2026-06-17
Grok helped strike 2,000 targets at Iran. Now its pollution is ‘national security’.
The Pentagon says Grok helped strike 2,000 targets in 96 hours, and that the polluting power plant behind it is a matter of paramount national security. The two claims belong in the same sentence, and that is the problem. The admission did not come in a press release or a Pentagon briefing, it came in […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]
2026-06-17
Neuralink finally has a real rival: Paradromics just put a brain chip in its first patient
Neuralink has dominated the brain-chip story for two years. It now has a serious challenger with a patient of its own. Paradromics, an Austin neurotech firm, has implanted its Connexus brain-computer interface in the first participant of its FDA-approved clinical study, the company said. The patient, a Michigan woman who has lost the ability to […]<br /> This story continues at The Next We [...]
2026-06-17
A startup that builds offensive cyber weapons just became a $1bn unicorn
Most cybersecurity startups sell shields. Twenty sells the sword, and investors just valued that at $1bn. The company, which describes itself as America’s first venture-backed cyber warfare firm, has raised a $100mn Series B led by Accel, Axios reported. The round, with Point72 Ventures, Caffeinated Capital and Friends & Family Capital also taking part, brings […]<br /> This story co [...]
2026-06-17
Jeff Bezos is backing a two-year-old Cambridge AI lab at a $2.6bn valuation
Jeff Bezos appears to have settled on his AI thesis, and it is not chatbots. It is the physical world. CuspAI, a two-year-old Cambridge startup that uses AI to design new materials, is in talks to raise about $400mn at a $2.6bn valuation, the Financial Times reports. The round is led by Bezos Expeditions, the […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]
2026-06-17
Odyssey took Nvidia’s money. Now it’s raised $310M betting on Amazon and AMD
Odyssey, an AI lab building real-time ‘world models’, has raised $310mn at a $1.45bn valuation. The more telling number is whose names are on the round. The Series B was led by Natural Capital, with Amazon, AMD Ventures, Google’s GV, EQT and the CIA-linked fund In-Q-Tel taking part. As part of the deal, AWS becomes […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]
2026-06-17
The tokenmaxxing era is over. Now companies are ‘tokenminimizing’
A year ago, the smart move inside a big company was to use as much AI as humanly possible. Some firms even ranked employees on leaderboards by how many tokens they burned, a status game that earned its own name: tokenmaxxing. That era is ending. The same companies are now capping AI use, and the […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]
