Iris Deng / South China Morning Post: Huawei unveils HarmonyOS 7, introducing an “agent-friendly” architecture that connects to 2,000+ specialized AI agents and features an enhanced voice assistant  —  HarmonyOS 7 introduces an agent-friendly architecture and upgraded AI assistant as Huawei seeks to capitalise on Apple's China AI gap

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: A Ukrainian extradited from Ireland to the US pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in Conti ransomware attacks between 2021 and 2022  —  A Ukrainian national extradited from Ireland to the United States last year has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges tied to the Conti ransomware operation.

Ananya Palyekar / Reuters: Anthropic says it believes the US government's export control order for Mythos 5 and Fable 5 is a “misunderstanding” and that it is working to restore access  —  Anthropic said on Friday it has been ordered by the U.S. government to suspend access for all foreign nationals …

Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat: Moonshot AI releases Kimi K2.7-Code, claiming 30% lower reasoning token usage compared to K2.6, available under a modified MIT license  —  Moonshot AI released Kimi K2.7-Code this week, an open-source update to its K2 coding model family, claiming leaner reasoning and double-digit performance gains.

Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal: Crypto-data provider Blockworks says it has acquired its rival Messari; source: Blockworks paid more than $10M for Messari, which was valued at $300M in 2022  —  Buyer pays more than $10 million for company valued at around $300 million in 2022  —  The crypto-data provider Blockworks …

Anthropic: Anthropic says it is disabling Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all customers after the US government issued an export control order, citing national security concerns  —  The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 …

Axios: Source: the US Commerce Department decided to block foreign persons from accessing Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after a company claimed it was able to jailbreak Mythos  —  The Trump administration is blocking foreign governments, companies and individuals from accessing Anthropic's most advanced AI models.

Wall Street Journal: OpenAI was subpoenaed on Friday by a coalition of state AGs for documents covering a wide range of its activities and impact on users  —  Company subpoenaed for documents covering wide range of its activities and impact on users  —  A coalition of state attorneys general has opened …

Wired: Sources detail frustration inside Meta's Applied AI team, formed in March to support Superintelligence Labs, over menial projects, “soul-crushing” work, more  —  Executives and employees alike are struggling with Meta's chaotic AI strategy, according to sources and internal discussions reviewed by WIRED.

Yasmin Khorram / Politico: The US DOJ approves Paramount's $111B purchase of WBD without forcing divestitures or behavioral remedies; state AGs could still try to block the move  —  In a statement, the Antitrust Division said its eight-month review “determined based on the evidence received in its investigation …

Vanity Fair: Sources: three ex-DOGE staffers are raising $130M from a16z, Sequoia, and others for a startup that aims to use AI to secure government systems  —  The engineers who wreaked havoc on Washington are ready for their second act.  —  Some of Elon Musk's earliest Department of Government Efficiency recruits …

Financial Times: KPMG retracts a report on AI's benefits after it has been found to exaggerate AI adoption with case studies that appear to have been based on AI hallucinations  —  Bogus case studies on UBS and transit systems exaggerated adoption of the technology.  A KPMG report on how AI is being used …

Bloomberg: Sources: Roku is in talks to sell itself; its shares have risen about 24% this year, giving the company a market value of $19.9B; ROKU jumps 20%+ after hours  —  Roku Inc., the streaming video platform, is in talks to sell itself, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Jyoti Mann / The Information: Staff memo: Meta plans to limit employee token usage and encourage employees to use MetaCode, after internal AI spending forecasts reached billions for 2026  —  Meta Platforms plans to clamp down on skyrocketing AI costs inside the company by imposing limits on employees' token usage …

Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg: Sources: SpaceX decided to rent its Colossus 1 data center to Anthropic after internal teams struggled to use it for Grok development due to latency issues  —  - Musk's firm struggled with latency issues with Colossus 1  — SpaceX has made AI infrastructure a key part of its IPO pitch

Aaron Holmes / The Information: Sources: Microsoft considered spinning out or restructuring its Xbox unit as a wholly-owned subsidiary, or creating a joint venture with other partners  —  As Microsoft gets ready to overhaul its struggling Xbox gaming unit, it hasn't ruled out spinning out or restructuring the unit …

Maxwell Zeff / Wired: A profile of former Google DeepMind employee Thibault Sottiaux, now OpenAI's head of core products tasked with combining ChatGPT and Codex into a super app  —  Thibault Sottiaux helped make AI coding one of OpenAI's fastest-growing businesses.  Now he's overseeing a sweeping overhaul of ChatGPT.

