Techmeme
July 30, 2026, 1:15 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness sold the bulk of its stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel after suffering deep losses  —  The highflying hedge fund run by Leopold Aschenbrenner is in crisis mode after AI-related bets sank  —  Situational Awareness …
Financial Times:
Sources: ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness hedge fund has sought to raise capital after heavy losses during the recent AI rout  —  Hedge fund has held talks with existing investors and lenders in recent days  —  Situational Awareness, the $20bn hedge fund founded …
Financial Times:
Source: Situational Awareness has a $5B stake in Anthropic, and will continue to run as a private investment firm after suffering heavy losses in recent days  —  Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund suffered steep losses in recent days from tech sell-off  —  Situational Awareness rapidly sold …
David Faber / CNBC:
Sources: Situational Awareness has sold all of its public stock holdings; the fund grew to as big as $45B at the start of July before big losses took hold  —  The battered hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner is unwinding many of its trades after big losses …
Will Knight / Wired:
Google DeepMind releases Gemini Robotics 2, which combines several different AI models into a single system to control a range of robots, including humanoids  —  The latest version of Google DeepMind's AI model includes a significant jump into “physical AGI.”  But plopping AI into the real world comes with risks.
Jenny Lee / CNBC:
Samsung reports Q2 revenue up 130% YoY to ~$118.1B, below ~$118.9B est., and operating profit up 1,814% to ~$61.46B, above ~$60.68B est., on robust AI demand  —  Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
OpenAI:
OpenAI says using its Responses API harness with GPT-5.6 Sol tripled its ARC-AGI-3 score with fewer output tokens, after Sol with the official harness got 7.8%  —  A sped-up video of GPT-5.6 Sol attempting to solve puzzles in the ARC-AGI-3 benchmark, with the official harness (left) …
Boone Ashworth / Wired:
Friend announces an AI pendant with a speaker for spoken replies for $249, up from its original necklace's $129 price, with an optional $10 monthly subscription  —  He sits on the couch in his living room, clad in an orange shirt emblazoned with a cartoon version of the motorcycle driven by Italian racer Valentino Rossi.
More: The VergeX: @friend
Meta:
Meta reports Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $60.8B, family DAP up 3% YoY to 3.6B for June, net income down 14% YoY, and forecasts Q3 revenue below est.; META drops 8%  —  Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.
Abhirup Roy / Reuters:
Amazon's Zoox receives the NHTSA's first US approval for paid deployment of its steering wheel-free robotaxi and can deploy up to 2,500 per year through 2028  —  Amazon's (AMZN.O) Zoox won U.S. approval on Wednesday for limited commercial deployment of its novel steering-wheel-free robotaxis …
Madison Mills / Axios:
Scale AI hires former Google Cloud COO Francis deSouza as CEO, replacing interim CEO Jason Droege, who took over last year after Alexandr Wang left for Meta  —  Scale AI has hired former Google Cloud COO Francis deSouza as CEO, year after Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang left the AI infrastructure company for Meta.
Microsoft:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
The US FCC's ban on foreign “advanced robotic devices” covers any new ground-based, software-controlled wireless robot over 4.4 pounds, including robot vacuums  —  Did you hear it was just a ban on Chinese humanoid robots?  It's not. … But spying doesn't require legs — and neither does the FCC's robot ban.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
London-based Nscale agrees to acquire Anyscale, a source says for ~$1.65B; Anyscale, which helps AI workloads run more efficiently, had a $1B+ valuation in 2022  —  Cloud provider Nscale agreed to acquire software startup Anyscale to help customers use AI computing power more efficiently.
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
How compute could become 10x+ costlier as AI capabilities and monetization outpace supply, and a look at the implications if Anthropic hits $1T in 2027 revenue  —  If a human-level software engineer that could run on an H100 equivalent, at current market rates for software engineers, that H100 should rent for over $250k a year.
Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI says it is cutting the price of GPT-5.6 Luna by ~80% and the price of GPT-5.6 Terra by 20% after improving the efficiency of the systems that serve them  —  OpenAI said Thursday it is cutting prices for two GPT-5.6 models after improving the efficiency of the systems that serve them.
Zachary Skidmore / DatacenterDynamics:
Google-backed nuclear fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $1B, after raising a $1.8B Series B in 2021 and $863M in 2025, and plans a 2030s launch  —  Has now raised $4bn, the most of any fusion company  —  Google-backed nuclear fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) …
CNBC:
Internal meeting: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees that the startup's annualized recurring revenue in July was higher than Q2's, “and Q2 was no slouch”  —  As OpenAI chases rival Anthropic in the enterprise and tries to sustain growth in the face of new competition …

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Earlier Picks

Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:
More: Ghacks and TechSpot
X: @iethics, @arstechnica, and @steevebourdonBluesky: @adamroseForums: Ars OpenForum
Reuters: