The Information: SambaNova Executive Chairman Lip-Bu Tan says the AI chip startup is set to raise $800M to $1B, sources say at a ~$10B valuation, up from $2B in February  —  AI server chips that effectively compete with Nvidia's have never been more in-demand as AI developers and cloud providers seek lower-cost alternatives to the market leader.

Reuters: Qualcomm expects $15B in data center chip sales by 2029, raises its non-handset chip revenue forecast to $40B by 2029, up from $22B; QCOM jumps 13%+ after hours  —  Qualcomm (QCOM.O) said it expects to generate $15 billion in sales from its data center business by 2029 as it moves beyond …

Every second of a professional basketball game now generates more than 20,000 data...

While AI dominates the layoff narrative, engineers are actually making up a larger share of new hires, according to SignalFire data.

Top AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, following departures from top scientists Noam Shazeer and John Jumper.

"Contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion."

Revenue quadrupled to $41.45 billion compared with the same period a year ago. The company's profit, meanwhile, rose from $1.88 billion to an incredible $28.2 billion year-over-year.

We still don't know why RFK Jr. overruled CDC expert to order strict quarantines.

Thomas Claburn / The Register: Cloudflare partners with Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla on PACT, a protocol to distinguish legitimate human or bot traffic from undesirable network requests  —  Makers of Chrome, Edge, Firefox back bot-fraud defense called Private Access Control Tokens  —  Cloudflare on Monday …

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Researchers believe rogue peering was used to connect to the victim's SD-WAN devices to gain admin privileges and root-level access.

Bill Gates had several dinners in Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion. He told Congress the conversations revolved around philanthropy. US Department of Justice Bill Gates told Congress Jeffrey Epstein pitched him on his connections to billionaires. Gates said he believed Epstein could direct the money of billionaires' estates to his foundation. Gates also said Epstein wormed his way into his life with "veiled threats" to disclose affairs. Why did Bill Gates have so many meetings with Jeffrey Epstein? According to the Microsoft founder, Epstein had something few other people could offer: connections to billionaires planning where their money would go when they died. The ultrawealthy sex offender had pitched himself as someone who could help bring enormous sums of money to the Gates Foundation's global health initiatives from Wall Street and Middle East billionaires figuring out their estate plans, Gates told a congressional committee. "It was because of his purported relationship with billionaires, and because he was part of those tax and will discussions, that it seemed credible to me that he might be able to raise — or be a referral source to help raise — billions of dollars for global health," Gates said. Gates described his relationship with Epstein in a June 10 interview with the House Oversight Committee that lasted nearly six hours. The committee, which is investigating Epstein's relationships with powerful people, released a transcript on Tuesday afternoon. Gates said he had at least a dozen meetings with Epstein — at his Manhattan mansion, on a private jet, and over Skype — between 2011 and 2014. He said the discussions in those meetings revolved around raising funds for philanthropy, and that he regrets them. Gates hasn't been accused of any sexual misconduct related to Epstein — who pleaded guilty in 2008 to sex offenses in Florida and died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on more severe federal sex-trafficking charges. In his interview with members of the House Oversight Committee, Gates disclosed that he had previously cooperated with a law enforcement investigation into Epstein, sitting for an interview with US Virgin Islands investigators into Epstein's sex-trafficking operation. Gates apologized for allowing Epstein to use him to improve his own reputation in the aftermath of his initial criminal conviction. "I see now that he sought to build an