Alex Harring / CNBC: SpaceX debuts on the Nasdaq at $150, after pricing at $135, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire; SPCX closes up 19%, for a ~$2.1T market cap  —  SpaceX shares soared on Friday as trading commenced on the Nasdaq, propelling the rocket company's valuation above $2 trillion, after a record-setting initial public offering.

CNBC: SpaceX makes Nasdaq debut at $150 after pricing at $135: Live updates … SpaceX opened trading Friday at $150 under the ticker SPCX after the biggest initial public offering ever.  —  At $150, SpaceX is valued at just under $2 trillion, making it the sixth-most valuable U.S. company, ahead of Meta and Tesla.

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: Meta's services, including Facebook and Instagram, are recovering after a brief outage that affected thousands of users  —  Facebook-parent Meta (META.O) said on Friday that users were having trouble accessing the social media company's services.  —  “We're aware people are currently having trouble accessing our services.

Kayla Cobb / The Wrap: MrBeast hits 500M subscribers on YouTube, a record for the platform  —  The creator is the first to ever reach this milestone  —  MrBeast has broken yet another record.  Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, hit 500 million subscribers on YouTube Friday, becoming the first creator ever to reach that amount.

Luc Cohen / Reuters: Sam Bankman-Fried loses his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of FTX  —  Sam Bankman-Fried lost on Friday his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded.

The Information: Sources: six months after acquiring Rivos, Meta is struggling to integrate the chip startup and halted development of a chip for training its largest AI models  —  Meta Platforms bought semiconductor startup Rivos last year to accelerate development of in-house chips and reduce its reliance …

Bloomberg: Sources: French startup Mistral AI is in talks to raise ~€3B at a ~€20B valuation; it was last valued at €11.7B during a funding round in September 2025  —  French startup Mistral AI is in talks to raise around €3 billion ($3.5 billion) at a valuation of roughly €20 billion …

Wall Street Journal: Companies hit by rising AI costs are increasingly using tools that tap cheaper models, including some from China, putting price pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic  —  Startups and tech giants alike are mixing and matching AI models to avoid the premium prices charged by industry leaders

Kenneth Shepard / Kotaku: Niantic Spatial says Pokémon Go data is “not part of” its deal with spatial AI company Vantor, after concerns that game data could be used for military drones  —  The company says it no longer receives data from the monster-catching app after Niantic was acquired by Scopely

FinSMEs: New York City-based Current, which manages a consumer fintech platform, raised an $80M Series E at a $1.5B valuation led by Springcoast Partners  —  Current, NYC-based provider of a consumer fintech platform, raised $80M in Series E equity financing, at a $1.5 Billion valuation.

Cecilia Kang / New York Times: Google sues Chinese cybercrime network Outsider Enterprise, accusing it of using Gemini AI to create fake websites and scam hundreds of thousands of Americans  —  Google warned that artificial intelligence had supercharged the problem of online scams.Andria Lo for The New York Times

Reuters: SpaceX's trading debut will be a test of the “Musk premium”, the force behind Tesla's $1T+ valuation, and a gauge of investor appetite ahead of upcoming AI IPOs  —  SpaceX (SPCX.O) is set to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday after investors poured $75 billion into the world's biggest IPO ever …

Lauren Almeida / The Guardian: FanDuel owner Flutter plans to delist its London shares on August 3, citing low trading and high costs; Flutter moved its primary listing to the US in 2024  —  Gambling business, which also owns Betfair, to focus on New York in latest high-profile blow to UK stock market

Kanoko Matsuyama / Bloomberg: Memory chipmaker Kioxia replaces Toyota as Japan's most valuable company; Kioxia's shares surged 7.6% on Friday, lifting its market value to ~$274B  —  Memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings Corp. replaced Toyota Motor Corp. to become Japan's largest company by market value, underscoring …

Reuters: Sources: Nvidia has told Chinese clients that its new Vera CPUs for AI data centers could be available as soon as August and that they can begin placing orders  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) has told Chinese clients that its new “Vera” central processors for AI data centres could be available as soon …

New York Times: How Chinese manufacturers are dominating the humanoid robot supply chain, even as the industry struggles to find a purpose for such robots  —  China's lead in humanoid robots was evident at last month's Humanoids Summit, a robotics conference in Tokyo.Videos by Qilai Shen and Hiroko Masuike

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Hyderabad, India-based Equal AI, which makes an eponymous AI-powered call screening app, raised a $30M Series B led by Prosus Ventures and Tomales Bay Capital  —  In India, consumers receive a lot of calls every day, ranging from spam and scams to delivery people and financial service companies trying to contact them.

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: Oracle warns customers of a critical PeopleSoft flaw after ShinyHunters claimed breaches of 100+ organizations using PeopleSoft; Oracle has not issued a patch  —  Oracle warned its corporate customers that there is a critical-rated vulnerability in its PeopleSoft software …

Christina Kyriasoglou / Bloomberg: Infineon plans to open a €5B chip factory in Germany backed by EU subsidies, its largest single investment, on July 2 as Europe seeks to boost chip production  —  Infineon Technologies AG is preparing to open its largest single investment, a €5 billion ($5.8 billion) …

The Information: How Anthropic is blindsiding business partners by launching potentially competitive products with little warning, changing pricing, and more  —  Weeks before Anthropic in April revealed Claude Design, an AI tool for creating designs and software application prototypes, it asked firms including Figma …

Julia Fioretti / Bloomberg: Sources: Shenzhen-based humanoid robot manufacturer EngineAI has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO; the company was last valued at $1.5B in April 2026  —  Chinese robotics startup EngineAI has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter …

Josh Scott / BetaKit: Canadian challenger bank Koho raised a CA$130M Series E at a CA$1.33B valuation, up from $800M in 2023, as it nears obtaining a Canadian banking license  —  FinTech firm passes 2.5 million users as it navigates “final stages” of acquiring banking licence.  —  Canadian challenger bank Koho Financial …

Christopher Dring / The Game Business: Q&A with Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball about returning to console-exclusive releases, how using in-game ads could offset development costs, and more  —  ‘If Xbox can turn things around, the whole industry can,’ says Ball  —  Listen now on Apple, Spotify or YouTube

Samantha Kelly / Bloomberg: An interview with Grindr CEO George Arison on turning the dating app into a “global gayborhood” hub with services for HIV treatment, hotel bookings, and more  —  Madonna made a surprise appearance in Times Square last week, promoting her latest album, Confessions II.

Alex Riehl / BetaKit: Nesto, a Montreal-based mortgage and finance tech startup, raised a CA$302M Series E at a CA$1.47B valuation to expedite deployment of its lending platform  —  Montréal-based digital mortgage lender wants to speed up approvals using AI.  —  Montréal-based online mortgage lender Nesto …

@semianalysis_: Analysis: assuming API pricing, the $200/month Claude Max and ChatGPT Pro plans offer up to ~$8,000/month and ~$14,000/month worth of tokens, respectively  —  Recently, we purchased one of each Anthropic/OpenAI subscription plan and randomly ran long horizon coding tasks until we exhausted the weekly limit. It's widely believed that a $200/month plan maxes out at ~$2000/month worth of tokens (assuming API pricing). However, we found [image]

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: Xiaomi releases MiMo Code V0.1.0, an open-source AI coding assistant that it says outperforms Claude Code on agentic coding and software engineering benchmarks  —  Xiaomi's MiMo AI team has open-sourced MiMo Code V0.1., a terminal-native AI coding assistant that the Chinese electronics giant …

Associated Press: Zelle owner EWS says it plans to expand the payment service later in 2026 to India, its first international market, and create its own USD-backed stablecoin  —  Peer-to-peer payment service Zelle will expand to India later this year, the payment service's first international market since …

Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC: Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI startups have announced major London expansions over the past year, as the city emerges as a deep AI talent pool outside the US  —  A slew of U.S. Big Tech and AI companies are racing to expand in London as they look to take advantage of the city's deep talent pools amid …

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden introduce the JAWBONE Act, which would let Americans sue US officials who try to coerce broadcasters or platforms into censoring speech  —  US Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today introduced the JAWBONE Act, a proposed law that could fuel lawsuits …

Chris Metinko / Axios: Agentic workplace startup Genspark raised a $100M Series B extension at a $2.6B post-money valuation, up 63% in just three months; it has raised $645M+ to date  —  Agentic workplace startup Genspark raised $100 million in Series B extension funding at a $2.6 billion post-money valuation, co-founder Wen Sang tells Axios Pro exclusively.

Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters: Adobe reports Q2 revenue up 13% YoY to $6.62B, vs. $6.46B est., and raises its annual forecasts; CFO Dan Durn is leaving for Marvell; ADBE drops 5%+ after hours  —  Adobe (ADBE.O) raised its annual revenue and profit forecasts on Thursday, but the sudden exit of CFO Dan Durn added to concerns …

Bloomberg: Sources: Founders Fund's ~3% stake in SpaceX is now worth $50B+, after investing $600M; a16z will get the biggest return in its history, with a $10B+ stake  —  A small number of firms are set to net tens of billions of dollars in returns from SpaceX's initial public offering …