TSMC opens first overseas chip lab with UTokyo Summary Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) have launched the TSMC-UTokyo Lab on UTokyo’s Hongo campus. This is TSMC’s first dedicated university partnership outside Taiwan. The lab will pursue research in materials, devices, processes, metrology, packaging and circuit design. UTokyo faculty will […]
Scale AI said to appoint new CEO after Meta deal Summary Jason Droege, Scale AI’s chief strategy officer, is reported to be named the company’s next CEO following a multibillion-dollar investment from Meta Platforms. Founder and current CEO Alexandr Wang is expected to step down and join Meta as part of the transaction. The deal […]
Ashton Kutcher’s VC firm leads $30m series A for agentic AI startup Summary Landbase, an AI marketing automation startup, has raised US$30 million in a Series A round led by Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures alongside Picus Capital, with participation from existing backers 8VC, A* and Firstminute Capital. The company uses a GPT‑4‑based platform trained on […]
Tesla sues ex-engineer over alleged robot trade secrets theft Summary Tesla has filed a lawsuit against former engineer Zhongjie “Jay” Li, alleging he stole trade secrets from its humanoid robotics programme, Optimus, to start a rival business. Tesla says Li downloaded confidential files about robotic hand sensors to personal devices and researched humanoid hand designs […]
AI note-taking app Fireflies.ai hits $1b valuation Summary Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant based in San Francisco, has surpassed a US$1 billion valuation after completing a tender offer that provided liquidity for 10–15% of early team members. The company claims use by 75% of Fortune 500 firms and more than 20 million users across 500,000 […]
Sequoia Capital leads $75m round for industrial software firm Summary Nominal, a Los Angeles-based industrial software startup founded in 2022, has raised US$75 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and existing investors including Lux Capital, General Catalyst and Founders Fund. The company builds software to help hardware […]
Morocco’s Jobzyn raises pre-seed led by Janngo Capital to scale AI-powered hiring across Africa Summary Jobzyn, a Moroccan HR tech startup founded in 2023 by Simo Zizi and Abdelbassite Badou, has closed an undisclosed pre-seed round led by Pan‑African VC Janngo Capital with participation from Digital Africa and angel investors. The capital will fund product […]
Who’s Afrobeats’ GOAT? What AI rankings reveal about global bias Summary TechCabal’s Opeyemi Kareem asked five AI models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, Perplexity and Grok) to rank the greatest Afrobeats artists and explain their reasoning. The piece documents wide inconsistencies: models changed answers when pressed for sources or justification, shifted from subjective measures (influence, artistry, […]
Trump’s FCC Just Used A Fake ‘Investigation’ To Shower AT&T And Elon Musk With Billions In Valuable Spectrum Summary The article argues that the Trump-era FCC, led by Brendan Carr, weaponised a purported “investigation” into Dish Network / EchoStar to pressure the company into selling off highly valuable wireless spectrum to politically connected buyers. Over […]
Business Insider Pulls 40+ Essays After Getting Conned By AI-Using Scammers Summary Business Insider has removed more than 40 personal-essay pieces after investigations revealed a wider fraud operation that used AI-generated content and fake bylines (notably names like “Margaux Blanchard”) to dupe multiple outlets. Reporting from the Washington Post and the Daily Beast shows the […]
