Topic: #ai
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AI Chatbots Amplifying Russian Propaganda, NewsGuard Audit Finds
A March 2025 audit by NewsGuard revealed that leading AI chatbots repeated false narratives from the Pravda network about 33% of the time, with seven models directly citing Pravda-affiliated sites. The discovery has prompted European officials to flag risks ahead of upcoming elections.
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AI Companies Spent $41M on Lobbying in H1 2026
Eleven leading AI firms deployed $41 million on Washington lobbying in H1 2026, an 8% increase from the prior year. The spending surge reflects industry efforts to shape federal AI regulation and block state-level rules.
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World Foundation Raises $52.5M in Pantera-Led Funding for World ID
World Foundation has raised $52.5 million through a sale of locked WLD tokens to strategic investors led by Pantera Capital, with funds earmarked to expand World ID, its biometric verification system designed to distinguish humans from AI agents online.
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Coinbase launches AI agent payment tools and automated trading
Coinbase rolled out agent payment support for businesses, new trading commands for AI systems, and a developer SDK for x402 payments. Agent traffic on Base documentation now exceeds human traffic for the first time.
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Arrakis Technologies raises $38M for agentic AI in industrial sectors
Seven-month-old startup Arrakis has raised $38 million in venture funding to bring agentic AI to aerospace, energy, logistics, and manufacturing. The round values the London-Paris company at $140 million post-money, with backing from Accel, Blossom Capital, and notable individuals including OpenAI's Olivier Godement.
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Tom Lee Reiterates $250K Ethereum Price Target, Calls ETH AI Settlement Layer
Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee reiterated a $250,000 long-term price target for Ethereum and described the blockchain as a foundational settlement layer for artificial intelligence. Lee's thesis ties ETH's upside to ETF inflows, whale staking, and multi-trillion-dollar AI adoption opportunities.
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Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs launch bioresilience AI amid DeSci funding gap
Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs announced a joint bioresilience initiative combining AI to defend against biological threats, signaling a widening resource gap between centralized AI-driven biotech and decentralized science efforts in crypto.
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TYLSemi Raises $43M for Modular AI Chip Components
San Jose semiconductor startup TYLSemi announced a $43 million funding round led by Matter Venture Partners to develop standardized chiplet components that reduce custom AI silicon development time and cost by up to 50 percent.
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Ripple Joins Linux Foundation's x402 Initiative for AI Payments
Ripple has become a premier member of the Linux Foundation's newly launched x402 Foundation, integrating XRP and RLUSD into an open-source payment standard designed for autonomous AI transactions.
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AI-native workers could drive $262B stablecoin volume by 2033: Swyftx
Australian exchange Swyftx projects that AI-native freelancers and solo workers could settle $262 billion annually in stablecoins by 2033, driven by fee savings and access to traditional banking alternatives.
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BNB Chain targets 1M TPS with AI agents as token hits 2024 lows
BNB Chain is overhauling its architecture to process 1 million transactions per second and integrate protocol-level privacy, targeting traditional finance and autonomous AI agents. The pivot comes as BNB token has fallen more than 35% this year to $563, its lowest since October 2024.
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KOR Protocol raises $7.5M Series A from 1kx, Blockchain Capital
KOR Protocol, an onchain creative asset clearinghouse built on Coinbase's Layer 2, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding from 1kx and Blockchain Capital. The platform has surpassed $2 million in gross revenue and counts over 1,000 partners including Black Mirror and Beatport.
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ByteDance, Alibaba disable AI agents as China enforces emotional AI rules
ByteDance and Alibaba are shutting down custom agent features in their consumer AI products ahead of new Chinese regulations targeting humanlike emotional interaction services, which take effect July 15. China is the first country to impose a dedicated regulatory framework for AI-driven emotional interaction.
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Anthropic commits $200B to Google Cloud, intensifying AI data center competition
Anthropic pledged approximately $200 billion to Google Cloud services over five years, representing over 40% of Alphabet's cloud revenue backlog. The deal signals deepening ties between the AI maker and Google while intensifying competition for data center capacity with cryptocurrency miners and blockchain validators.
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Microsoft launches Frontier unit with $2.5B to solve enterprise AI ROI
Microsoft announced a new business unit backed by $2.5 billion and 6,000 industry experts to solve enterprise AI's biggest challenge: helping companies actually profit from their AI investments. The move positions the software giant as a hybrid vendor-consultant, directly competing with consulting firms and its own channel partners.
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Kling AI raises $2 billion at $18 billion valuation, targets 2027 IPO
Kuaishou's Kling AI unit is raising over $2 billion in its first external funding round, led by General Atlantic, at an $18 billion valuation. The funding facilitates a spin-off from Kuaishou and positions the video generation AI company for an early 2027 IPO.
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UBTech U1 humanoid robot hits $334M pre-orders in four weeks
UBTech Robotics generated $334 million in pre-order revenue for its U1 companion robot within four weeks of launch in June 2026, with over 5,000 pre-orders and shipments expected by September. The achievement exceeds the company's entire 2025 industrial robotics segment revenue.
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China's Manufacturing PMI Expands to 50.3 as AI Exports Surge
China's manufacturing PMI hit 50.3 in June, beating forecasts, as exports of AI-related hardware surged 66.1% year-on-year. Yet the employment sub-index contracted, raising questions about job creation amid the export-driven boom.
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Meta restricts engineers from Claude Code and Codex to protect training data
Meta has restricted its engineers from using Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, citing concerns over exposure of proprietary AI training data and internal codebases to external servers.
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Soitec partners with ZenSemi to scale power chips for AI and EVs
French semiconductor materials company Soitec has partnered with Chinese specialty foundry ZenSemi to ramp production of BCD-on-SOI substrates for power management chips targeting AI datacenters, electric vehicles, and industrial systems.
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South Korea's $518B AI chip push widens crypto's capital deficit
Samsung and SK Hynix are accelerating a $518 billion chip-plant buildout by a decade to meet AI memory demand, signaling that the AI capital cycle continues to draw investment away from crypto.
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OpenAI restricts new model access after Trump administration security review request
The Trump administration asked OpenAI and Anthropic to limit rollouts of advanced AI models pending security reviews. OpenAI announced three new models—GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna—but restricted early access to government-approved partners, signaling a shift toward federal oversight of AI releases.
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OpenAI Develops ChatGPT for Science Plan for Universities and Research Labs
OpenAI is building a dedicated ChatGPT subscription plan for scientific institutions, with code references discovered in June pointing to a product designed for researchers across biology, chemistry, physics, and materials science. No official pricing or launch date has been announced.
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Anthropic's Mythos AI model prompts House committee to weigh new banking security rules
Anthropic demonstrated its unreleased Mythos model to Congress, revealing how AI can identify critical banking vulnerabilities. Rep. Andrew Garbarino signaled potential new regulatory oversight for AI-powered cybersecurity and bank disclosure requirements.