Techmeme
February 1, 2026, 3:05 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Documents and sources: Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan backed a $500M investment for a 49% stake in WLF, four days before Trump's inauguration  —  $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple execs question if it has the ingredients to win in AI-first era, new MacBook Pros are about to launch, Apple considers clamshell foldable iPhone  —  Apple's blockbuster holiday quarter was impressive — but it shouldn't give cover to avoid an AI reckoning.
Zijing Wu / Financial Times:
A look at China's “genius class” system, which picks ~100K gifted teens annually for elite science-focused schooling; its alumni span ByteDance, PDD, and more  —  About three years ago, Stacey Tang, a manager in a pharmaceuticals company in Beijing, received a peculiar phone call.
X: @asanwal and @bgurley.  LinkedIn: Leevi Saari
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Inside Physical Intelligence, a startup co-founded by Stripe veteran Lachy Groom that is building general-purpose robotics foundation models and has raised $1B+  —  From the street, the only indication I've found Physical Intelligence's headquarters in San Francisco is a pi symbol that's …
Matthew Gault / 404 Media:
A researcher says an exposed Moltbook database could have let anyone take control of the site's AI agents and post anything; the database has since been secured  —  Moltbook is a “social media” site for AI agents that's captured the public's imagination over the last few days.
Andrew Zucker / Wall Street Journal:
A look at iOS 26's call-screening feature, which some compare to an executive assistant filter unwanted calls, as others complain it makes people hard to reach  —  Thanks to a new iPhone feature, everyone now has an executive assistant in their pocket to filter unwanted calls
Nicole Fan / Rest of World:
Chinese government funding is backing traditional Chinese medicine providers to adopt AI for drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, acupuncture robots, and more  —  With backing from the Chinese government, TCM practitioners are integrating AI tools to reach new consumers at home and abroad.
Ann Cao / South China Morning Post:
Sources: Alibaba has delivered more than 100K units of the Zhenwu 810E, an ASIC for AI training and inference, surpassing those of its domestic rival Cambricon  —  The milestone underscores Alibaba's growing footprint in AI hardware, as Chinese firms accelerate efforts to build home-grown processors

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More News

Bloomberg:
X: @thestalwart and @thestalwart
LinkedIn: Antoine L. and Rachel Graf.  Bluesky: @zachweinersmith.  Forums: r/singularity

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Debby Wu / Bloomberg: