OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, initially for customers in its Daybreak program; Greg Brockman says it is a “generational leap” and “we are now in the AGI era”  —  OpenAI's next big model is here: GPT-6 Astra.  The company calls it a “generational leap in capability” …

Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9B, its second-biggest acquisition yet, after it paid $20B to buy assets from chipmaker Groq in December 2025  —  Nvidia has officially agreed to buy open-source artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion …

Microsoft will open Xbox Cloud Gaming to non-Game Pass users via a pay-as-you-go model; Ultimate subs will be limited to 15 hours per month of cloud gaming  —  Microsoft is trying once again to tempt people without an Xbox into its ecosystem. … Microsoft says it will let anyone access Xbox Cloud Gaming …

Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok are now operational after widespread outages on Thursday  —  A widespread outage has taken out popular AI platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok.  —  Update 8:49am PT: Services appear to be coming back online, with user reports dropping.

All G20 nations unanimously endorse the non-binding Carolina Principles, a US-proposed framework calling for a lighter touch to governing emerging tech like AI  —  Representatives from the world's largest economies unanimously agreed to adopt guidelines proposed by the US that call …

Nvidia launches Personal AI Router (PAIR), a free tool that distributes local AI inference workloads across compatible computers on a network, in beta  —  PAIR is designed to get your desktop and laptop working together on local AI tasks when not in use.

Sources: Cursor was a top-five OpenAI customer at the start of 2026; OpenAI estimated in spring that Cursor would bring in $1B+ in annualized revenue for OpenAI  —  OpenAI recently estimated its Cursor partnership would make more than $1 billion in revenue a year, WIRED has learned.

Anker unveils the Eufy MindBase, a local AI hub for its cameras that runs an on-device, Anker-developed LLM, with a dedicated AI chip and up to 48TB of storage  —  The company also announced a new Eufy video doorbell with VR features and a window camera.

Modern venture capital has transformed into an unchecked oligarchy, or “Cancer Capital”, where mega-firms managing $50B+ live off fees and shift risk elsewhere  —  We really, really need to talk about venture capital.  Because it's not “venture capital” anymore.

Humain launches humain-m3, an Arabic-language model developed with MiniMax, amid controversy among US allies over sovereign AI built with Chinese models  —  Saudi Arabia's artificial intelligence company Humain has built a national AI platform based on an open model from Chinese lab MiniMax Group Inc. …

Microsoft AI debuts MAI-Transcribe-2, a speech recognition model that it says beats Gemini 3.5 Transcribe and GPT-Transcribe, at $0.10/audio hour through 2026  —  Then it priced the thing at 10 cents per hour of audio.  —  That figure deserves a pause. … Thursday's early-bird price cuts that by roughly 72%.

Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talks to raise $1B+ at a $40B+ pre-money valuation, lower than the $50B+ valuation it sought last year  —  Thinking Machines Lab, the AI developer led by ex-OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is in talks to raise at least $1 billion …

TrendForce: for a 256GB iPhone Pro model, Q3 memory costs are forecast to be up nearly 400% YoY; Apple is not expected to pass on the full increase to customers  —  A new market intelligence report suggests that Apple will be paying four times more for iPhone 18 Pro memory than it did for last year's model.

India-based smart ring maker Ultrahuman raised $70M, including $5M in debt, a source says at a $365M valuation, and is working with Qualcomm on a new ring  —  Ultrahuman, an Indian startup best known for making smart rings, has raised $70 million in a new funding round that includes backing …

How organized opposition that toppled a $100B data center project in Virginia's Prince William County became a blueprint for data center backlash in the US  —  Organized opposition toppled a $100 billion project from developers backed by two of the world's biggest private equity companies.

DOD's Emil Michael says Anthropic is still a designated supply chain risk, a day after Howard Lutnick said it resolved its issues with the Trump administration  —  US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Anthropic PBC has resolved its long-running issues with the Trump administration but a top Pentagon official begs to differ.

PitchBook: 95+ investors put money into both Anthropic and OpenAI amid shifting norms; sources: Menlo, Lightspeed, and Iconiq each hold 1%-2% Anthropic stakes  —  As the artificial intelligence companies Anthropic and OpenAI prepare to go public, the question around Silicon Valley is which investors will win big.

A White House official says Zuckerberg opposed a US AI regulator in a call with Trump last month; another source says he didn't ask Trump to change his stance  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed concerns about plans for a national AI regulator in a previously unreported phone call …

The Trump administration imposes tariffs of up to 100% on foreign drones, including 100% on models over 55lbs or with thermal imaging, in a bid to thwart China  —  In addition, the F.C.C. is weighing stiff restrictions on common drone technology such as thermal imaging and aerosol spraying.

Upwind, which filters false security alerts in cloud apps so companies can focus on actual risks, raised ~$300M at a ~$3.8B valuation, up from ~$1.5B in January  —  The Israeli cloud security company was valued at $1.5 billion when it raised $250 million in January, and has since attracted fresh backing …

Nvidia says the RTX Spark N1X launches in October in two configurations: a 20-core CPU with a 6,144-core Blackwell GPU and an 18-core CPU with a 5,120-core GPU  —  Nvidia is finally getting more specific about the launch of the RTX Spark.  The chip, which it is now officially calling the …

Muse Spark 1.3 with max reasoning, in limited preview for partners, scores 62 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, behind only Fable 5.1 and Opus 5  —  Meta has released Muse Spark 1.3, their fourth Muse Spark model release in five months. Muse Spark 1.3 (max), which is in limited preview for Meta's partners, scores 62 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, behind only Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Opus 5. The variant available now, Muse Spa...