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Art via Mike Sullivan

Standard Intelligence Rides Neolab Fervor with Computer Use Model

By Rocket Drew · Apr 30, 2026 7:00am PDT

Pedestrians in downtown San Francisco are used to seeing Waymos navigating the streets. But two months ago, people in the South Park neighborhood saw something new: a Toyota Rav4 driving around with a laptop propped on the dashboard. The laptop was running a new breed of AI model, known as a “computer use model,” from a two-year-old startup... Pedestrians in downtown San Francisco are used to seeing Waymos navigating the streets. But two...

Photo by Amy Osborne/Getty Images

Artificial Intelligence

Musk Battles OpenAI Lawyer Over Claims Co-Founders Stole a Charity

By Rocket Drew · Apr 29, 2026 8:01pm PDT

The AI era’s mega-trial delivered its first real drama, as an OpenAI lawyer sought to portray Elon Musk as resentful and double-dealing during a tense cross examination Wednesday. Bill Savitt, OpenAI’s outside counsel, and a veteran of legal combat with Musk, called into question Musk’s motivations for bringing the lawsuit and sought to... The AI era’s mega-trial delivered its first real drama, as an OpenAI lawyer sought to portray...

Left to right: Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Google's Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Google Cloud and AWS Shine in Big Tech's Quarterly Update

By Martin Peers · Apr 29, 2026 5:00pm PDT

It was the Super Bowl of quarterly tech earnings today, with March-quarter results from Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms. The tsunami of numbers, all released within a few minutes of each other, might overwhelm even a top AI model. But for a human, what was clear was that surging demand for AI computing capacity is lifting cloud... It was the Super Bowl of quarterly tech earnings today, with March-quarter results from Google,...

Art by Mike Sullivan

XAI Shows How Hard It Is to Use a Lot of GPUs at Once

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2026 7:05am PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan

XAI Shows How Hard It Is to Use a Lot of GPUs at Once

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2026 7:05am PDT

AI developers have been desperately scrambling to get ahold of Nvidia server chips lately, as we wrote last week. When developers do get the graphics processing units, they’re under a lot of pressure to wring as much performance as possible from that expensive hardware.That’s easier said than done. Training AI models can be “bursty,” meaning... AI developers have been desperately scrambling to get ahold of Nvidia server chips lately, as we...

Art via Getty Images

The Asterisk on Benchmark’s Manus Exit

By Julia Hornstein · Apr 28, 2026 5:27pm PDT

Benchmark’s investment in the startup behind the AI agent Manus drew flack last year from some venture capitalists who viewed the investment in the company, which was founded in Beijing, as a national security risk. But when Meta said in December that it was buying the startup, called Butterfly Effect, for over $2 billion, the early-stage... Benchmark’s investment in the startup behind the AI agent Manus drew flack last year from some...

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. Lauren Justice/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

OpenAI's Wall Street Disconnect

By Martin Peers · Apr 28, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Talk about out of touch with reality. Investors slammed the tech sector on Tuesday, spurred in part by a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI had missed some internal revenue projections. Among the biggest to take a hit were two cloud firms that depend heavily on OpenAI for business: Oracle and CoreWeave, whose stocks fell 4% and 5.8%,... Talk about out of touch with reality. Investors slammed the tech sector on Tuesday, spurred in...

Photo by Noah Berger/Getty Images

AWS Joins Superagent Race, Pushes Its Own Version of Claude Cowork

By Laura Bratton · Apr 28, 2026 11:50am PDT

Amazon Web Services has been in the spotlight this week because it can now sell OpenAI models to its cloud-server customers for the first time, thanks to a sudden change in OpenAI’s long-running partnership with Microsoft. But AWS is still chasing its white whale: creating a hit enterprise application.With that in mind, AWS on Tuesday... Amazon Web Services has been in the spotlight this week because it can now sell OpenAI models to...

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Startup Founded by Ex-Nvidia Researcher Among New World Models Endeavors

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Julia Hornstein · Apr 28, 2026 7:00am PDT

Art via Getty Images

Startup Founded by Ex-Nvidia Researcher Among New World Models Endeavors

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Julia Hornstein · Apr 28, 2026 7:00am PDT

Young startups such as Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs have raised billions of dollars in funding in the last year to develop world models. That’s the term for foundation models that approximate the physics of how objects and humans interact with their surroundings—attributes some researchers believe are key to developing... Young startups such as Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs have raised billions of...