image of legitimacy around himself using connections to reputable and powerful people to deflect scrutiny and attempt to rehabilitate his reputation," Gates said. Epstein often told people that he made his money by managing the money of billionaires. His estate, which included his Manhattan mansion, an island in the US Virgin Islands, was valued at $630 million after his death. His only known billionaire financial clients were former L Brands CEO Les Wexner and former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black, both of whom cut ties with Epstein after accusing him of acting dishonestly with their money. The Epstein files released by the Justice Department showed that he unsuccessfully tried to convince Mort Zuckerman, the billionaire real estate and media mogul, to hand over control of his finances to him. According to Gates, Epstein said he could direct his clients' money to the Gates Foundation as part of their "tax and will discussions." "The key time when people think that through is when they're doing their will — how much goes to their children," Gates told the House Oversight Committee. "For people who are very rich, hopefully they think of a large sum being available for philanthropy." Epstein used his relationship with Gates to maintain ties with JPMorgan Chase, which had raised red flags when his accounts withdrew large sums of cash in the years following his 2008 conviction. Epstein pitched two of the bank's executives, Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes, on the idea of setting up a donor-advised fund for the Gates Foundation's Global Health Program at the bank, according to emails obtained through a now-settled lawsuit by US Virgin Islands against JPMorgan Chase. Gates told the House Oversight Committee that he discussed the donor-advised fund with Epstein "but it was a dead end." The Epstein files released by the Justice Department show that Epstein communicated with former Microsoft executives Steven Sinofsky and Nathan Myhrvold and former board member Reid Hoffman. Gates told the committee he was unaware of their relationships with Epstein. Gates said he wasn't knowledgeable about Epstein's relationship with Melanie Walker, a former Gates Foundation employee with whom Epstein frequently communicated. Former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates, and Boris Nikolic were photographed together after a dinner in Epstein's home. US Department of Justice Aside from fruitless discussions about philanthropy, Epstein wormed his way into Gates' life in more sinister ways, Gates said. Gates told Congress he first met Epstein in 2011, following an introduction by Boris Nikolic, who at the time worked for his foundation. Representatives for Nikolic didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Nikolic knew about extramarital affairs Gates had with two women, Gates said. Emails released by the Justice Department show that Nikolic sought Epstein's advice on extracting a favorable exit package two years later, when he was leaving his role as a science advisor for Gates' private office. Epstein knew about those two affairs and appeared to be friendly with a third woman he had an affair with, Gates told Congress. Epstein made "veiled threats" to disclose those affairs, he said. "He never blackmailed me, but looking at these emails, it raises a serious probability that he contemplated blackmailing me," Gates said. On one occasion — after Gates said he cut ties with Epstein, in December 2014 — Epstein asked Gates to reimburse him for several thousand dollars in expenses related to one of the women Gates had an affair with, emails show. Gates didn't pay it and said he viewed the request as "a tactic" to re-engage with the sex offender. "I took that on very explicitly and said, 'Look, if you think you're going to get more money out of this, it's not going to happen, and if that means you go out and talk to people about things, I will just bear the pain of that and deal with it,'" Gates told Congress. Correction: June 24, 2026 — An earlier version of this story mischaracterized Boris Nikolic's roles working for Bill Gates. Nikolic worked for Gates' foundation and negotiated an exit package after working for his private office. Read the original article on Business Insider

Indie movie fans are upset about Google DeepMind’s $75 million investment in the studio, which comes as AI companies are deepening their influence in Hollywood.

According to a new site, 24% of the most popular websites in the world don't offer support for passkeys, which are considered the most secure way to log in to apps and services.

"Operation Endgame" simultaneously disrupts two widely used crime tools.

Agility Robotics' humanoid Digit. Bloomberg/Getty Images Agility Robotics plans to go public via a SPAC at a $2.5 billion valuation. Agility has deployed Digit robots at Amazon, Toyota, and the logistics firm GXO. Agility has more than $300 million in multiyear orders for its next-generation humanoid. Humanoid robot maker Agility Robotics said Wednesday that it plans to go public in a deal valuing the company at about $2.5 billion. The deal would make Agility, which builds a robot called Digit, the first humanoid-focused company to go public in the US. The startup spun out of Oregon State University in 2015 and is now led by Peggy Johnson, former Magic Leap CEO and longtime Microsoft and Qualcomm executive. Agility plans to merge with Churchill Capital Corp XI, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by former Citigroup executive Michael Klein. It is expected to trade under the ticker AGLT. "The timing is right, both for our company and for the market," Jonathan Hurst, Agility's cofounder and chief robot officer, told Business Insider. "We're hitting now as a first mover, which is really important, and we want to be defining the humanoid industry." A SPAC is a publicly traded shell company with no operations or assets, other than a war chest of cash. It is created to eventually be acquired or merged with another company, allowing it to go public without a traditional initial public offering. The structure boomed in 2021, when low interest rates fueled a wave of blank-check deals. While SPAC activity cooled in the following years, it is gaining renewed attention as the IPO market revives. Hurst said the company chose the SPAC route specifically to bring in Klein, whose team has the financial expertise to complement Agility's technical focus as it goes public. Klein is a prolific SPAC sponsor, and he has recently helped take companies such as Sam Altman-backed nuclear power company Oklo and electric vehicle maker Lucid public. The deal is expected to generate more than $600 million in gross proceeds, including $420 million in cash from Churchill XI and more than $200 million through a common-stock private investment in public equity led by Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that is an existing Agility investor. Other Agility backers include venture firm DCVC, Nvidia, Amazon, and SoftBank. Hurst said going public will allow Agility to be more transparent as it scales and helps set benchmarks in a hyped-up industry. Agility plans to expand its Digit robot Agility said the money raised from going public will go toward fulfilling existing customer orders, expanding deployments, and scaling production of its next-generation humanoid, Digit v5. Digit is a full-sized humanoid that can perform repetitive physical tasks, such as carrying heavy storage and sorting goods. Agility has already deployed its Digit robot across nine customer facilities, including those of Amazon, Toyota, and the logistics company GXO. Agility is the first company to commercially deploy humanoids in the US. Tesla is developing Optimus, which it plans to begin producing this summer. Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics plans to deploy its Atlas humanoid in factories in 2028. Figure AI, most recently valued at $39 billion, piloted its humanoids at a BMW manufacturing plant in Germany and has a deal to deploy robots across the distribution and logistics network of Catalyst Brands, the parent company of JCPenney, Aéropostale, and Brooks Brothers. Agility said it has more than $300 million in multiyear orders for Digit v5. The robot's battery is designed to charge quickly enough to operate for 20 of 24 hours, Hurst said. Agility's biggest focus, Hurst said, is safety. Any humanoid robot typically requires a physical barrier between itself and human workers, and Agility wants to create robots safe enough to operate without that. "Digit v5 will be the first that can just walk into existing as-built environments without any additional infrastructure required, and do human workflows in human spaces," Hurst said. Agility is working with Nvidia on the safety system. This week, Nvidia announced Halos for Robotics, a safety system designed to help robots operate around people in industrial settings. Agility will be the first company to incorporate the software into its humanoids. Agility's SPAC deal comes as the humanoid robotics industry moves from flashy demos toward deployment. The market is dominated by Chinese companies such as Unitree, which is preparing to go public and targeting a valuation of up to $7 billion. Chinese robotics firms accounted for about 90% of humanoid robot shipments last year, according to Omdia. Read the original article on Business Insider

