sky

Comcast announced a tax-free spin-off that will separate NBCUniversal and Sky from its core broadband, wireless and technology business, creating two independent public companies. The move follows January 2026's carve-out of Versant -- the cable networks including CNBC and MS NOW -- and completes a dramatic dismantling of the empire Brian Roberts spent decades assembling. The split is expected to close in about a year.

Rocket Lab to Buy Iridium for $8B, Forging a Fully Vertically Integrated Space Powerhouse

BIG TECH~$8.0B

Rocket Lab to Buy Iridium for $8B, Forging a Fully Vertically Integrated Space Powerhouse

Rocket Lab agreed to acquire satellite-communications operator Iridium Communications in a cash-and-stock deal valuing Iridium at roughly $8.0 billion, or $54 per share. The combination welds Rocket Lab's launch vehicles and satellite manufacturing to Iridium's global L-band constellation, spectrum and 500-plus partner ecosystem -- a bid to become the first company that designs, builds, launches and operates its own networks end to end. Iridium shares jumped about 20% and Rocket Lab rose roughly 9% on the news.

South Korea's Chip Giants Pledge $550B-Plus to End 'RAMageddon'

BIG TECH$550B+

South Korea's Chip Giants Pledge $550B-Plus to End 'RAMageddon'

Samsung, SK Hynix and other South Korean firms committed well over $550 billion toward new memory fabs, HBM packaging and AI data centers to relieve the global memory shortage the industry has dubbed 'RAMageddon.' The plan includes roughly $518 billion for four new memory fabs in the country's southwest and $52 billion for an HBM packaging hub, a national-scale answer to AI's voracious appetite for DRAM.

BIG TECHSenior hardware exit

BIG TECH· Jun 27, 2026

Apple's Vision Pro Chief Paul Meade Is Leaving for OpenAI's Hardware Team

Apple's Vision Pro Chief Paul Meade Is Leaving for OpenAI's Hardware Team

Paul Meade, the Apple vice president who led Vision Pro development and the company's still-unreleased AI smart glasses, is reportedly leaving to join OpenAI's hardware division. The departure follows a reorganization under new Apple CEO John Ternus that left some hardware VPs feeling sidelined, and it hands OpenAI -- already building an AI device with former Apple design chief Jony Ive -- another senior Apple hardware leader.

Jun 27, 2026

BIG TECH60,000 drones by 2029

South Korea Plans to Train Its Entire Military as 'Drone Warriors'

South Korea Plans to Train Its Entire Military as 'Drone Warriors'

South Korea's defense minister unveiled a plan to train the country's roughly 500,000-strong military to operate drones as routinely as personal firearms, calling unmanned systems a battlefield 'gamechanger.' The procurement ramp is steep: about 11,000 training drones by the end of 2026, scaling to 60,000 by 2029, plus more than 20,000 low-cost disposable combat drones by 2030 -- a national bet that the next war is fought with cheap, mass-produced robotics.

FTC Clears Elon Musk to Acquire SpaceX-Alumni Startup Mesh

BIG TECHFTC clearance

FTC Clears Elon Musk to Acquire SpaceX-Alumni Startup Mesh

The Federal Trade Commission has cleared Elon Musk to acquire Mesh, a startup founded by SpaceX alumni, removing the regulatory hurdle for another addition to Musk's sprawling corporate empire. The green light comes as a newly public, cash-rich SpaceX deploys its stock on an acquisition spree, and as antitrust scrutiny of Musk-linked deals draws fresh attention.

OpenAI, SpaceX and the Scramble to Build Custom AI Chips -- and Escape Nvidia

BIG TECHCustom silicon

OpenAI, SpaceX and the Scramble to Build Custom AI Chips -- and Escape Nvidia

From OpenAI to SpaceX, the most compute-hungry companies in tech are now designing their own silicon, intensifying pressure on Nvidia's dominance of AI hardware. OpenAI recently unveiled its first custom chip built with Broadcom, and the broader move toward in-house accelerators reflects a strategic push to cut costs, secure supply, and avoid paying Nvidia's margins on every training run and inference call.

FTC Clears Musk to Acquire Mesh, the SpaceX-Alumni Optical-Interconnect Startup

BIG TECHMesh acquisition

FTC Clears Musk to Acquire Mesh, the SpaceX-Alumni Optical-Interconnect Startup

The FTC expedited its antitrust review and cleared Elon Musk to acquire Mesh Optical Technologies, a startup founded by three former SpaceX engineers that builds high-speed optical transceivers for data-center communications. Mesh emerged from stealth in February with a $50M Series A led by Thrive Capital; the acquisition slots directly into Musk's push to make his AI data centers faster and more energy-efficient.