Satya Nadella, left, and Sam Altman. Photos by Getty Images.

How Nadella and Altman Averted a Legal War Over AWS

By Aaron Holmes and Sri Muppidi · Apr 28, 2026 6:44am PDT

For years, executives at Microsoft have become accustomed to tussling with OpenAI over the terms of the companies’ complicated business partnership, which gave Microsoft exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s technology to cloud customers. Then two months ago, the ChatGPT maker announced a surprise deal to sell its AI to businesses through Amazon, a... For years, executives at Microsoft have become accustomed to tussling with OpenAI over the terms...

Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen. Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images

Tencent’s New Model Shows Improvement, Partly Thanks to Anthropic

By Juro Osawa · Apr 28, 2026 6:00am PDT

Chinese tech giant Tencent’s latest AI model has generated positive reviews from developers. But the company probably owes some of that success to Anthropic. Tencent employees used Anthropic’s Claude to assist them with evaluating and fine-tuning the model, known as Hy3, to improve its performance, according to two people with direct knowledge... Chinese tech giant Tencent’s latest AI model has generated positive reviews from developers. But...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai attends a dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the State Dining Room at the White House on March 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Google Signs Classified AI Deal With Pentagon Amid Employee Opposition

By Erin Woo · Apr 27, 2026 9:55pm PDT · 1 comment

Google and the Department of Defense signed a deal allowing the Pentagon to use Google’s AI models on classified work, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The agreement allows the Pentagon to use Google’s AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to the person—echoing language that has been controversial in other... Google and the Department of Defense signed a deal allowing the Pentagon to use Google’s AI...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Sven Hoppe/Getty Images.

Microsoft Comes Out of OpenAI Deal a Winner; Risks in AI Financing

By Martin Peers · Apr 27, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Sven Hoppe/Getty Images.

Microsoft Comes Out of OpenAI Deal a Winner; Risks in AI Financing

By Martin Peers · Apr 27, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Microsoft and OpenAI had big news this morning but before we dive into that, it's fair to say there’s a lot of excitement among investors (and reporters!) about the upcoming SpaceX IPO. But some people have a refreshingly realistic assessment of the situation. “There’s a trillion ways this can go wrong,” said Ashley MacNeill, co-head of capital... Microsoft and OpenAI had big news this morning but before we dive into that, it's fair to say...

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AI Infrastructure

Startup GridCare Aims to Tap Hidden Power Capacity

By Ann Davis Vaughan · Apr 27, 2026 8:00am PDT

Power scarcity is all anyone talks about in the AI world. Funny how we actually have plenty.GridCare, which emerged last year from a Stanford University sustainability accelerator, has surprised AI developers and even utilities by finding power that they can tap even in congested urban markets where the grid appeared sold out.Power grids are... Power scarcity is all anyone talks about in the AI world. Funny how we actually have plenty....

Art via Getty Images

The Nuances of Cursor’s Gross Margin; Comparing GPT-5.5 and Claude Mythos

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Cory Weinberg · Apr 27, 2026 7:00am PDT

Before we get to today’s column, we’ve got an update in tech’s favorite relationship: OpenAI and Microsoft. As a result of a revision to their deal, Microsoft Azure no longer has exclusive rights to sell OpenAI models and that Microsoft no longer has to share 20% of the revenue it makes from selling OpenAI models on Azure with OpenAI. Both... Before we get to today’s column, we’ve got an update in tech’s favorite relationship: OpenAI and...

Musk-OpenAI and Big Tech Earnings on Deck This Week

Musk-OpenAI and Big Tech Earnings on Deck This Week

By Martin Peers · Apr 26, 2026 3:00pm PDT

This is going to be a fun week. First, Elon Musk and Sam Altman square off in a California court over the origins of OpenAI (for more details, see here). The final outcome probably won’t have a huge impact on the ChatGPT company—Musk’s chances of both winning the case and getting everything he wants from a victory seem unlikely, as we wrote here... This is going to be a fun week. First, Elon Musk and Sam Altman square off in a California court...