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August 12, 2026, 9:55 AM
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| Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: |
Sources: AI coding startup Cognition is in early talks with investors to raise $1B+ at a $40B+ valuation, after raising $1B at a $26B valuation in May — Cognition AI is in early talks with investors for a new funding round that may boost the coding startup's valuation by more than 50% …
More: PYMNTS, Tech Funding News, Silicon Republic, RuntimeWire, and Tech in Asia
| Will Knight / Wired: |
Researchers find that feeding a frontier model's encrypted reasoning traces to a weaker model from the same provider can make it output the traces in plaintext — Researchers devised a way to extract “reasoning traces” from Claude, GPT, and Gemini. What they found, they say …
More: Simon Willison's Weblog, arXiv.org, The American Bazaar, The Hacker News, Digit, Latent.Space, The Neuron, Wccftech, RuntimeWire, and The Decoder
| Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal: |
Foxconn reports Q2 revenue up 41% YoY to ~$78.4B, with cloud and networking products contributing 50%+ for the first time, and net profit up 35% YoY to ~$1.86B — Net profit for the three months ended June rose 35% from a year earlier — Foxconn Technology Group reported another strong quarter … | Bloomberg: |
Tencent reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to ~$30.4B, above ~$30B est., driven by surging WeChat advertising and resilient game spending, and net income of ~$8.3B — Tencent Holdings Ltd. more than doubled spending on AI projects and computing to about $7.8 billion last quarter … | Wall Street Journal: |
Some health and fitness obsessives are using AI for hyperpersonalized training, building dashboards and tools to analyze their sleep, workouts, diet, and more — From marathon training to tracking office angst, health obsessives are linking their data to chatbots to build hyperpersonalized coaches| Tom Wilson / Financial Times: |
Researchers say suspected Chinese hackers used open-source AI agents to build an autonomous hacking tool that compromised Taiwanese government websites in July — AI agents ran simultaneous reconnaissance and break-ins in display of new phase of cyberwarfare.
More: CNBC and Insurance Business
| Juro Osawa / The Information: |
Former Alibaba star researcher Junyang Lin launches Shanghai-based Pragmatik Labs to build digital and physical AI agents; Pragmatik hit a $2B valuation in June — Former Alibaba star researcher Junyang Lin announced that he had started a new AI company, confirming The Information's earlier reports.
More: Pragmatik Labs, Bloomberg, and RuntimeWire
| Zac Hall / 9to5Mac: |
SpaceXAI rolls out AI agent app Grok Bot in beta on macOS, iOS, Windows, and Linux, initially for SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra, and Cursor Teams Premium users — SpaceXAI and Cursor are in the process of becoming a single company, but first, the two firms are releasing an all-new iPhone and Mac app called Grok Bot.
More: xAI, SpaceXAI, The Verge, Financial Express, Bloomberg, Moneycontrol, Business Today, Constellation Research, Mashable, Neowin, RuntimeWire, Implicator.ai, Advanced Television, CNBC, VentureBeat, MacRumors, Digital Trends, Unite.AI, Motley Fool, Tech in Asia, and The Information
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| Kate Knibbs / Wired: |
A look at AI news website RuntimeWire, which costs $100/day to run and “beat” human reporters to OpenAI's Black Hat disclosure, favoring quantity over quality — Last week, an AI newsroom beat mainstream journalists—including WIRED—to a story about OpenAI and hacking. It's just the beginning.
More: Talking Biz News. X: @stokel and @nxthompson
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| Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: |
The US CFTC uses its “emergency authority” to order Kalshi to continue operating in New York after the state filed a lawsuit in July seeking to shutter Kalshi — The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced it had ordered prediction market operator Kalshi to continue operating …
More: CFTC, Decrypt, Unchained, Gizmodo, The Crypto Times, Cointelegraph, Blockonomi, CoinGape, crypto.news, Protos, Bitcoin News, Bloomberg, The Block, and Blockchain.News
X: @chairmanselig, @iohk_charles, @quinnypig, and @mollyisonchain
| Frederic Lardinois / The New Stack: |
OpenAI launches a ChatGPT desktop app for Linux in preview, supporting ChatGPT Work, Codex, and more; Computer Use outside the in-app browser is not available — On Tuesday, OpenAI launched its ChatGPT desktop for Linux. — Now in preview, the app, which combines ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work …
More: TechCrunch, Business Today, OMG! Ubuntu, The Decoder, Neowin, Implicator.ai, Linuxiac, RuntimeWire, The Verge, Thurrott, and SQ Magazine
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| Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC: |
A look at the challenges facing incoming Google DeepMind head Koray Kavukcuoglu, who joined DeepMind in 2012 and will oversee Gemini and frontier AI research — DeepMind's new boss is set to face intense pressure to close the AI performance gap with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Forums: r/technology
| Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: |
Skan AI, which is building a “context graph of work” by observing staff using enterprise software, raised a $63M Series C co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell — Skan AI, a startup that builds what it calls a “context graph of work” by observing how employees actually perform …
More: FinSMEs, Unite.AI, and RuntimeWire
| Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters: |
AI code review startup CodeRabbit raised a $143M Series C co-led by Atomico and Smash at a $1.5B valuation, after raising a $60M Series B in September 2025 — AI code review startup CodeRabbit said on Wednesday it had raised $143 million in a funding round that valued it at $1.5 billion.
