Monday, 31 August 2026
AI group launches $50M data center ad blitz
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Build American AI, backed by pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, is spending on ads and a new political committee in three states to counter backlash.
China sets terms for talks, hits Claude
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State-linked Chinese media accused Claude of covert monitoring and unauthorized data transmission, demanding the US follow the same rules first.
Meta tests robots to replace data techs
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Meta is piloting robotic arms and simple actuators from Kinova, ABB, and Watney Robotics to handle server power-cycling and cable swaps inside its data centers.
EU puts ChatGPT in toughest DSA tier
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Brussels classified ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox under the DSA's strictest rules after each passed 45 million EU users, with fines up to 6% of revenue.
Clipto raises $15M to search video like text
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The three-year-old startup hit $250M valuation on an all-equity round, already profitable on $15M in annual recurring revenue from AI-powered video search.
DeepSeek nears $7.4B round at $74B valuation
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DeepSeek is reportedly closing a roughly 50 billion yuan funding round by the end of August, more than doubling its June valuation ahead of a planned 2027 IPO.
ChatGPT ads hit $1B run rate in 200 days
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OpenAI's ad business is expanding to India, Europe, and the Middle East, with a $2.5B target this year as total company revenue tracks toward $40B.
Nvidia puts $3.5B into MediaTek chips
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Nvidia is buying convertible bonds in MediaTek and folding it into NVLink Fusion, a bet on staying central as its biggest customers design their own silicon.
Pentagon adds ChatGPT and Grok to its AI portal
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GenAI.mil now offers ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government alongside Gemini to 3 million personnel, while Claude stays excluded over a weapons-use dispute.
Google's TimesFM 3 forecasts multiple series at once
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The 330M-parameter forecasting model now handles related time series together and tops three public benchmarks, with weights open on Hugging Face.
OpenAI backs California's teen AI safety bill
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SB 1119 would force age checks, ban simulated romance with minors, and add parental self-harm alerts across AI chat products by mid-2027.
Saudi Arabia's Humain plans trucks by 2030
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Humain and Applied Intuition will deploy self-driving trucks across Saudi logistics corridors by 2030, building the world's largest autonomous trucking network.
Z.ai's revenue misses estimates on price war
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Z.ai's first-half revenue reached 954 million yuan, short of the 1.35 billion yuan expected, as China's AI price war squeezes near-frontier model makers.
Hugging Face's ASR leaderboard adds Hindi
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The Open ASR Leaderboard added Hindi, its first Indic language, using new evaluation sets covering nearly 4,900 speakers and a Hindi-specific error metric.
Circleback adds a free meeting-notes tier
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The AI meeting note-taker is opening a free plan to broaden its user base as competition in the category intensifies.
Caterpillar applies mining lessons to AI
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Caterpillar is using decades of autonomous mining experience to guide how it deploys AI across jobsites, manufacturing, and its own software development.