Mark Zuckerberg at the UFC Freedom 250 event. Alex Brandon/AP Photo Mark Zuckerberg is launching his next major project: a betting platform modeled after Polymarket. The prospects for success are good — which alarms some experts. This story was originally published on WELT. Mark Zuckerberg has spotted a trend — once again, after others got there first. When videos exploded on TikTok, the Meta chief built Reels. When users began fleeing Twitter, he launched Threads. When dating apps flourished, he introduced Facebook Dating. And now, as online betting booms, the 42-year-old is entering the business — a few years late. Internally, the project is called "Arena," and it is set to become an app competing with platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi — platforms where users can bet in real time on who will win the next election, whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, or whether Donald Trump will mention McDonald's in a speech next week. News of the "Arena" plans, first reported by The New York Times, spread within minutes on Tuesday. The market quickly grasped what Meta's potential entry would mean: When a company with more than 3 billion members on Facebook and Instagram begins nudging its users toward betting, there is much to lose — and even more to gain. "Meta shows that we are still in the early days of the prediction market experiment," historian and author Jonathan D. Cohen said. Cohen, who researches online gambling, predicts the current dominance of market leader Kalshi is likely to end soon. "We might not even understand yet the degree to which the market will change — how many new platforms we are going to have, and how much further gambling is going to seep into every corner of American life." A Supreme Court ruling that changed everything Until 2018, online betting was effectively prohibited in the United States. Then the Supreme Court overturned the ban, and what followed was a gambling expansion onto millions of phones at a scale almost reminiscent of the Gold Rush era. Today, America bets. And it does so massively. According to the American Gaming Association, Americans wagered approximately $150 billion on sporting events alone last year — predominantly on smartphones or laptops. That represents an increase of 11% compared to 2024. Thirty-nine states have now legalized online sports betting. A survey by the Siena College Research Institute found nearly 22% of US adults report having at least one active account with a betting provider. Nearly half of men aged 18 to 49 have an account. "We are witnessing the largest and fastest explosion of gambling this country has ever seen," said Cait Huble of the nonprofit National Council on Problem Gambling. Public awareness, however, is lagging about a decade behind other addiction issues, she says — a gap that could lead to unforeseen harm. Alongside this development, a second industry has emerged — one that prefers not to call itself gambling: so-called prediction markets. Polymarket and Kalshi, the two dominant platforms, claim they are not running gambling operations but rather information markets. The concept: The more people bet real money on events, the more accurate the resulting probabilities become. The platforms' breakthrough came during the 2024 presidential election. Billions of dollars were wagered on the candidates, and the platforms delivered accurate forecasts — in some cases outperforming traditional opinion polls. Since then, they have become a fixture in political discourse. A billboard for Kalshi shows 2024 US presidential election odds. Bloomberg/Getty Images Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan put it this way: Prediction markets are "the most precise thing humanity has ever had" when it comes to forecasting the future. Experts dispute that, but so far the platforms' success lends it credibility. In 2025, Kalshi and Polymarket together recorded a combined trading volume of around $50 billion, and both companies expect a significant increase this year. A report by Eilers & Krejcik, a research firm specializing in sports and gaming, says the figure could reach $1 trillion by the end of this decade. A regulatory gray zone Traditional sports betting apps are subject to state-level regulation, complete with protective measures — self-exclusion programs, advertising restrictions, and contributions to addiction prevention initiatives. Prediction markets, by contrast, are overseen by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). That means they are legal even in states that have otherwise prohibited online betting, without being subject to the same oversight that governs other providers or casinos. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour insists on the distinction: He says his platform does not operate gambling, but trades contracts on events. Eight states see it differently and have filed cease-and-desist actions against Kalshi. The Trump administration has left the matter unresolved for now. Ultimately, the Supreme Court may well have to decide. Tarek Mansour, co-founder of Kalshi, during a joint SEC-CFTC roundtable in September 2025 Bloomberg/Getty Images Heather Wardle, a professor of gambling research at the University of Glasgow, sees an urgent need for action. "Companies are using all the information, data, and insights they have about people to increase their profits," she told Psychology Today. Is that precisely what Meta now has in mind? The company has denied, according to The New York Times, that the "Arena" app will be directly linked to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The phenomenon of online betting has also become a subject of academic research. A 2024 study by researchers at the University of Southern California examined the effects of the legalization of online sports betting. The findings were stark: The probability of personal bankruptcy rose by 10%, and the value of debts passed on to collection agencies increased by 8%. Young men are disproportionately affected. According to the University of Rochester, 2 million adults in the United States meet the clinical criteria for gambling disorder — a condition that researchers say falls into the same diagnostic category as alcohol and drug dependence. Cohen, the historian and author, is calling for stricter regulation of the platforms. "We're talking, for example, about 19-year-old men who've put together an Excel spreadsheet with three AI lines of code in their parents' basement and then think they've figured out the betting system and will never have to work a real job again," he says. And the platforms' strategy, he argues, is clear: "Betting on a cell phone should become as normal and accessible as playing Candy Crush." There is also a political dimension. In April, federal prosecutors in New York City indicted a member of the US special forces for allegedly using classified information to place bets on the secret plan to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, has said he would not vote for legalization and is pushing for higher taxes on sports betting revenues. Democratic Massachusetts state Sen. John F. Keenan introduced the "Bettor Health Act," which would, among other measures, restrict aggressive push notifications. Such measures could also affect Zuckerberg's "Arena" plans. What makes the experiment compelling is that Meta has more experience than virtually anyone else in the world in keeping users on a platform and analyzing their behavior. Whether "Arena" will shake up the market remains to be seen in the months ahead. The conditions are certainly favorable in a society where betting on the future — on elections, on crises, on catastrophes — has become a routine leisure activity. Then again, Zuckerberg's last major venture, the 3D universe known as the Metaverse, turned into a multibillion-dollar flop. Chances are, it won't be long before someone opens a market on whether Zuckerberg will fail or triumph with "Arena". This story originally appeared on WELT and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms. Read the original article on Business Insider

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Micron reports Q3 revenue up 346% YoY to $41.46B, vs. $35.84B est., gross margin above estimates, and forecasts Q4 revenue above est.; MU jumps 14%+ after hours  —  Micron's revenue more than quadrupled in the fiscal third quarter, the company said on Wednesday, as the memory maker continued …

Persistent cybercrime, social engineering, and infrastructure threats continue to plague the FIFA 2026 World Cup across the US, Canada, and Mexico.

It has 205 miles of bare-bones range.