More: FinSMEs, SiliconANGLE, Bloomberg, Axios, and Fidelity Investments
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
Bengaluru-based Yulu, which gets ~95% of its revenue from renting e-bikes to gig workers, raised a $93M Series C, sources say at a ~$170M post-money valuation — As India's quick-commerce platforms race to deliver everything from groceries to smartphones in minutes, electric mobility startup Yulu … | Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast: |
Q&A with Redwood Research Chief Scientist Ryan Greenblatt on AI R&D, RSI, whether human expert data bottlenecks AI progress, token prices, alignment, and more — A debate about recursive self-improvement. — Had Ryan Greenblatt on to discuss/debate recursive self-improvement.| Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: |
AT&T says open models currently account for ~25% of its AI usage, and it targets 70% to 80% over time; AT&T uses an average of 45B AI tokens per day — The telecom company is staking its future on open models, both to control token cost and protect its proprietary data
More: Forbes
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
AI code-testing startup Blacksmith raised a $45M Series B led by Peak XV Partners at a $550M valuation, up from $60M after it raised a $10M Series A in 2025 — As AI makes coding dramatically faster, the next big challenge in software development is testing and validating all that code.
More: FinSMEs
| Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times: |
Thrive Capital's Thrive Holdings, which acquires traditional service businesses and adds AI, raised $2B from SoftBank, D1, and others at a $12B valuation — The company, Thrive Holdings, acquires businesses to infuse them with artificial intelligence and drew interest from backers like SoftBank.| Dina Bass / Bloomberg: |
Super Micro reports Q4 revenue up 93% YoY to $11.1B, below $11.3B est., and forecasts Q1 and FY 2027 revenue above est.; SMCI jumps 10%+, and is up 15%+ YTD — Super Micro Computer Inc. gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter that topped analysts' estimates, a sign … | Paula Doenecke / Bloomberg: |
Amsterdam-based neocloud Nebius reports Q2 cloud revenue up 514% YoY to $575M and total revenue of $582M, above $557M est.; NBIS jumps 15%+, and is up 145%+ YTD — Nebius Group NV reported a 514% jump in second-quarter sales for its cloud business following strong demand for AI computing power.| Ben Dummett / Wall Street Journal: |
Stockholm-based AI coding startup Lovable raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation, up from $6.6B in December 2025, becoming one of Europe's most valuable startups — New funding round catapults AI company into the ranks of Europe's most valuable startups — Artificial-intelligence startup Lovable …
More: Silicon Republic, FinSMEs, Tech.eu, Sifted, Lovable, Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Tech Funding News
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| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Similarweb: Bluesky's mobile MAUs fell 27% YoY to 10.4M in June and DAUs fell 26% YoY to 3M in July; X's mobile MAUs fell 3% to 302M and DAUs fell 7% to 123.7M — Decentralized social network Bluesky was one of the bigger beneficiaries of the exodus from Elon Musk's X in November 2024, following the U.S. elections.
More: Manton Reece, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, and Pixel Envy
Bluesky: @dannypalmer, @thebluenami, @davidallengreen, @ascottreid, @jamesrball.com, @simonlester.com, and @caseynewton. Mastodon: @davidgerard@circumstances.run
Forums: Hacker News and r/BlueskySocial
| Loni Prinsloo / Bloomberg: |
African e-commerce company Jumia raised $50M, including ~$25M from the World Bank; its US-listed shares are down from $60+ in 2021 to $6, valuing Jumia at $743M — Jumia Technologies AG secured $50 million in fresh equity funding from its biggest shareholder and the World Bank's International Finance Corp … | Chase DiFeliciantonio / Politico: |
OpenAI VP of Global Policy Ann O'Leary says AI policy in the US is anchored in the states and still informed by California's AI transparency law passed in 2025 — SACRAMENTO, California — A senior OpenAI global affairs chief said AI policy is still anchored in the states …
| Wall Street Journal: |
The NYC Council sent letters to Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan to investigate alleged deceptive marketing practices and targeting minors — Probe targets the marketing practices of four prediction markets with operations in the city — The New York City Council …
More: CNBC, City of New York, Bloomberg, CoinGape, Blockonomi, Bloomberg Law, crypto.news, Reuters, and Joe.My.God.
| Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
CoreWeave reports Q2 revenue up 112% YoY to $2.58B, vs. $2.56B est., a $104B revenue backlog, and active power up nearly 500 MWs to 1.5 GW; CRWV jumps 20%+ — CoreWeave shares jumped 14% in extended trading on Tuesday after the AI infrastructure provider reported results than topped Wall Street expectations.
More: CNBC, CoinDesk, Forbes, New York Times, Business Wire, Fortune, Blockonomi, Reuters, SiliconANGLE, The Information, RuntimeWire, Constellation Research, TheEnergyMag, Wall Street Journal, Quartz, Bloomberg, Pulse 2.0, and The Stack
X: @oguzerkan, @firstadopter, @midnight_captl, @firstadopter, and @stocksavvyshay. Bluesky: @edzitron.com. Forums: r/wallstreetbets
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