Techmeme
July 19, 2026, 11:00 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Alibaba launches preview of 2.4T parameter Qwen3.8 Max, says it's comparable to frontier AI models and second only to Fable 5, will make it “open-weight soon”  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. launched a preview version of its flagship Qwen3.8 Max model, which it described as comparable …
Ann Davis Vaughan / The Information:
Permit hurdles push up costs for AI data centers; Oracle pivoted from gas turbines to costlier fuel cells for its Project Jupiter in NM, costing billions more  —  Building an AI supercampus increasingly means paying more than you bargained for.  Oracle's attempt to salvage a proposed $165 billion project …
Alexandra Lindsay / The San Francisco Standard:
Analysis: OpenAI and Anthropic employees are donating to campaigns more heavily and cohesively than Google, Meta, and Airbnb employees did post-IPO  —  San Francisco is still waiting for the AI IPOs — the wave of money from Anthropic and OpenAI millionaires and billionaires that is likely …
Joshua Cohen / Ars Technica:
A look at AI's potential impact on insurance-coverage decisions like prior authorization as the Trump admin starts to pilot using AI to evaluate Medicare claims  —  If you're like me, you or a loved one has struggled through the process of gaining pre-approval for the medical care that your physician has recommended.
More: MedPage TodayForums: Ars OpenForum
Reuters:
Grassroots org HumansFirst says it organized 142 protests across 42 US states on July 18 against what it calls the “unaccountable” buildout of data centers  —  Opponents of the rapid buildout of data centers held 142 protests across 42 states on Saturday in the first nationwide effort …
Geraldine McKelvie / The Guardian:
UK's incoming PM Andy Burnham is expected to scrap Keir Starmer's plans for digital ID cards; last year a petition opposing the cards attracted ~3M signatures  —  Incoming PM will reallocate unspecified resources from unpopular plan to helping with cost of living
AI Security Institute:
Ann Cao / South China Morning Post:
Alibaba open-sources its chip software, following similar plays from Huawei and Moore Threads, as Chinese GPU makers try to break the dominance of Nvidia's CUDA  —  The firm's chip unit T-Head aims to lower migration barriers to Zhenwu AI computing architectures, following similar initiatives by Huawei and Moore Threads
Wall Street Journal:
Prediction market political betting on insider info spreads in DC; sources: WH lawyers raised alarms over anonymous Polymarket bets on the Iran ceasefire timing  —  White House officials are grappling with how deeply political betting has worked itself into fabric of government
Leo Schwartz / The Information:
How the Trump administration shifted from a “light-touch” approach to AI policy to an interventionist stance that led to restrictions on top AI models in the US  —  In January 2025, just three days after entering office for his second term, President Donald Trump signed …

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Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge: