This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the data center buildout, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Years before the AI boom threatened local power […]
Researchers cobbled together funding and time to show how quantum computing could aid in the development of drugs to help underserved populations and combat rare diseases.
NeuroVFM is a generalist neuroimaging foundation model from the University of Michigan, trained on 5.24M clinical MRI and CT volumes.
India is moving from semiconductor planning to execution, using funding, tariff changes, foreign investment approvals, and regional development efforts to build a broader electronics ecosystem beyond assembly.
Ed Chi, vice president of research at Google DeepMind, said AI's next milestone will be its evolution from the fast, pattern-recognition-oriented thinking associated with System 1 toward the deeper reasoning capabilities of System 2.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk do not like each other. That dislike was on full display on social media over the weekend.
Musk and Altman clash over Apple's lawsuit, Google and Microsoft back a rival agent protocol, and OpenAI ships GPT-Live voice. 15 stories for July 13
PLUS: Canadian/Bhutanese datacenter for India; China re-uses a rocket; Australia signals AI intervention; And more!
Elon Musk and Sam Altman's rivalry is heating up again. This time, Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI has sparked fresh jabs on social media. Who's got the upper hand?
The U.S. government's use of export controls to restrict Anthropic's AI models sets a precedent. What does this mean for the future of AI regulation?
The debate over AI personhood raises complex legal and ethical questions. While some argue for granting AI systems legal rights, critics warn of the risks to human accountability.
Fiona Fung's leadership at Anthropic showcases how AI is reshaping software development. With AI tools, her team has increased output eightfold. Discover what's driving this transformation.
Andrew Ambrosino's vision for OpenAI's Codex isn't just another tech feature. It's reshaping how AI impacts our workplaces by emphasizing 'taste' as the new critical skill.
OpenAI introduces a significant update to ChatGPT, embedding Codex and launching a Work agent and hosted site services. This evolution could redefine enterprise AI workflows.
GPT-5.6 Sol has taken the lead in AI model benchmarks, outperforming its counterparts in key tasks. Here's why this matters to developers and AI enthusiasts alike.
Muse Image leverages public Instagram photos to create AI-generated masterpieces. This raises questions about privacy and the future of digital creativity.
OpenAI's latest AI model, ChatGPT 5.6, finally sees daylight after a staggered release due to U.S. government cybersecurity concerns. The careful rollout highlights the delicate balance between innovation and regulation.
OpenAI has decided to retire ChatGPT Atlas, its desktop browser, in favor of a new unified ChatGPT desktop app. This move hints at a strategic shift towards integrated AI solutions.
News publishers accuse OpenAI of hiding tools that could identify copyrighted content in ChatGPT, fueling their lawsuit with a motion for sanctions.
One of the consequences of GPT-5.6 Sol being clearly a Fable/Mythos class model is that Anthropic have, once again, bumped the date that Fable stops being available in their Claude Max plans: We're extending Claude Fable 5 access on all paid plans, as well as keeping Claude Code’s weekly rate limits 50% higher,...
OpenAI just lost another leader of one of its safety teams. The company's safety and alignment teams have had high turnover in recent years.
Claude Code now has a built-in browser that lets the AI open, read, and interact with web pages directly inside the development environment.
The world’s most valuable assets are stored on rows of servers in giant, anonymous buildings. And they can be stolen.
OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 models are winning praise from an unlikely group. Users in mainland China, where the service is blocked and reachable only by VPN or third-party proxy, told the South China Morning Post the models are worth the extra cost.
Anthropic's distillation complaints expose an awkward question: does AI's fair use argument cut both ways?
Beijing’s cybersecurity warning against Anthropic is expected to speed up a shift already under way.
S&P Global has downgraded Oracle's credit rating to "BBB-," one notch above junk status.
A few days after every 20VC x SaaStr pod, I’m gong to write up the stuff going foward I went deep on, and wanted to go … even deeper on. We covered a lot this week with Harry Stebbings and Rory O’Driscoll, from Washington lifting the Fable 5 ban to Sam Altman floating a 5%... Continue Reading
AI-generated content hasn't diluted Hacker News discussions. Yet, its subtle influence raises questions about the future of online forums.
NVIDIA's push for hardware-friendly AI models promises faster processing but raises questions about long-term viability. Are these models truly revolutionary or just a marketing play?
Apple's M7 Ultra chip could feature up to 1.5TB of unified memory, reportedly bringing AI performance closer to Nvidia Blackwell while powering future Macs and Apple Intelligence servers.
The user could write up the metaethical argument — the one developed in Part One, refined — and submit it as feedback to Anthropic, publish it, or engage with researchers working on AI alignment and values.
Anthropic's J-space research reveals a hidden layer in AI models where reasoning unfolds, without attributing consciousness to machines.
Sam Altman claims Elon Musk's fixation on him resurfaced after a recent OpenAI model launch. The ongoing rivalry highlights the intense competition in AI innovation.
Claude Code integrates a browser, allowing AI to interact with the web. User controls act as a safeguard, but does this mark a shift toward more autonomous AI?
We installed Open Design, pointed it at our own site, and let Claude Code drive: brand extraction, a component kit, a sponsor media kit, a PDF export. The output is real, and the token meter shows what free costs.
Anthropic analyzed 1.2 million Claude Cowork sessions from more than 600,000 organizations.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman now says he's "pretty sure" AI has created more jobs than it's eliminated.
Microsoft Copilot now covers everything from free AI chat to Office tools and GPT-5.6-powered work features, so here’s how its many versions fit together.
