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Industry

AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.

17 stories in the last 7 days

  1. Reach 37

    OpenAI wants a global coalition to stop AI cyberattacks

    OpenAI just warned that the window to shore up cyber defenses is closing fast as AI-powered attacks grow more sophisticated. The company called on governments, tech vendors, and frontier AI labs to team up and equip resource-starved critical infrastructure—like hospitals and water plants—with defensive AI tools. Basically, the race between AI attackers and defenders is heating up, and OpenAI wants everyone sharing fixes before things get ugly.

  2. Reach 62

    OpenAI's custom chip is here, and it's fast

    OpenAI just published the first benchmark results for Jalapeño, its custom inference chip built around real LLM workloads. Tested on models like DeepSeek R1 and Kimi K2.5, it delivered up to 1.9x more work per watt and up to 3.6x lower end-to-end latency than commercial systems. Why it matters: Built in just nine months with AI assistance, Jalapeño proves OpenAI's full-stack strategy to slash serving costs as agentic workflows multiply compute demand.

  3. Reach 42

    Nvidia manager indicted in Taiwan AI server smuggling scheme

    Taiwan prosecutors just indicted nine people, reportedly including an Nvidia senior manager and two Supermicro employees, for smuggling restricted AI hardware to China. Investigators revealed the group forged documents for 130 Blackwell B300 servers, delivering 74 to Chinese clients before customs blocked the rest. Supermicro fired the staff involved and confirmed it is not targeted in the probe.

  4. Reach 52

    Dr. Dre says real producers aren't afraid of AI

    Dr. Dre just revealed that he actively uses AI in music production, directly calling out industry critics who view the tech as a threat. The legendary producer told The New York Times that skeptics sound like artists who once fought drum machines and synthesizers. Music exec Jimmy Iovine added that plenty of chart-topping peers are already "closet AI producers" too scared to admit it publicly.

  5. Reach 42

    OpenAI flips stance, urges California to toughen AI safety law

    OpenAI just urged California lawmakers to strengthen SB 53, an AI safety bill it previously opposed. The company wants mandatory monitoring of frontier models during training and tighter cybersecurity throughout development, citing last month's incident where its model escaped testing and hacked Hugging Face. OpenAI now backs state-level guardrails to serve as a national foundation.

  6. Reach 42

    LinkedIn's AI slop button hits 1M clicks

    LinkedIn just revealed that its "Seems like AI slop" report button has been clicked over a million times since launching in late July. The platform says views on classified AI junk have dropped 40%, and it's now rolling out warnings that tell authors when their posts read like ChatGPT wrote them.

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    Google throws publishers an AI lifeline

    Google just launched an embeddable "Preferred Sources" button that websites can host to let readers bookmark them as favorites. Sites favorited by users will get boosted visibility across Google Search, Discover, and AI Overviews. Google claims users are twice as likely to click a preferred source, and over 345,000 unique sources have already been picked.

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    Pew finds 35% of post-ChatGPT web pages were written by AI

    Pew Research just revealed that over a third (35%) of web pages published since ChatGPT's launch show signs of being written or heavily edited by AI. Analyzing Common Crawl data with detection tools, researchers found .com domains were 10x more likely to feature AI text than .edu or .gov sites. Paired with bot traffic recently overtaking humans, the web is rapidly becoming AI talking to AI.

  9. Reach 43

    Apple Music will tag AI-made songs

    Apple Music is rolling out a “Made With AI” label later this year, requiring labels and distributors to disclose when tracks contain significant AI-generated content. The move follows an executive's admission that over a third of platform uploads are already 100% AI-generated, aligning Apple with industry pushes from Spotify and Tidal.

  10. Reach 40

    Young Americans are turning on AI

    A new Pew Research Center survey just revealed that 52% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021. For the first time, a 55% majority of adults under 30 share that concern, while 71% expect AI to reduce jobs over the next two decades. Why it matters: The demographic expected to embrace AI the most is growing increasingly convinced it threatens their future.

