Search: “techmeme”

Sources: Upscale AI, which builds AI networking infrastructure, is in talks to raise 180M to 200M at a $2B valuation, its third funding round in seven months (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: Upscale AI, which builds AI networking infrastructure, is in talks to raise 180M to 200M at a 2B valuation, its third funding round in seven months — Artificial intelligence startu

Model Releases

The UK unveils Sovereign AI, a £500M fund to invest in domestic AI startups, starting with Callosum, which builds software to help different chips work together (Joel Khalili/Wired)

DGX agent

Joel Khalili / Wired: The UK unveils Sovereign AI, a £500M fund to invest in domestic AI startups, starting with Callosum, which builds software to help different chips work together — In a bid to min

model-releasestechmeme

16 Apr 2026

The US and the Philippines agree to launch a high-tech industrial hub on the island of Luzon to counter China's supply chains; the US will run it as an SEZ (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: The US and the Philippines agree to launch a high-tech industrial hub on the island of Luzon to counter China's supply chains; the US will run it as an SEZ — Hub will aim to forge

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei says TSMC checked with customers about AI demand and was reassured that it was still strong amid the Iran war, as it raises revenue forecasts (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: TSMC CEO C.C. Wei says TSMC checked with customers about AI demand and was reassured that it was still strong amid the Iran war, as it raises revenue forecasts — Taiwan company ex

TSMC reports Q1 revenue up 35.1% YoY to ~35B, net income up 58.3% YoY to ~18B, both above est., and says 7nm or smaller chips were ~74% of its wafer revenue (Dylan Butts/CNBC)

Dylan Butts / CNBC: TSMC reports Q1 revenue up 35.1% YoY to ~35B, net income up 58.3% YoY to ~18B, both above est., and says 7nm or smaller chips were ~74% of its wafer revenue — Taiwan Semiconductor

Voice actors worldwide are mobilizing to protect their livelihoods and personality rights as Hollywood studios push AI dubbing to replace human performances (Rina Chandran/Rest of World)

Rina Chandran / Rest of World: Voice actors worldwide are mobilizing to protect their livelihoods and personality rights as Hollywood studios push AI dubbing to replace human performances — Voice AI t

YouTube now lets users set a zero-minute Shorts time limit, effectively removing them from its iOS and Android app; the lowest previous option was 15 minutes (Stevie Bonifield/The Verge)

Stevie Bonifield / The Verge: YouTube now lets users set a zero-minute Shorts time limit, effectively removing them from its iOS and Android app; the lowest previous option was 15 minutes — All YouTub

A jury finds that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market, in a case brought by state AGs after the DOJ settled (NBC News)

NBC News: A jury finds that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market, in a case brought by state AGs after the DOJ settled — The federal government stru

A survey of US teens: ~90% say entertainment is a reason they use TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat, 57% Snapchat message daily, and 37% say TikTok impacts sleep (Pew Research Center)

Pew Research Center: A survey of US teens: ~90% say entertainment is a reason they use TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat, 57% Snapchat message daily, and 37% say TikTok impacts sleep — Teens largely turn

Safety

A TTP analysis finds dozens of nudify apps in Apple and Google app stores via search, despite company policy prohibiting them; the apps earned $122M+ in revenue (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: A TTP analysis finds dozens of nudify apps in Apple and Google app stores via search, despite company policy prohibiting them; the apps earned $122M+ in revenue — Apple Inc. and Google have

safetytechmeme

A US judge issues a $322.2M judgment against pirate library Anna's Archive for scraping Spotify, a largely symbolic victory as the site is anonymously operated (Rachel Scharf/Billboard)

Rachel Scharf / Billboard: A US judge issues a $322.2M judgment against pirate library Anna's Archive for scraping Spotify, a largely symbolic victory as the site is anonymously operated — At least fo

Accel raised 5B, including a 4B Leaders fund, focused on writing large checks to late-stage startups globally, and a 650M sidecar fund, taking AUM to 36B (Rebecca Torrence/Bloomberg)

Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: Accel raised 5B, including a 4B Leaders fund, focused on writing large checks to late-stage startups globally, and a 650M sidecar fund, taking AUM to 36B — Accel, the ven

