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February 18, 2026, 12:30 PM
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Top News

Abu Sultan / Reuters:
Microsoft says it is on pace to invest $50B by 2030 to help expand AI across the Global South, after unveiling $17.5B worth of AI investments in India in 2025
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
At India's AI Summit, Alphabet announces the America-India Connect Initiative, which will build new fiber optic lines between India, the US, and other countries
Shruti Rajagopalan / Get Down and Shruti:
A look at India's sensible AI regulation, promising foundation models, chip ambitions, energy constraints, startup ecosystem, and blossoming venture funding
Todd Haselton / The Verge:
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10A, with a Tensor G4 and 8GB of RAM, like the Pixel 9A, an 11% brighter screen, and 128GB or 256GB storage, shipping from March 4  —  Google's midrange Pixels have been our top pick for budget Android phones for a while.  They offer good cameras and most of what you need at a budget-friendly price.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google expands Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold, after introducing it on the Pixel 10 in November 2025  —  After introducing on the Pixel 10 last year, Google is expanding Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold.
Joe Miller / Financial Times:
How US citizens, clergy, and elected officials in conservative communities like Missouri are leading a grassroots rebellion against the Trump-backed AI boom  —  Republicans fear backlash against White House agenda could undermine support in this year's midterm elections
Sophie McEvoy / GamesIndustry.biz:
Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report: global video game content sales grew 5.3% YoY to $195.6B in 2025 while job losses fell 40% YoY to 9,200 people  —  Private funding fell a further 55% last year, according to Epyllion's latest State of Video Gaming report
George Hammond / Financial Times:
Sources: Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former Google DeepMind Principal Scientist David Silver, is raising a $1B seed led by Sequoia at a ~$4B valuation  —  Funding deal would value David Silver's start-up Ineffable Intelligence at $4bn  —  David Silver, one of Britain's top AI researchers …
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Perplexity says it has no plans to further pursue ads, which it introduced in 2024, after phasing them out in late 2025 over fears they would erode user trust  —  Leading start-ups have recently embraced sponsors as they search for revenue  —  AI start-up Perplexity has abandoned advertising …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $200M from Autodesk, part of a larger round; the companies are exploring integrating World Labs' AI models into Autodesk products  —  Fei-Fei Li's World Labs has secured a $200 million investment from software design giant Autodesk.
The Keyword:
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-made cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages  —  The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.
Krystal Hur / Wall Street Journal:
A Las Vegas federal appeals court rejects Kalshi's emergency bid for an administrative stay on Nevada's push to block the platform, a major setback for Kalshi  —  A federal appeals court rejected Kalshi's bid, setting the stage for Nevada's civil-enforcement proceedings
Bloomberg:
Robinhood launches an IPO for Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a $1B closed-end fund to provide retail investors access to private markets, offering 40M shares at $25  —  Robinhood Markets Inc. is seeking to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of a closed-end fund designed …
Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune:
Cogent Security, which aims to use AI agents to decide which software bugs to remediate, raised a $42M Series A led by Bain, taking its total raised to $53M  —  Cogent Security has raised a $42 million Series A just six months after launch.  Their bet?  That AI agents can finally fix …
More: FinSMEs
David Singleton / flurries of latent creativity:
Dreamer, founded by former Stripe CTO David Singleton, Hugo Barra, and others, launches in beta to let technical and non-technical users build agentic AI apps  —  Dreamer is the name of the platform and company I started with Hugo, Nicholas and others a little over a year ago.
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
SEC filing: Peter Thiel and Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla, after disclosing a 7.5% stake in August 2025; ether is down 60% from its August 2025 peak  —  Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund have fully exited ETHZilla Corp., according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Rachel Swan / San Francisco Chronicle:
Tesla agrees to stop using the term “autopilot” to market its EVs in California to avoid a 30-day suspension by the state's DMV, resolving a long-running battle  —  Tesla has stopped using the term “autopilot” to market its electric vehicles in California in order to avoid a 30 …
Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times:
Q&A with Synthesia co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli on growing the London-based enterprise AI video platform, hitting a $4B valuation, regulation, and more  —  The founder of the $4bn UK start-up talks about his mission to reinvent content creation and how Europe can compete in the global AI race

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 PM ET, February 18, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Jack Dunn / Variety:
Stephen Colbert says CBS released its statement “without ever talking to me” and talk shows have long been exempt from “equal time” rules

Cameron Adams / The Daily Beast:
Sources: CNN restricted staff from using its platforms for self-promotion, after Jake Tapper pushing his Joe Biden book turned into a “rolling infomercial”

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The Irish Times says it now has ~150,000 print and digital subscribers, and it has reached a milestone where subscriber revenue fully funds its journalism

More News

Alexandre Rajbhandari / Bloomberg:
Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cut its Amazon stake by 75%+ to ~2.3M shares in Q4 2025; Berkshire bought 5.1M NYT shares, worth ~$352M in December

Earlier Picks

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
YouTube fully restores its services after a 2.5-hour outage on February 17, which started at around 7:45pm ET and was caused by a recommendations system issue
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon's stock closed up 1.2% on February 17, ending a nine-day slide that wiped out $450B+ in market cap after Amazon said it would spend $200B in 2026 capex
Financial Times:
Meta commits to buying millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs in a multiyear deal; a source says Meta's in-house AI chip strategy had technical challenges
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google schedules I/O 2026 for May 19 to 20 in Mountain View, teasing the “latest AI breakthroughs and updates” in Gemini, Android, and more
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