Techmeme
September 29, 2026, 2:30 AM

Top News

Maxwell Zeff / Wall Street Journal:
OpenAI scraps plans to publicly launch a model dubbed GPT-6.1 Astra, saying it didn't quite meet its safety bar; it had been targeting an October release  —  Model dubbed GPT-6.1 Astra was due to make its debut inside ChatGPT and Codex in October  —  OpenAI is scrapping the release …
Axios:
Florida AG James Uthmeier files for an emergency injunction to halt ChatGPT development, saying OpenAI doesn't have the ability to properly regulate its tech  —  Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has asked for an emergency injunction against OpenAI and ChatGPT, claiming the company …
Joe / @joedaroo:
AI Security Institute:
Echo Wang / Reuters:
IPO prospectus: Anthropic reports a net loss of $42B in 2025, with operating losses of $8B+; revenue grew 12x to ~$4.6B, ~25% of which came from two customers  —  Anthropic is making a massive bet that AI will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization …
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
AMD agrees to acquire Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B in an all-stock deal expected to close by year-end; Li will join AMD as EVP and chief scientist  —  Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. agreed to acquire World Labs for $8.2 billion, gaining an artificial intelligence startup founded …
Anthropic:
Anthropic releases Sonnet 5.5, saying it generates outputs 30%+ faster than Sonnet 5 and costs up to 30% less per task, and plans to release Haiku 5.5 soon  —  Sonnet 5.5 is a faster, lower-cost complement to Claude Opus 5.5.  Where Opus 5.5 is built for complex work requiring careful judgment …
Artificial Analysis:
Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index: Sonnet 5.5 (max) ranks above GPT-6 Astra (max) and behind only Opus 5.5 (max) but has the highest token use of them all  —  With max effort, Sonnet 5.5 gains 18 points over Sonnet 5 and moves to #2 on the Intelligence Index, behind only Opus 5.5 (max).
New York Times:
Internal memo: FBI said it is “operating under the premise” that a threat actor stole PII of all employees; ShinyHunters set a Tuesday deadline tied to demands  —  In an internal memo, the F.B.I. said it believed the hackers may have stolen sensitive information on all of its employees.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Nvidia launches the Open Agent Safety Platform, a reference design to stop AI agents from escaping sandboxes, with OpenShell for CPUs and Sentry for Nvidia DPUs  —  Nvidia is rolling out a new software platform to allow AI developers to set safeguards for agents and prevent them from breaking out of containment.
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
Sen. Blumenthal-led report: Tether's USDT is central to Iran's shadow banking system; 87% of 757 “terrorism”-related wallets predominantly transacted in USDT  —  In the 28-page report, Sen. Blumenthal said the panel's Democratic investigators analyzed blockchain transaction data …
Utkarsh Shetti / Reuters:
AI agent startup Instinct raised a $1B Series C from Sequoia, Benchmark, and Coatue at a $10B valuation and details recent products, such as a concierge service  —  AI agent firm Instinct said on Monday it has raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation in a Series C funding round.
Patrick O'Shaughnessy / Colossus:
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Mark Zuckerberg unveils Meta Enterprise Platform, the “next major pillar of our business” to deploy AI tools, led by MongoDB CEO Chirantan Desai  —  The tech giant is pushing to monetize its multibillion-dollar AI investments by selling more tools and services to companies
Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung commits $1B to AI infrastructure company Helix, adding to the $10B already secured when a KKR-led consortium including Nvidia established Helix in June  —  Helix expects to leverage Samsung's capabilities to support AI infrastructure development at scale
Bloomberg:
Sources detail the lengths SoftBank went to secure its $11B junk bond sale, including high yields, to replace a $40B bridge loan for its OpenAI investment  —  SoftBank Group Corp.'s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son has said he's “all in” on AI.  The conglomerate's record $11.1 billion junk bond deal …

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