The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

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The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

Get smarter about the day’s news in tech, media and finance by following Silicon Valley’s most-read executive newsletter.

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Recent Editions

Art via Getty Images

The Four Keys to Surviving the SaaSpocalypse

By Rocket Drew · Jul 15, 2026 9:45am PDT

To survive a zombie apocalypse, you’d probably want to team up with people who are skilled at medicine, engineering, farming—and your prepper uncle who stockpiles beans. To survive a SaaSpocalpyse, who should you team up with?Suppose for a second that the most extreme version of software disruption comes to pass: a couple years from now, AI... To survive a zombie apocalypse, you’d probably want to team up with people who are skilled at...

Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, left, and Roger Dassen, CFO of ASML. Photo by Lina Selg/ Getty Images

ASML Plans Price Increases for Chipmaking Equipment, Despite TSMC Resistance

By Qianer Liu · Jul 15, 2026 8:34am PDT

Chip toolmaker ASML, which makes equipment that plays a central role in chip production around the world, plans to raise prices, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. That’s likely to bring ASML into conflict with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest chipmaker and ASML’s largest customer, which ... Chip toolmaker ASML, which makes equipment that plays a central role in chip production around...

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

The Information Finance

Coinbase, JPMorgan Partnership Delays Drag On

By Michael Roddan and Yueqi Yang · Jul 15, 2026 8:01am PDT

Last summer, JPMorgan Chase and Coinbase announced a major partnership to tie crypto into the bank’s banking and credit card offerings. The move marked a key endorsement of the top U.S. crypto firm from the biggest bank in the country. Nearly a year later, none of those features has gone live and the companies haven’t publicly... Last summer, JPMorgan Chase and Coinbase announced a major partnership to tie crypto into the...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Apple Hunts for AI Chip Acquisitions

By Aaron Tilley and Valida Pau · Jul 15, 2026 7:30am PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan

Apple Hunts for AI Chip Acquisitions

By Aaron Tilley and Valida Pau · Jul 15, 2026 7:30am PDT

Apple is on the lookout for acquisitions of chip companies to boost its efforts to build server chips for running AI, said people familiar with the company’s efforts. In recent months, the iPhone maker has talked with bankers about possible deals. It has also approached semiconductor startups to gauge their interest in selling themselves, the... Apple is on the lookout for acquisitions of chip companies to boost its efforts to build server...

Michael Truell, CEO of Cursor. Photo by Big Event Media/Getty Images.

Cursor Is Reinventing Itself as SpaceX Deal Looms

By Grace Kay · Jul 15, 2026 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Cursor, the coding startup set to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion later this year, has been mapping out a major transformation. Michael Truell, Cursor’s CEO, told staff in a companywide meeting in May that the company aims to become a top-tier AI model developer, according to three people who heard the comments, a shift from its roots of... Cursor, the coding startup set to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion later this year, has been...

Photo by Matthias Balk/Getty Images.

DeepSeek’s Annualized Revenue Nears $500 Million, Boosting Fundraise and IPO Plans

By Jing Yang, Qianer Liu and Juro Osawa · Jul 14, 2026 10:10pm PDT

Strong revenue growth at DeepSeek is empowering the Chinese open-source AI star to raise its second-funding round of 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) and plot a potential public offering in Shanghai next year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The three-year-old startup’s annualized revenue reached between $400 million and... Strong revenue growth at DeepSeek is empowering the Chinese open-source AI star to raise its...

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Shane Anthony Sinclair/Getty Images.

Hassabis’ AI Standards Idea Gets Support—What’s Next?

By Martin Peers · Jul 14, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Way to go, Demis Hassabis! The Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO won plaudits from much of the AI industry—including rivals OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Block co-founder Jack Dorsey and investors Ashton Kutcher and Chamath Palihapitiya—for proposing the creation of a new AI standards group funded by industry but... Way to go, Demis Hassabis! The Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO won plaudits from much of the...

Art by Mike Sullivan

FuriosaAI, Nuvacore, D-Matrix Join Chip Funding Spree

By Valida Pau and Phoebe Liu · Jul 14, 2026 4:50pm PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan

FuriosaAI, Nuvacore, D-Matrix Join Chip Funding Spree

By Valida Pau and Phoebe Liu · Jul 14, 2026 4:50pm PDT

Startups that make chips and related hardware smell cash in the air. Venture capitalists are more eager than they’ve been in years to fund these capital-intensive businesses, excited by Nvidia’s $20 billion Groq deal and signs other strategic buyers are circling. Founders are seizing the moment. Nuvacore, a startup focused on designing new... Startups that make chips and related hardware smell cash in the air. Venture capitalists are more...

Images via Getty; art by Mike Sullivan

Are AI Providers Really a Threat to Their Customers?

By Aaron Holmes and Rocket Drew · Jul 14, 2026 2:02pm PDT · 1 comment

Should businesses worry about whether leading AI providers are using their corporate data to develop competing products? The AI providers’ rivals, including the CEOs of Microsoft, Salesforce and Palantir, seem to think soThe real threat is far more subtle, having more to do with the high-level usage data AI providers can collect and a loophole... Should businesses worry about whether leading AI providers are using their corporate data to...

Art by Mike Sullivan

AWS Is Overloaded. These Cloud Startups Are Picking Up the Slack.

By Catherine Perloff · Jul 14, 2026 1:19pm PDT

Arcee, an open-source AI developer, in 2024 committed to spend $8 million over three years with Amazon Web Services to store data and run AI models. But the startup hasn’t been able to get access to enough Nvidia-powered servers on AWS to handle its work. So Arcee has ended up running most of its models on cloud upstarts including Hugging Face,... Arcee, an open-source AI developer, in 2024 committed to spend $8 million over three years with...

Prepare for Customer Calls with Google Gemini

Partner Content

Prepare for Customer Calls with Google Gemini

By The Information Partnerships · Jul 14, 2026 8:30am PDT

Pitching a new customer for the first time can be intimidating. Especially if most of your conversations are with existing clients and warm leads, it is often difficult to know where to start with a new customer. The prospect may know little to nothing about your product or service offering, and it is easy to fall into the trap of... Pitching a new customer for the first time can be intimidating. Especially if most of your...

Art by Clark Miller

What I Learned From a Year of TITV

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jul 14, 2026 7:59am PDT · 2 comments

Art by Clark Miller

What I Learned From a Year of TITV

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jul 14, 2026 7:59am PDT · 2 comments

A year ago today, The Information launched TITV, our daily video show breaking down the biggest stories in tech. It made sense: the team known for breaking the biggest news in technology should break it on video, too. Our journalists were ready. Our guests were booked. We were all in.The launch did not go smoothly, to say the least. A year ago today, The Information launched TITV, our daily video show breaking down the biggest...

Art via Getty Images.

Evaluating Models is Getting Even Harder

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 14, 2026 7:01am PDT · 1 comment

As AI gets more advanced, researchers are increasingly telling me that it’s also getting harder to evaluate how good AI actually is at various tasks. Most obviously, as AI improves, it quickly saturates all the benchmarks we have today and researchers have to rush to come up with even harder evaluations that the models won’t immediately... As AI gets more advanced, researchers are increasingly telling me that it’s also getting harder...

Art by Clark Miller.

Americans Deserve a Dividend From AI Companies’ Riches

By Scott Stanford · Jul 14, 2026 6:00am PDT · 12 comments

Suddenly everyone wants to hand the government a piece of AI. Sam Altman has discussed giving up a stake in OpenAI. Washington already owns 10% of Intel and has said it will take a cut of Nvidia’s China chip revenue. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants every major AI lab to put half of its stock into a new sovereign wealth fund. In soccer terms,... Suddenly everyone wants to hand the government a piece of AI. Sam Altman has discussed giving up...

