Techmeme: ByteDance, which spent an estimated $11B in 2024 on infrastructure for AI, is using data from ~1B users of its apps as the linchpin of its growing AI business (Meaghan Tobin/New York Times)

Top News

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Meta adds Dina Powell McCormick, who served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first term, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to its board — Dina Powell McCormick, a prominent banking executive and former Republican official, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison are joining Meta's board, Axios has learned.

More: Reuters, Tech in Asia, CNBC, Meta, TechCrunch, The Hollywood Reporter, The Information, and Bloomberg

Bluesky: @chadbourn. Threads: @vishwanathsarangkeller and @mwi.invest

X: @campbell_brown, @cernovich, @sarafischer, @donaldjtrumpjr, and @jasonmiller. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg

Bloomberg:

Netflix is testing an OpenAI-powered search engine that lets users find shows via inquiries that go beyond genres or actors' names, like the subscriber's mood — The OpenAI-powered search engine lets customers look for shows using far more specific terms, including the subscriber's mood, for example, the company said.

More: The Verge, T3, Tech in Asia, and Trusted Reviews

Bluesky: @quinnypig.com. X: @jakuuire

See also Mediagazer

Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware:

China exempts products from AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm, and others that are made by Taiwanese companies like TSMC from the 125% tariff on US products — Killing two birds with one stone. — Amid a fierce trade war with the US, China's General Administration of Customs has changed …

More: Reuters, Tech in Asia, Wccftech, Wall Street Pit, South China Morning Post, and HotHardware

Bluesky: @marypcbuk. X: @wmhuo168 and @danielnewmanuv. Forums: r/hardware

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

OpenAI plans to retire GPT-4, launched in March 2023, from ChatGPT on April 30, to be “fully replaced” by GPT-4o; GPT-4 will remain available via OpenAI's API — OpenAI will soon retire GPT-4, an AI model it launched over two years ago, from ChatGPT, according to a changelog posted on Thursday.

More: OpenAI, Livemint, CNET, Mashable, PCMag, ZDNET, Engadget, The Economic Times, The Verge, Techstrong.ai, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, The Decoder, and Crypto Briefing

X: @tomwarren. LinkedIn: Colin Robertson, Gonçalo Gomes, and Renata Santos

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Binance asked the US Treasury last month to loosen oversight on its AML compliance, after Binance entered into deal talks with Trump's crypto venture — Executives for the cryptocurrency exchange met with Treasury officials last month after the company entered into talks with a Trump family venture

More: Cointelegraph, Bloomberg, Crypto Briefing, Coinpedia Fintech News, and Reuters. X: @tier10k

Ari Levy / CNBC:

Filing: Founders Fund has closed a $4.6B late-stage venture fund; source: a substantial amount of the capital was provided by the firm's general partners — Founders Fund, the venture capital firm run by billionaire Peter Thiel, has closed a $4.6 billion late-stage venture fund …

More: Tech in Asia, Bloomberg, and US SEC

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:

YipitData: Waymo's robotaxis made up about 20% of rides offered by Uber in Austin in the last week of March, after launching on March 4 — Waymo robotaxis made up about 20% of rides offered by Uber Technologies Inc. in Austin in the last week of March, underscoring how consumers have warmed …

More: The Robot Report, TipRanks Financial, The Driverless Digest, and Business Insider

Bluesky: @jf2u. X: @aleximm, @stockmarketnerd, @adamkovac, and @sethdavishoops. Forums: r/waymo

Financial Times:

Bain Capital agrees to buy Blackstone-backed HealthEdge, which offers SaaS for health insurers to modernize their systems, sources say for ~$2.6B including debt — Sale of US healthcare software company grants two-fold return on investment — Private equity firm Bain Capital has struck …

More: Bain Capital and Axios

Makena Kelly / Wired:

Sources: Palantir is helping DOGE build an API layer above all IRS databases; DOGE wants Palantir's Foundry software to be the “read center of all IRS systems” — For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers …

Forums: r/TrueReddit, r/fednews, r/technology, and r/politics

Kate O'Keeffe / Bloomberg:

US investigators are probing whether the China ties of TP-Link Systems Inc., the US-based business of Wi-Fi router giant TP-Link, pose an “unacceptable risk” — - TP-Link Systems still has sizable China presence, records show — Founder says he's ‘chosen the US’ in company's restructuring

Forums: Slashdot

Meaghan Tobin / New York Times:

ByteDance, which spent an estimated $11B in 2024 on infrastructure for AI, is using data from ~1B users of its apps as the linchpin of its growing AI business — A set of popular apps helped China's ByteDance develop a key component of advanced artificial intelligence: information on how a billion people use the internet.

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:

Asia's startup funding fell 40% YoY to ~$13B in Q1 2025, the lowest funding for a quarter since $12.3B in Q4 2014; AI startup funding fell 50% YoY to just $1.8B — While OpenAI's massive $40 billion funding boosted global and North America's funding totals, Asia was not so lucky.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Appfigures: ChatGPT was the most downloaded app globally in March, excluding games, with 46M downloads across App Store and Google Play, its biggest month ever — ChatGPT became the world's most downloaded app in March, excluding games, topping the usual contenders for the No. 1 spot, Instagram and TikTok.

More: The Economic Times, Moneycontrol, 9to5Mac, and Redmond Pie

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google says some terms in AI Overviews will link to Google's search results “to help people more easily explore topics and discover relevant websites” — A few weeks ago, we caught Google linking text within its AI Overviews to its own search results.

More: 9to5Google and Search Engine Roundtable

Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg:

Architect Partners: Q1 2025 was a record quarter for crypto M&A with 61 deals and $2.2B in total deal value, including Kraken's $1.5B acquisition of NinjaTrader — A false dawn for M&A? — Is the crypto M&A boom for real? We asked Casper Johansen, partner at The Spartan Group, a digital assets advisory firm.

More: Architect Partners and Architect Partners

Counterpoint Research:

In Q1 2025, SK Hynix overtook Samsung for the first time to lead global DRAM revenues with a 36% share, driven by its dominant 70% market share in HBM — - SK Hynix takes lead for first time ever in DRAM, grabbing 36% share of revenues in Q1 2025 — In particular, the company dominated in critical HBM with 70% market share

More: SamMobile, KED Global, SammyGuru, DigiTimes, and Tech in Asia. X: @counterpointtr

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