Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:âą The Big Read: Inside ZaiNar, the secretive startup hoping to power the physical AI era ⹠Policy: Meet the Trump official who wants to deliver a win to prediction markets ⹠Plus, Recommendationsâour weekly pop culture picks: âExpanse: The Nannup Four,â âThe Infinity Machineâ and âBeefâWatching the Elon Musk versus OpenAI trial from inside the courtroom gave me a front-row seat to the AI boomâs... Read more âș
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Of all the places AI is seeping into, a program by a pair of Czech ice dancers angling for a spot at the Winter Olympics in February may be one of the most unexpected. Yet, at last weekendâs Skate America tournament, a major international competition ahead of Milano Cortina 2026, KateĆina MrĂĄzkovĂĄ and Daniel MrĂĄzek performed a program that included music partially composed by AI in the style of the... Read more âș
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Visa and Mastercard are moving quickly to embrace cryptocurrencies for payments, to take advantage of the rising popularity of stablecoins in developing countries and fend off competition from merchants trying to circumvent their networks. The companies ramped up their crypto payments business overseas and have been looking for acquisitions or investments. Visa wants to invest in stablecoin startups, especially in infrastructure that can help scale its network of banks and... Read more âș
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In an internal memo, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that Googleâs recent progress in artificial intelligence could create âtemporary economic headwindsâ for his company, The Information reported Thursday. The memo anticipated Googleâs launch of its Gemini 3 model, suggesting ... Read more âș
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Weâre moving off the (unresolved) AI bubble debate to a much more fundamental question about AI. That is whether decisions about an enormously costly technology, which threatens to put many people out of work, should be left to tech leaders or discussed more broadly. It turns out Republicans may have the best handle on this issue, most obviously Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Heâs long been vocal about the threat AI... Read more âș
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Google released a new version of its âNano Bananaâ image generation model on Thursday, updating a model that had gone viral earlier in the year. Google highlighted the ability of the new model, dubbed âNano Banana Pro,â to create infographics and posters, as well as its ability to keep elements ... Read more âș
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Googleâs recent progress in artificial intelligence could âcreate some temporary economic headwinds for our company,â though he added that OpenAI would emerge ahead. After OpenAI researchers heard that Google had created a new AI that appears to have leapfrogged OpenAIâs in the way it was developed, Altman said in the memo that âwe know we have some work to do but... Read more âș
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For 15 years, Goldman Sachsâ private tech conference in Las Vegas has been the event for taking the pulse of startup dealmaking. Years ago, it was possible to run into founders such as Uberâs Travis Kalanick and Instagramâs Kevin Systrom raising money for their then-small startups. The conference is much bigger now (which makes some investors grumble), but it remains a nexus for investors who want to throw money at... Read more âș
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Physical Intelligence, the robotic AI company, raised $600 million at a $5 billion valuation, excluding the investment, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The Information broke the news of the potential funding round in September. Alphabetâs CapitalG led the round. Existing investors Lux Capital, ... Read more âș
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Waymo said Thursday that itâs added New Orleans, Minneapolis and Tampa to the list of cities where it plans to launch its autonomous ride-hailing service. That brings the total number of new cities where itâs announced launch plans to more than 20, according to the company. For now, Waymo will ... Read more âș
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Walmart grew sales nearly 6% to $179.5 billion in the third quarter of its current fiscal year, as the retail giant continues to expand its e-commerce and advertising businesses and compete more closely with Amazon. Executives said Thursday that consumer demand remained mostly resilient and that ... Read more âș
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Weâve been hearing for years about the theoretical threat AI poses to enterprise software apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow and Workday. While a disaster scenario for these firms hasnât happened because AI generally isnât reliable enough to duplicate what they do, some customers are still trying to use the latest AI models to replace those apps to save money.For instance, some customers of Databricks, which sells a data lake, a type... Read more âș
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Global payroll startup Deel labeled as an expense a $6,000 payment it made to the wife of the companyâs chief operating officerâcash that was sent to an alleged spy inside rival firm Rippling 56 seconds laterâaccording to newly unsealed documents in a lawsuit between the two Silicon Valley ... Read more âș
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The White House plans an executive order to block states from passing laws regulating AI, as we reported Wednesday. Instead of state laws, the order suggests there should be a federal law governing the information that AI companies have to disclose and how they handle potential bias in models. Specifically, it directs White House AI âczarâ David Sacks and government agencies to help make recommendations that Congress could write into... Read more âș
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SoftBank plans to invest up to $3 billion to remodel an electric vehicle plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that will produce equipment for OpenAIâs forthcoming data centers, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. The Japanese conglomerate, one of the largest investors in OpenAI, will use the factory to supply data center sites in Texas and multiple other unannounced locations, the people and another person with knowledge of the... Read more âș
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Salesforceâs Slack has told customers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan that they must migrate their accounts to partner Alibaba Group before February, if they want to continue with instant-messaging service, according to a Slack customer in mainland China and an Alibaba Cloud ... Read more âș
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Nvidia said Wednesday it had struck deals to rent $26 billion of servers from cloud providers over the next six years, doubling the cloud spending commitments it disclosed just three months ago. The cloud spending plan implies Nvidia will rent several hundred thousand of its own graphics ... Read more âș
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Bubble? What bubble? Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed fretful talk about massive AI investment on Wednesday, extolling the benefits of AI for a wide variety of companiesâfrom startups to big firms like Meta Platforms. Of course, the biggest beneficiary of the AI transformation is Nvidia itself, whose stranglehold on the AI chip market is turning it into a tech version of the U.S. Mint. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported 62% higher... Read more âș
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Luma AI, which develops artificial intelligence models that generate realistic videos, raised $900 million from investors led by new investor Humain, the AI company owned by Saudi Arabiaâs Public Investment Fund, the startup said Wednesday. The new funding values the company at $4 billion, ... Read more âș
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The White House is working on an executive order that will direct the Justice Department to sue states that pass their own laws regulating artificial intelligence, according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Information. The order, which is still in the drafting phase, could change. The timeline for when it will be formally announced is also unclear. The move is part of a long-standing effort this year... Read more âș
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Nvidiaâs revenue from selling AI chips rose 62% to $57 billion in the three months ended October compared to the same period a year earlier. Remarkably, its sales growth accelerated 8 percentage points compared to the July quarter, and Nvidia has projected even faster growthâ65.4%âin the current ... Read more âș
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09.05.2026 10:53
Last update: 10:45 EDT.
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