Sources detail the efforts SoftBank is making to raise the necessary funds as it races to close its $22.5B funding commitment to OpenAI by the end of this year (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/softbank-races-fulfill-225-billion-funding-commitment-openai-by-year-end-sources-2025-12-19/
Techmeme
Sources detail SoftBank
From Reuters. View the full context on Techmeme.
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution (Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps-ai-czar-00701112
Techmeme
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks
From Politico. View the full context on Techmeme.
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Blizzard President Talks Culture, Bonuses and Releasing More Games
Johanna Faries, who took over as president of Blizzard in 2024, reveals whatโ€™s coming from the storied studio
Techmeme
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more
By Jason Schreier / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract (Samuel K. Moore/IEEE Spectrum) https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductor-digital-twins-funding
Techmeme
US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract
By Samuel K. Moore / IEEE Spectrum. View the full context on Techmeme.
Q&A with Harvard economist Jason Furman, who consults for OpenAI, on the similarities between the AI boom and the dot-com era, AI's impact on jobs, and more (Shirin Ghaffary/Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
OpenAI Is โ€˜Definitely Notโ€™ Too Big to Fail, Economist Says
A leading economist isnโ€™t overly concerned about the fallout from the AI bubble bursting, if it happens. But firstโ€ฆ
Techmeme
Q&A with Harvard economist Jason Furman, who consults for OpenAI, on the similarities between the AI boom and the dot-com era, AI
By Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.
DataLane, which is using AI to build an identity graph to map local businesses across the US, raised a $22.5M Series A led by Amplify Partners (Chris Metinko/Axios) https://www.axios.com/pro/enterprise-software-deals/2025/12/16/datalane-amplify-local-business-data
Techmeme
DataLane, which is using AI to build an identity graph to map local businesses across the US, raised a $22.5M Series A led by Amplify Partners
By Chris Metinko / Axios. View the full context on Techmeme.
Waymo says it temporarily suspended its ride-hailing service in San Francisco during a citywide blackout, as downed traffic lights appeared to halt its vehicles (Joe Rivano Barros/Mission Local)
Mission Local
Waymo halts service during massive S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
Numerous autonomous vehicles caused traffic jams across San Francisco after a PG&E outage hit 1/3 of the city.
Techmeme
Waymo says it temporarily suspended its ride-hailing service in San Francisco during a citywide blackout, as downed traffic lights appeared to halt its vehicles
By Joe Rivano Barros / Mission Local. View the full context on Techmeme.
A look at Tokyo-based neocloud provider Datasection, which sources say has a $1.2B+ contract giving Tencent access to a large share of its 15K Blackwell chips (Financial Times)
Client Challenge
Techmeme
A look at Tokyo-based neocloud provider Datasection, which sources say has a $1.2B+ contract giving Tencent access to a large share of its 15K Blackwell chips
From Financial Times. View the full context on Techmeme.
METR: Claude Opus 4.5 has a 50% task completion time horizon of about 4 hours and 49 minutes, more than double that of Claude Opus 4 released earlier this year (@metr_evals)
X (formerly Twitter)
METR (@METR_Evals) on X
We estimate that, on our tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 has a 50%-time horizon of around 4 hrs 49 mins (95% confidence interval of 1 hr 49 mins to 20 hrs 2...
Techmeme
METR: Claude Opus 4.5 has a 50% task completion time horizon of about 4 hours and 49 minutes, more than double that of Claude Opus 4 released earlier this year
From @metr_evals. View the full context on Techmeme.
Chinese AI chipmaker Moore Threads announces a new generation of chips slated for mass production from 2026, just weeks after its blockbuster IPO in China (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg.com
Ex-Nvidia Billionaire Unveils New AI Chips After China IPO Debut
Moore Threads Technology Co. introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial-intelligence developersโ€™ dependence on Nvidia Corp...
Techmeme
Chinese AI chipmaker Moore Threads announces a new generation of chips slated for mass production from 2026, just weeks after its blockbuster IPO in China
From Bloomberg. View the full context on Techmeme.