BIG TECH$13B / $48B total

BIG TECH· Jun 25, 2026

IBM Debuts the World's First Sub-1-Nanometer Chip Technology at the 0.7nm Node

BIG TECH0.7nm node

IBM Debuts the World's First Sub-1-Nanometer Chip Technology at the 0.7nm Node

IBM unveiled what it calls the world's first sub-1-nanometer chip technology -- a new transistor architecture at the 0.7nm (7-angstrom) node that packs nearly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized chip. The breakthrough, built on IBM's 3D nanostack architecture, promises up to 50% higher performance or 70% greater energy efficiency versus its 2nm chips, with a path to production within five years.

Jun 25, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 25, 2026

Amazon Commits Another $13B to India for AI and Cloud, Pushing Its Bet to $48B by 2030

Amazon Commits Another $13B to India for AI and Cloud, Pushing Its Bet to $48B by 2030

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, announced an additional $13 billion investment in India for AI and cloud infrastructure by 2030, lifting Amazon's total committed India spend to about $48 billion -- more than $21 billion of it earmarked for AI and cloud. The money expands AWS data-center capacity in Mumbai and Hyderabad as the hyperscalers race to own the infrastructure layer of the world's fastest-growing internet market.

Jun 25, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 25, 2026

SpaceX Acquires AI Coding Startup Cursor for $60B in the Year's Largest Startup M&A Deal

BIG TECH$60B

SpaceX Acquires AI Coding Startup Cursor for $60B in the Year's Largest Startup M&A Deal

SpaceX, fresh off its record IPO, formalized a $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Anysphere, the company behind the AI coding tool Cursor -- the biggest venture-backed startup M&A deal of 2026. The purchase, exercised from an option SpaceX took in April, hands Elon Musk's rocket maker a foothold in enterprise software development and delivers a generational return to Cursor's backers, including a16z, Thrive and Coatue.

Jun 25, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 24, 2026

Cerebras Plunges ~20% in Its First Earnings as a Public Company on a Margin Scare

BIG TECH~-20% stock drop

Cerebras Plunges ~20% in Its First Earnings as a Public Company on a Margin Scare

Cerebras shares fell roughly 20% -- back near their IPO price -- after the AI-chip maker's first earnings report as a public company spooked investors with a soft gross-margin outlook, even as it beat on revenue. CEO Andrew Feldman said the market 'misunderstood' the guidance, which reflects a temporary plan to lease back systems while it builds its own data centers.

Jun 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 24, 2026

Qualcomm Agrees to Buy Modular for ~$4B in All-Stock Deal, Taking Aim at Nvidia's CUDA Moat

BIG TECH$3.92B

Qualcomm Agrees to Buy Modular for ~$4B in All-Stock Deal, Taking Aim at Nvidia's CUDA Moat

Qualcomm agreed on June 24 to acquire Modular, the AI-infrastructure company founded by Chris Lattner (LLVM, Swift), in an all-stock deal valued near $4 billion — its largest ever. The play: use Modular's MAX platform to run AI models across Qualcomm silicon without hand-tuning code for each chip, directly attacking the software stack that has cemented Nvidia's data-center dominance.

Jun 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 24, 2026

Qualcomm to Buy AI-Software Startup Modular for ~$3.9B to Attack Nvidia's CUDA Moat

BIG TECH~$3.9B

Qualcomm to Buy AI-Software Startup Modular for ~$3.9B to Attack Nvidia's CUDA Moat

Qualcomm agreed to acquire Modular -- the startup behind the Mojo programming language and MAX AI platform -- in an all-stock deal worth roughly $3.9 billion. The bet is that the way to break Nvidia's dominance isn't a faster chip but an open software layer that lets AI models run efficiently across any hardware, directly challenging the CUDA lock-in.

Jun 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 23, 2026

Mark Zuckerberg Wants Meta to Launch Its Own Prediction Market

BIG TECHNew product push

Mark Zuckerberg Wants Meta to Launch Its Own Prediction Market

Mark Zuckerberg is pushing Meta to build its own prediction market, according to TechCrunch, betting that the booming category -- popularized by Polymarket and Kalshi -- belongs inside Meta's social and advertising machine. The move would thrust Meta into a fast-growing but heavily scrutinized corner of online finance.

Jun 23, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 23, 2026

Oracle Cuts 21,000 Jobs to Help Fund Its Debt-Fueled AI Data Center Buildout

BIG TECH21,000 jobs cut

Oracle Cuts 21,000 Jobs to Help Fund Its Debt-Fueled AI Data Center Buildout

Oracle has laid off roughly 21,000 workers as it pours borrowed money into a massive AI data center expansion, according to Ars Technica. The juxtaposition -- deep headcount cuts alongside an aggressive, debt-financed compute buildout -- captures how far legacy software firms are stretching to stay relevant in the AI infrastructure race.