Adobe unveils Firefly AI Assistant, which can orchestrate and execute multistep tasks across Creative Cloud apps, available in public beta in the coming weeks (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Adobe unveils Firefly AI Assistant, which can orchestrate and execute multistep tasks across Creative Cloud apps, available in public beta in the coming weeks — Last October,

AI cloud infrastructure company Parasail raised a 32M Series A led by Touring Capital and Kindred Ventures, bringing its total funding to 42M (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch)

Tim Fernholz / TechCrunch: AI cloud infrastructure company Parasail raised a 32M Series A led by Touring Capital and Kindred Ventures, bringing its total funding to 42M — “Give me tokens. Just give me

AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm invest 60M in London-based self-driving tech startup Wayve as part of an extension to its 1.2B Series D, announced in February (Kirsten Korosec/TechCrunch)

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm invest 60M in London-based self-driving tech startup Wayve as part of an extension to its 1.2B Series D, announced in February — Chipmakers AMD, Ar

Analysis: nearly 90 schools and 600 students globally have been impacted by AI-generated deepfake nudes; North America had nearly 30 reported cases since 2023 (Matt Burgess/Wired)

Matt Burgess / Wired: Analysis: nearly 90 schools and 600 students globally have been impacted by AI-generated deepfake nudes; North America had nearly 30 reported cases since 2023 — An analysis by WI

Anthropic rolls out identity verification that may require Claude users to provide a government-issued photo ID and live selfie to access 'certain capabilities' (Jose Antonio Lanz/Decrypt)

Jose Antonio Lanz / Decrypt: Anthropic rolls out identity verification that may require Claude users to provide a government-issued photo ID and live selfie to access “certain capabilities” — Anthropi

Apple endorses the ~$11.6B Amazon-Globalstar deal, citing a 'proven track record' with Amazon infrastructure; Apple holds a ~20% stake in Globalstar (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Apple endorses the ~$11.6B Amazon-Globalstar deal, citing a “proven track record” with Amazon infrastructure; Apple holds a ~20% stake in Globalstar — Amazon.com Inc.'s takeov

Artemis, which aims to replace rule-based cybersecurity systems with an AI-driven centralized 'brain', emerges from stealth with a $70M Series A led by Felicis (Sharon Goldman/Fortune)

Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Artemis, which aims to replace rule-based cybersecurity systems with an AI-driven centralized “brain”, emerges from stealth with a $70M Series A led by Felicis — Artemis, a n

Asia's startup funding rose 93% YoY to 27.4B in Q1, the highest quarterly total in 3+ years, with Chinese startups raising 16.5B and Indian startups $3.8B (Joanna Glasner/Crunchbase News)

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News: Asia's startup funding rose 93% YoY to 27.4B in Q1, the highest quarterly total in 3+ years, with Chinese startups raising 16.5B and Indian startups $3.8B — Asia's st

ASML reports Q1 net sales of €8.8B, above €8.5B est., a €2.8B net profit, above €2.5B est., and raises 2026 net sales forecast to €36B to €40B from €34B to €39B (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: ASML reports Q1 net sales of €8.8B, above €8.5B est., a €2.8B net profit, above €2.5B est., and raises 2026 net sales forecast to €36B to €40B from €34B to €39B — ASML raised its

ASML says South Korea surpassed China as its largest market in Q1 2026, with shipments hitting 45% of net system sales, or €2.84B, up from 22% in Q4 2025 (Sarah Jacob/Bloomberg)

Sarah Jacob / Bloomberg: ASML says South Korea surpassed China as its largest market in Q1 2026, with shipments hitting 45% of net system sales, or €2.84B, up from 22% in Q4 2025 — South Korea emerged

ByteDance launches its Seedance 2.0 video model to enterprise clients in 100+ countries, excluding the US amid legal disputes, after a February launch in China (Juro Osawa/The Information)

Juro Osawa / The Information: ByteDance launches its Seedance 2.0 video model to enterprise clients in 100+ countries, excluding the US amid legal disputes, after a February launch in China — ByteDanc