Musk and Altman's latest public feud escalated July 11 with accusations over space data centers and Grok 4.5 adoption at Tesla/SpaceX. The fight reveals the strategic split between orbital compute and terrestrial buildout for AI infrastructure.
Athenry, Ireland became ground zero in 2015 for a growing global conflict between tech giants and local communities over data centers. As AI's hunger for energy grows, this battle is far from over.
S&P Global's recent downgrade of Oracle's credit rating highlights OpenAI's turning point role in Oracle's financial health. A sudden shift could leave Oracle in a precarious position.
The Wall Street Journal printed an outright false headline and heavily misleading story claiming this, which of course was uncritically amplified by the usual suspects.
The Kyutai spinout is opening a Bay Area office less than a year after forming, with valuation and Nvidia's deal terms undisclosed.
Anthropic's analysis reveals that half of the AI's usage is dedicated to mundane office tasks. The focus is on tasks many avoid, such as report compiling and checklist creation.
Instagram's latest AI feature raises privacy eyebrows, as it dives deeper into users' data. Is it innovation or just invasive?
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, now claims AI boosts employment, marking a significant departure from previous warnings of job loss. What's behind this change?
Christian Cantrell's Palo Alto lab is chasing control, typography, and workflow depth against image models from OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.
Apple has filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the ChatGPT maker of orchestrating a systematic campaign to steal confidential hardware designs, manufacturing processes, and supplier relationships through more than 400 former Apple employees now working at OpenAI.
OpenAI isn't abandoning its browser ambitions. it's recalibrating the strategy. This shift reflects a broader vision than competing directly in the browser space.
Meta has disabled a feature allowing AI deepfakes of any public Instagram account. This raises questions about privacy and AI's role in social media.
In a significant organizational shift, OpenAI is merging its research and safety departments under a single executive role. This change raises questions about the future prioritization of AI safety.
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni's AI shopping app faces allegations of inflating affiliate sales with fake clicks. The incident raises questions about the ethical oversight in AI-driven commerce.
The rapid expansion of AI servers and large language models (LLMs) is driving unprecedented demand for data center computing, making high-speed interconnect technologies one of the next major battlegrounds in AI infrastructure.
Coherent has agreed to prepay AXT US$22.3 million under a three-year agreement for committed 6-inch indium phosphide substrate capacity, showing how buyers are moving to reserve future supply as AI data center investment strains a concentrated photonics materials market.
ChatGPT is hiring a dedicated product manager to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults, according to a job posting.
In this tutorial, we explore NVIDIA tile-based GPU programming with TileGym, building a Colab workflow that runs across different hardware.
Dubbed “Freeze AI on Slushy Day,” the march wound from OpenAI’s Mission Bay HQ to Anthropic and Google, with a detour to jeer at a16z.
Lorde was performing at the Real Cool Festival in Madrid on Thursday and took some time during her set to speak out against AI glasses. While she didn't specify any brands in particular, it's likely she was taking a shot at festival sponsor Ray-Ban, which has collaborated with Meta on a pair of AI smartglasses. […]
Apple's self-driving car program never really got off the ground, but it may have been what made the company's chips the powerful AI performers they are.
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part.
Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft and engineer poaching is heating up Silicon Valley's talent war. With both companies having been close partners before, this legal battle is a masterclass in the risks when partnerships sour.
Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, accusing the AI startup of orchestrating a campaign to steal trade secrets from iPhone maker.
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra produced a proof of the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture in under an hour, using 64 subagents working in parallel.
This wasn’t a contest so much as a sweep. Kimi-K2.7-Code dominated the matchup on both score and consistency, beating mistral-medium-3-5 across nearly every task type with a decisive 100% confidence verdict.
OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna tested: benchmarks, $1 to $30 pricing, 1M context, and where Claude still wins. Full hands-on review.
A Cambridge study found that Boko Haram uses AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to plan attacks, build explosives, and maintain weapons.
Apple sues OpenAI, Gemini 3.5 Pro gets a July 17 date, SK Hynix lands the largest ADR debut ever. The 15 biggest AI stories for July 12, 2026.
Apple lawsuit against Sam Altman's OpenAI explained, including trade secret theft, former employees, AI hardware, and supplier claims.
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra has cracked the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture, unsolved for half a century, in less than an hour. Is this computational prowess a leap in AI creativity or just a high-speed remix of existing knowledge?
The defense-AI company asked current and former employees in May to move from ESOP rights to a plan without direct equity.
Business Insider's Stephen Council used OpenAI Codex to build a custom Mac clipboard app in minutes—no coding required.
OpenAI’s head of safety systems, Johannes Heidecke, is leaving the company following an internal restructuring that merges its safety and research teams under a single leader, Wired reported on Friday.
OpenAI's merger of Codex with ChatGPT offers a new way to manage text snippets on your computer. It's a simple yet powerful tool for anyone juggling words.
OpenAI has responded after being sued by Apple over alleged theft of the iPhone maker's trade secrets.
Anthropic's AI model, Fable 5, is back online after the Trump administration lifted an export control. This heavyweight AI tool, now available again, highlights the tension between innovation and regulation.
OpenAI contemplates a 5% stake to the US government, aiming to align AI benefits with national interest. Sam Altman leads this unexpected strategic play.
NASA's agentic search system leverages large language models to speed up geoscience data discovery, offering a new benchmark for efficient retrieval and analysis.
Google’s newly surfaced Magic Pointer listing reveals a Gemini-powered cursor for Googlebooks, but incompatible Android devices mean the feature remains an early preview rather than something consumers can try today.
Apple has sued OpenAI in a California federal court, accusing the ChatGPT maker of using current and former employees to steal hardware designs as it prepares to launch AI-focused consumer devices.