Jun 23, 2026

BIG TECHGas-powered megasite

Microsoft and Chevron Plan One of the Largest Gas-Powered Data Centers in the US

Microsoft and Chevron Plan One of the Largest Gas-Powered Data Centers in the US

Microsoft and Chevron are teaming up to build one of the largest natural-gas-powered data center projects in the country, pairing on-site gas generation with AI compute to sidestep strained electric grids. The deal is the clearest sign yet that power -- not chips -- is now the binding constraint on AI expansion.

Jun 22, 2026

GM Installs Robots at Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers

BIG TECH1,300 jobs cut

GM Installs Robots at Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers

General Motors is installing robots at its flagship EV factory shortly after laying off roughly 1,300 workers, according to Ars Technica. The juxtaposition crystallizes the automation-versus-jobs tension as carmakers automate production amid soft EV demand.

Jun 22, 2026

Lucid's New CEO Cuts 18% of Staff -- 1,500 Jobs -- in Its Second Deep Cut This Year

BIG TECH1,500 jobs cut

Lucid's New CEO Cuts 18% of Staff -- 1,500 Jobs -- in Its Second Deep Cut This Year

EV maker Lucid Motors is laying off about 1,500 employees, roughly 18% of its workforce, just four months after cutting 12% of staff. It is the first major move by new CEO Silvio Napoli, who formally took the role on June 1, and includes eliminating the second production shift at the Arizona factory to align output with demand.

Jun 22, 2026

BIG TECHAgentic Creative Cloud

Meta Names CRED Founder Kunal Shah to Run WhatsApp -- and Puts $900M Into His Startup

BIG TECH$900M investment

Meta Names CRED Founder Kunal Shah to Run WhatsApp -- and Puts $900M Into His Startup

Meta has appointed Kunal Shah, founder of Indian fintech CRED, as the new head of WhatsApp, replacing Will Cathcart after nearly seven years. Alongside the hire, Meta led a $900 million round in CRED at roughly a $4.5 billion post-money valuation -- a striking bet on India, WhatsApp's single largest market with over 500 million users.

A new industry scorecard tracking global robotaxi deployment puts Chinese operators clearly out front on scale, cities covered and rides delivered, according to TechCrunch's Mobility report. As US players like Waymo expand methodically, the data suggests China's combination of permissive rollout and domestic competition is compounding into a real lead.

Jun 21, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 20, 2026

Adobe Embeds Agentic AI Across Creative Cloud, Pivoting From Media Generation to Production Orchestration

Adobe Embeds Agentic AI Across Creative Cloud, Pivoting From Media Generation to Production Orchestration

Adobe is wiring agentic AI workflows across Creative Cloud, shifting its pitch from one-shot media generation to orchestrating entire multi-step creative production pipelines. It's the clearest sign yet that the incumbent software giants intend to own the agent layer on top of their existing tools rather than cede it to startups.

Jun 20, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 19, 2026

NASA Picks Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space for a 2028 Mars Mission, Setting Up a Race With SpaceX

BIG TECH2028 Mars mission

NASA Picks Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space for a 2028 Mars Mission, Setting Up a Race With SpaceX

NASA selected Relativity Space -- the rocket company Eric Schmidt took over and now runs as CEO -- to build and fly the Aeolus orbiter to Mars in 2028, funded by an unnamed philanthropic backer. It's an audacious bet on an unproven launcher and, if it works, could make Relativity the first private mission to reach the Red Planet.

Jun 19, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 19, 2026

Ambani Wants AI in Every Call, App, and Home as Reliance Bids to Make India an AI Hub

Ambani Wants AI in Every Call, App, and Home as Reliance Bids to Make India an AI Hub

At Reliance's annual shareholder meeting, Mukesh Ambani laid out a sweeping plan to wire AI into Indian life -- a Jio Call Agent for phone calls, a Jio Teleframe home OS run by AI agents, and a renewable-powered AI data center in Jamnagar -- in a bid to reduce India's dependence on US and Chinese technology.

Jun 19, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 19, 2026

Hyundai Takes Full Control of Boston Dynamics, Buying Out SoftBank for $325M

BIG TECH$325M

Hyundai Takes Full Control of Boston Dynamics, Buying Out SoftBank for $325M

Hyundai Motor Group is buying SoftBank's remaining ~9.65% stake in Boston Dynamics for $325 million, completing its takeover of the Waltham, Massachusetts robotics company and turning it into a wholly owned subsidiary. The move closes out the put option SoftBank retained when Hyundai bought 80% control in 2021, and hands the automaker undivided ownership of the world's most famous humanoid-robotics brand just as physical AI becomes a venture and corporate obsession.

Jun 19, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 18, 2026

Adobe Embeds Agentic AI Across Creative Cloud, Shifting From Generation to Production