Cal.com, which provides scheduling software, is moving its core open-source codebase to a closed repository, citing the dangers of AI hacking its open code (Steven Vaughan-Nichols/ZDNET)

Steven Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNET: Cal.com, which provides scheduling software, is moving its core open-source codebase to a closed repository, citing the dangers of AI hacking its open code — ZDNET's ke

Companies that hire young 'AI natives' have found that AI tools can be both helpful and debilitating to workers, in some cases requiring more careful oversight (Jo Constantz/Bloomberg)

Jo Constantz / Bloomberg: Companies that hire young “AI natives” have found that AI tools can be both helpful and debilitating to workers, in some cases requiring more careful oversight — The promises

European VC funding in Q1 2026 rose nearly 30% YoY to $17.6B, AI claimed over 50% of all European funding for the quarter, and deal volume dropped 40% YoY (Gené Teare/Crunchbase News)

Gené Teare / Crunchbase News: European VC funding in Q1 2026 rose nearly 30% YoY to 17.6B, AI claimed over 50% of all European funding for the quarter, and deal volume dropped 40% YoY — European ventu

Filings: Caterpillar acquires self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor's assets, after it raised $200M+ and struggled to pivot to software services (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch)

Sean O'Kane / TechCrunch: Filings: Caterpillar acquires self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor's assets, after it raised $200M+ and struggled to pivot to software services — Monarch Tra

Filings: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz donated 25M to pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, bringing the group's total cash on hand to over 51M (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Filings: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz donated 25M to pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, bringing the group's total cash on hand to over 51M — Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and B

Former Mercor staffers describe 'operational mishaps' at the $10B startup, including employee fraud, a security breach, and suspected North Korean infiltration (Rashi Shrivastava/Forbes)

Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes: Former Mercor staffers describe “operational mishaps” at the 10B startup, including employee fraud, a security breach, and suspected North Korean infiltration — Founded in

Global smartphone shipments fell 4.1% YoY in Q1, the first decline since 2023, amid a memory chip crunch; Samsung's shipments grew 3.6% and Apple's grew 3.3% (IDC)

IDC: Global smartphone shipments fell 4.1% YoY in Q1, the first decline since 2023, amid a memory chip crunch; Samsung's shipments grew 3.6% and Apple's grew 3.3% — Limited memory supply and record hi

Google DeepMind introduces Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 robotic reasoning model, says it shows significant spatial and physical reasoning improvements over ER 1.5 (Google DeepMind)

Google DeepMind: Google DeepMind introduces Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 robotic reasoning model, says it shows significant spatial and physical reasoning improvements over ER 1.5 — For robots to be truly h

Google launches a Gemini Mac app, featuring a keyboard shortcut, screen sharing for better context, image generation with Nano Banana, and more (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google launches a Gemini Mac app, featuring a keyboard shortcut, screen sharing for better context, image generation with Nano Banana, and more — Gemini now has a native Mac app

Google rolls out Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS, a text-to-speech model with support for over 70 languages and audio tags that give developers granular speech control (Matthias Bastian/The Decoder)

Matthias Bastian / The Decoder: Google rolls out Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS, a text-to-speech model with support for over 70 languages and audio tags that give developers granular speech control — The compa

Hilbert, whose AI software connects data across teams to help companies make decisions from a single system, raised a $28M Series A led by a16z (Madison Mills/Axios)

Madison Mills / Axios: Hilbert, whose AI software connects data across teams to help companies make decisions from a single system, raised a 28M Series A led by a16z — Hilbert, an AI startup rethinkin

London-based Gizmo, which uses AI to turn young students' notes into gamified study materials, raised a $22M Series A led by Shine Capital and reports 13M users (Natalie Breymeyer/Axios)

Natalie Breymeyer / Axios: London-based Gizmo, which uses AI to turn young students' notes into gamified study materials, raised a 22M Series A led by Shine Capital and reports 13M users — Gizmo, an A

Memo: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the company plans to lay off ~1,000 full-time employees, or 16% of its global workforce, to cut costs and achieve profitability (Alexandra S. Levine/Bloomberg)

Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg: Memo: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the company plans to lay off ~1,000 full-time employees, or 16% of its global workforce, to cut costs and achieve profitability — Snap

NY-based Auctor, which uses AI to curate resource plans and process flows to help companies adopt new software, raised $20M in a combined seed and Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios)

Chris Metinko / Axios: NY-based Auctor, which uses AI to curate resource plans and process flows to help companies adopt new software, raised 20M in a combined seed and Series A — Auctor, a startup he

Objection, which aims to use AI and experts to evaluate claims in news stories, debuts with funding from Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan; evaluations cost $2,000 (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Objection, which aims to use AI and experts to evaluate claims in news stories, debuts with funding from Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan; evaluations cost $2,000 — After he

Agents

OpenAI updates Agents SDK with native sandboxing and an in-distribution harness for deploying and testing agents on long-horizon tasks (Lucas Ropek/TechCrunch)

Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch: OpenAI updates Agents SDK with native sandboxing and an in-distribution harness for deploying and testing agents on long-horizon tasks — Agentic AI is the tech industry's new

agentstechmeme

PitchBook: US growth and late-stage venture funds raised 23.6B YTD, up from 7.4B in 2025 and above the totals for any of the past 12 years, amid the AI boom (Yuliya Chernova/Wall Street Journal)

Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal: PitchBook: US growth and late-stage venture funds raised 23.6B YTD, up from 7.4B in 2025 and above the totals for any of the past 12 years, amid the AI boom — U.

Q&A with ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski on how audio models work, the company's business model, the conversational Turing Test, voice agents, and more (John Collison/Cheeky Pint)

John Collison / Cheeky Pint: Q&A with ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski on how audio models work, the company's business model, the conversational Turing Test, voice agents, and more — Mati Stan

Hardware

Q&A with Jensen Huang on Nvidia's supply chain moat, competition from ASICs like Google's TPU, investing in AI labs and neoclouds, selling to China, and more (Dwarkesh Patel/Dwarkesh Podcast)

Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast: Q&A with Jensen Huang on Nvidia's supply chain moat, competition from ASICs like Google's TPU, investing in AI labs and neoclouds, selling to China, and more — “If o

hardwaretechmeme

Sources: a Snap-Perplexity AI search deal calling for Perplexity to pay Snap $400M has fallen apart; Snap is set to announce significant layoffs on Wednesday (Alex Heath/Sources)

Alex Heath / Sources: Sources: a Snap-Perplexity AI search deal calling for Perplexity to pay Snap $400M has fallen apart; Snap is set to announce significant layoffs on Wednesday — Mass layoffs land

Sources: ahead of US midterms, Democrats have been advised not to antagonize a ~$300M pro-AI lobby; internal polling shows broad support for tougher AI rules (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: ahead of US midterms, Democrats have been advised not to antagonize a ~$300M pro-AI lobby; internal polling shows broad support for tougher AI rules — Pro-industry campaign g

Sources and analyst estimates: Uber is on track to spend 7.5B+ on buying robotaxis and 2.5B+ on equity stakes in their makers over the next few years (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources and analyst estimates: Uber is on track to spend 7.5B+ on buying robotaxis and 2.5B+ on equity stakes in their makers over the next few years — Ride-hailing app races to make

Sources: Apple plans to send ~200 people from its Siri team, a group internally known as a laggard, to an AI coding bootcamp (The Information)

The Information: Sources: Apple plans to send ~200 people from its Siri team, a group internally known as a laggard, to an AI coding bootcamp — Apple is sending a portion of its Siri programmers back

Sources: SoftBank invites more banks to join its 40B loan backing its OpenAI investment, requiring them to commit ~5B each; SoftBank has already invested $30B (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: SoftBank invites more banks to join its 40B loan backing its OpenAI investment, requiring them to commit ~5B each; SoftBank has already invested 30B — More banks are being invited

Spotify launches a feature to buy physical books in the US and UK, powered by Bookshop.org, and expands its Page Match tool to support 30 additional languages (Lauren Forristal/TechCrunch)

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: Spotify launches a feature to buy physical books in the US and UK, powered by Bookshop.org, and expands its Page Match tool to support 30 additional languages — In Febru