Mark Zuckerberg. Getty Images.

Meta’s Louisiana Purchase

By Martin Peers · Jul 13, 2026 5:01pm PDT

You have to admire Meta Platforms’ public relations savvy. Its Monday announcement that it was putting an additional $40 billion into its giant Louisiana data center—making its total investment in the facility $50 billion—was perfectly designed to win over what has become a critical constituency in the data center market: local communities. “... You have to admire Meta Platforms’ public relations savvy. Its Monday announcement that it was...

Windrose Technology's long-haul electric truck, parked outside Laredo, Texas. Photo: Harold Keller

Exclusive: The Time Trevor Milton Made a Low-Ball Offer to Windrose Technology

By Steve LeVine · Jul 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

Windrose Technology's long-haul electric truck, parked outside Laredo, Texas. Photo: Harold Keller

Exclusive: The Time Trevor Milton Made a Low-Ball Offer to Windrose Technology

By Steve LeVine · Jul 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

Windrose Technology's long-haul electric truck, parked near Laredo, Texas. Photo: Harold KellerIn 2023, when Jason Roycht, then a senior executive with Nikola, first spoke with Wen Han, the founder of a new Chinese electric long-haul truck startup called Windrose Technology, his eyes widened. At the time, Nikola was struggling to commercialize... Windrose Technology's long-haul electric truck, parked near Laredo, Texas. Photo: Harold KellerIn...

Thomas Kurian, left, and Jensen Huang. Photos via Getty; art by Mike Sullivan

AI Infrastructure

Exclusive: Behind Google’s TPU Ground War to Lure Nvidia’s Most Loyal Customers

By Amir Efrati, Catherine Perloff and Phoebe Liu · Jul 13, 2026 8:00am PDT

Google is kicking off a ground war with Nvidia.While Google is one of the biggest buyers of Nvidia AI server chips, it has also been developing its own competing AI chip business that represents a threat to Nvidia’s dominant market share. Before this year, Google’s tensor processing units were housed almost entirely in Google facilities and... Google is kicking off a ground war with Nvidia.While Google is one of the biggest buyers of...

Art by Clark Miller.

From CLOs to ATMs, Wall Street Finds More Ways to Fund AI

By The Information Staff · Jul 13, 2026 7:38am PDT

For the past two years, funding the artificial intelligence boom has often felt like a race where the main constraint was the size of the checkbook. But as the industry moves from theoretical planning to the reality of building gigawatt-scale data centers, the financing is getting more complicated. To keep the money flowing, developers and their... For the past two years, funding the artificial intelligence boom has often felt like a race where...

Photo courtesy of Stephanie Palazzolo.

The Hottest Research Papers From the International Conference on Machine Learning

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 13, 2026 7:06am PDT

I’m only slightly jet-lagged after coming back from last week’s International Conference on Machine Learning in Seoul, where AI researchers from around the world shared new ways to run and train models more efficiently. Oh, and they also discussed the looming possibility of AI automating away their jobs. (Check out my newsletter on that subject... I’m only slightly jet-lagged after coming back from last week’s International Conference on...

Photo via Getty Images; Art by Mike Sullivan.

Wall Street’s Biggest Move to Blockchain Begins—With Limits

By Yueqi Yang · Jul 13, 2026 6:01am PDT

Photo via Getty Images; Art by Mike Sullivan.

Wall Street’s Biggest Move to Blockchain Begins—With Limits

By Yueqi Yang · Jul 13, 2026 6:01am PDT

One promise of the blockchain is that it could simplify the behind-the-scenes work of stock trades on Wall Street. That vision is due for its first real-world test in the coming days, when market infrastructure giant the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. plans to demonstrate live trades of stocks and other assets on the blockchain. Still, the... One promise of the blockchain is that it could simplify the behind-the-scenes work of stock...