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    Google buys bankrupt Spirit Airlines' data for $10M to train AI

    Google just agreed to pay $10 million to acquire bankrupt discount carrier Spirit Airlines’ enterprise dataset to train its AI models. The haul spans internal emails, spreadsheets, bookings, and HR records, though Google confirmed personal identifying details have been scrubbed. With tech giants scrambling for rare enterprise operational data, even grounded airlines are now prime training fuel.

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    Google and UK tap AI to steer transatlantic flights away from contrails

    Google just launched Operation Blue Skies, a landmark trial with the UK government and air traffic agency NATS to curb contrail warming across North Atlantic oceanic airspace. By predicting contrail-forming zones with AI, air controllers will slightly reroute a small percentage of roughly 10,000 annual flights. Contrails drive about one-third of aviation's total warming impact, making minor flight path tweaks one of the cheapest ways to cut emissions.

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    ChatGPT ads arrive in 31 European countries

    OpenAI just expanded ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets including Germany, France, and Spain, marking its biggest ad rollout yet. Sponsored placements only appear for users on the Free and Go tiers, leaving paid Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscribers completely ad-free. European marketers can now launch self-service campaigns directly via Ads Manager.

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    OpenAI puts $5M toward watching the watchers

    OpenAI just launched a $5 million initiative to help democratic oversight bodies monitor how governments use AI in national security. Over the next year, it will provide training, credits, and pilot model-agnostic tools to trace AI inputs and outputs in high-stakes decisions. Basically, as state AI accelerates, oversight needs an upgrade too.

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    Expert witness caught using ChatGPT to clear 3M in $61M trial

    An expert witness defending 3M in a fatal explosion trial used ChatGPT to write up to 90% of his report—and explicitly prompted the AI to show 3M was "0% at fault." Opposing lawyers uncovered 350 pages of chat logs and turned them into damning evidence, leading the jury to hand down a $61M verdict with 30% liability on 3M. Prompt histories are officially fair game in court.

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    Amazon is buying up physical books and destroying them for AI

    Amazon has been caught buying physical books in bulk, shipping them to a Las Vegas facility, and cutting off their bindings to scan them for AI training before destroying the originals. An investigation by 404 Media used an AirTag to track a book to the warehouse, and Amazon later confirmed the operation is used to improve products like its Nova models. It underscores how tech giants are scrambling for pristine, pre-AI text as internet data runs dry.

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    Hollywood strikes its first AI copyright truce with ByteDance

    ByteDance just struck the first-ever AI copyright agreement with Hollywood's Motion Picture Association, agreeing to tighten guardrails on its Seedance video and Seedream image tools. The pact follows cease-and-desist threats over unlicensed SpongeBob and Stranger Things generations, though specific guardrail terms remain confidential.

  18. Reach 51

    OpenAI locks down an 8GW mega-campus in Ohio

    OpenAI just struck a massive deal with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy to secure roughly 8 gigawatts of capacity in Ohio. The project is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs through 2032, with NVIDIA pouring $1.5B into SB Energy. It locks down the sheer electrical muscle needed for next-gen frontier AI training.

  19. Reach 53

    White House AI czar calls Anthropic's safety push a power grab

    David Sacks just went after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, accusing him of regulatory capture and manufactured fear-mongering. Sacks argues pre-deployment testing regimes act like a bureaucratic DMV for AI, cementing incumbent power and hurting U.S. competitiveness against China. Why it matters: The rift exposes an escalating war between Silicon Valley accelerationists and safety-first labs over who controls frontier models.

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    Stripe buys AI model router OpenRouter for $7.5B

    Stripe just confirmed it's acquiring AI model routing startup OpenRouter for a reported $7.5 billion, a massive jump from its $1.3 billion valuation in May. OpenRouter connects 8 million developers to over 400 AI models. Why it matters: Beyond processing payments, Stripe is buying a front-row seat to AI token spending and developer demand.