Techmeme
January 15, 2026, 5:35 AM

Top News

Kylie Robison / @kyliebytes:
Thinking Machines parts ways with CTO Barret Zoph, with Soumith Chintala taking over the role; sources say the termination is due to “unethical conduct”  —  BREAKING: Thinking Machines has terminated its CTO, Barret Zoph, due to unethical conduct according to two sources familiar with the matter. CEO Mira Murati announced the news at an all-hands with employees today. Soumith Chintala will be taking over as CTO.
Fidji Simo / @fidjissimo:
Fidji Simo says Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are returning to OpenAI from Thinking Machines and the move “has been in the works for several weeks”  —  Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI! This has been in the works for several weeks, and we're thrilled to have them join the team. Barret will report to me; Luke and Sam will report into Barret. More to come on what they'll focus on soon!
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Politico:
California AG Rob Bonta opens an investigation into xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by Grok, and urges xAI to act  —  California Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI over the proliferation of nonconsensual …
Financial Times:
UK PM Keir Starmer says X indicated to government officials it was acting to comply with UK laws by restricting the generation of nonconsensual sexual images  —  UK prime minister says xAI will restrict the image generator as billionaire pledges to follow laws in all markets
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
OpenAI strikes a multibillion-dollar agreement to buy 750 MW of computing capacity from Cerebras over three years; sources say the deal is worth more than $10B  —  The ChatGPT-maker is racing to secure more computing power, especially for responding to user queries
Reuters:
TSMC reports Q4 net profit up 35% YoY to a record ~$16B, above $15.17B est., as it benefited from surging demand for AI chips and hit $100B in 2025 revenue  —  TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, posted a 35% jump in fourth-quarter net profit on Thursday, beating market forecasts …
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET:
Google launches Personal Intelligence, a Gemini feature that links to Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and YouTube history to tailor answers, for paid subscribers  —  ZDNET's key takeaways  — Personal Intelligence scans your apps to improve Gemini answers.  — The feature is off by default and won't train on sensitive data.
Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg:
President Trump signs an order to impose a 25% tariff on chips “transshipped through the US to other foreign countries”, as part of the Nvidia H200 export deal  —  The US imposed a 25% tariff on imports of certain semiconductors, a key step in an agreement blessed …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Coinbase pulls support from the US Senate's crypto market structure bill ahead of a key vote; CEO Brian Armstrong says there are “too many issues” with the bill  —  CEO Brian Armstrong said there were “too many issues” with the bill.  —  Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange …
Jacob Krol / TechRadar:
Verizon resolves “an issue impacting wireless voice and data services” that caused 100,000+ customers to lose reception for 10+ hours on Wednesday  —  The carrier says the outage is now resolved  —  While Verizon had a good few months, with the last major outage occurring in October 2024 …
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Digg, rebooted under original founder Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, launches its open beta; the site had been open to 67,000 users on an invite-only basis  —  The reboot of the early-internet online community Digg, a one-time rival to Reddit, is moving forward.
Nitin Dahad / EE Times:
GlobalFoundries agrees to acquire Synopsys' ARC processor IP business, which includes ARC-V (RISC-V) and ARC CPU IP, and integrate it into its MIPS business  —  Today sees a bold move to bring two key processor architectures, MIPS and ARC, under one umbrella, as GlobalFoundries announced …
Denise Wee / Bloomberg:
Hong Kong-based WeLab, which operates two digital banks in Hong Kong and Indonesia, raised $220M in equity and debt from HSBC, Prudential Hong Kong, and others  —  Hong Kong-based fintech firm WeLab Ltd. has secured $220 million from investors including HSBC Holdings Plc and Prudential Hong Kong Ltd. in its largest round of funding.
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
South Korea dropped Naver's and NCSoft's teams from its competition to develop its first sovereign AI model, as LG's, SK Telecom's, and Upstage's teams advanced  —  South Korea dropped teams led by units of Naver Corp. and NCSoft Corp. from its closely watched competition to develop the nation's …

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