TechCrunch Industry News

Meta is buying billions of dollars in AMD AI chips in a multiyear deal tied to a 160 million-share warrant, deepening its push to diversify beyond Nvidia and expand data center capacity. Also, Mogul, which helps artists track royalties and value their catalogs, raised $5 million in a round led by the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoice...

Anthropic accuses DeepSeek, Moonshot, and MiniMax of using 24,000 fake accounts to distill Claude’s AI capabilities, as U.S. officials debate export controls aimed at slowing China’s AI progress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While some cities are moving to end their contracts with Flock over its links to ICE, others are taking matters into their own hands. Also, OpenAI is partnering with four consulting giants in an effort to see more adoption of its OpenAI Frontier AI agent platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China’s brain-computer interface industry is rapidly scaling from research to commercialization, driven by strong policy support, expanding clinical trials, and growing investor interest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The technology promises to replace several parts of the grid with one device that’s both controllable and updatable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Redwood Materials says its new energy storage business is the fastest growing unit within the company. Plus, Toyota's robots will be unloading totes full of auto parts from an automated warehouse tugger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI is reportedly getting close to closing a $100 billion deal, with backers including Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank, and Microsoft. The deal would value the ChatGPT-maker at $850 billion. SoftBank's project would be among the largest and most expensive natural gas power plants. And, New York pulled a robotaxi expansion proposal that was viewed as a win for Waymo. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

Amazon said Blue Jay's core tech will be used for other robotics projects and the employees who worked on it were moved to other projects. Also, Mastodon is looking to grow its open source, decentralized social network with new features aimed at creators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Audible's feature will require customers to buy discounted versions of both versions of the title. Also, X's new immersive video player is designed to offer a more mobile-friendly experience, optimized especially for portrait-oriented videos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An internal research study at Meta found that parental supervision may not help teens regulate their social media, and teens with trauma are more inclined to overuse social media. Also, as the AI hardware space heats up, the iPhone maker has multiple smart products in development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When we talk about the cost of AI infrastructure, the focus is usually on Nvidia and GPUs -- but memory is an increasingly important part of the picture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to a16z, it has eyes around the world in order to spot companies as early as local funds might. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"From an AI research perspective, this is nothing novel," one expert told TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Pentagon is pushing AI companies to allow the U.S. military to use their technology for “all lawful purposes,” but Anthropic is pushing back, according to a new report in Axios. The government is reportedly making the same demand to OpenAI, Google, and xAI. Also, college students are losing some interest in computer science broadly but gaining interest in AI-specific majors and courses. Learn...

For $1 million, you can pay Bryan Johnson (or BryanAI?) to teach you how to live longer Also, Ring's Super Bowl commercial stoked controversy over the company's capacity for mass surveillance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CEO Chris Urmson called it a “superhuman” moment, adding that Aurora’s trucks can now carry freight 1,000 miles in 15 hours — faster than what a human driver can legally accomplish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The team's leader has been given a new role as OpenAI's Chief Futurist, while the other team members have been reassigned throughout the company. Also, xAI took the rare step of publishing its full 45-minute all-hands presentation to the X platform, making it widely available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upscrolled, a social network that surged in the wake of the U.S. TikTok deal, has seen an uptick in harmful content, including user names and hashtags that contain racial slurs. Also, Threads' new feature lets users tell Threads what they temporarily want to see more or less of in their feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Czech ice dancers Katerina Mrazkova and Daniel Mrazek are learning the hard way that LLMs sometimes spit out straight-up plagiarism. Also, an OpenAI executive denied allegations that she engaged in discrimination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The tech giant handed over the personal information of a journalist and student who attended a pro-Palestinian protest in 2024. This is the latest example of ICE using its controversial subpoena powers to target people critical of the Trump administration. Also, out of the twelve-person xAI founding team, only seven are still at the company (counting Elon). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin is reportedly expected to repeal the 2009 "endangerment finding" that underpins U.S. climate regulatory efforts. Also, Spotify credited a successful Wrapped campaign and new features in its free tier for its rapid user growth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is Musicboard shutting down? Company says no, but users are worried. Also, Ouster is paying $35 million along with 1.8 million shares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Founded by former Google Japan leaders, InfiniMind is building enterprise AI to turn vast, unused video archives into searchable, actionable business intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Although the bill’s prospects are uncertain, New York is at least the sixth state to consider pausing construction of new data centers. Also, a march supporting California’s billionaires didn’t exactly draw a huge crowd on Saturday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reddit says its search business, including AI answers, is an "enormous" opportunity. Also, AWS recorded its best quarter, in terms of revenue growth, in 13 quarters in Q4 2025 as AI drives AWS adoption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices