Mauro Orru / Wall Street Journal: ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet says “while we still prepare for growth in 2026, we cannot confirm it”, after Trump threatened 30% EU tariffs; ASML falls 10%+ — Statement from Dutch chip-making equipment supplier comes days after Trump's 30% levy threat against the EU
Pat Gelsinger / Wall Street Journal: Intel's former CEO backs President Trump's proposed sovereign wealth fund to secure US leadership in quantum, AI, and chips and combat China's tech advances — It isn't an attempt to surmount market forces but to offer an alternative to adversaries' capital.
Kris Maher / Wall Street Journal: With Trump set to speak at an energy and AI summit at Carnegie Mellon, a look at plans to turn some shuttered mill sites in Pittsburgh into AI data centers — Two Trump visits span city's legacy industry, higher-tech pursuits — PITTSBURGH—Two months ago, President Trump stood in a cavernous …
Wall Street Journal: Sources: SpaceX has agreed to invest $2B in xAI, as part of xAI's $5B equity fundraise announced by Morgan Stanley last month — The startup is leaning on Musk's business empire to play catch-up in the AI race — Elon Musk's SpaceX has agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI …
Wall Street Journal: Despite continued technological advances, US emergency alerts often fail to reach those in danger, as alert fatigue leads many people to disable notifications — Residents increasingly tune out phone messages about floods and fires—if the alerts make it to them at all
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal: How the US government debuted a revamped online system in September 2024 that simplifies passport renewal; the system is already handling nearly 50% of renewals — Washington isn't known for tech innovation. How did a team of bureaucrats put their stamp on a process that hadn't changed in 50 years?
Wall Street Journal: Analysts estimate AI services within Microsoft Azure generated $11.5B in revenue in the just-ended fiscal year, up 100%+ YoY but only ~4% of Microsoft's revenue — AI has propelled the two companies toward an exclusive club, but Microsoft's path forward is more complicated
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: How Clorox is using generative AI for ad creation, brainstorming new products, and analyzing consumer reviews, as part of a five-year, $580M digital overhaul — Clorox employees' experiments with generative AI delivered new R&D ideas, better customer insights—and some misfires like ‘bleachless bleach’
Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal: Sources: TSMC delays construction of its second plant in Japan, originally planned for early 2025, to invest in US expansion ahead of potential Trump tariffs — Taiwanese semiconductor maker accelerates investment in Arizona — TOKYO—Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is delaying construction …
Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal: Tel Aviv-based Wonderful, which develops customer support AI agents for businesses in non-English speaking countries, raised a $34M seed led by Index Ventures — Many AI-agent developers are set on conquering the U.S. market. Not Wonderful. The Tel Aviv startup raised $34 million …
Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Meta offers to buy up to 49% of Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross' VC firm NFDG, which has invested about half of its first fund of ~$1.1B, raised in 2023 — Meta Platforms is offering to buy a minority stake in funds of the venture firm founded by two of its key artificial intelligence recruits …
Wall Street Journal: Ford CEO Jim Farley, Andy Jassy, and other CEOs are now predicting AI will significantly cut white collar jobs, a shift from a reluctance to acknowledge losses — Ford chief predicts AI will replace ‘literally half of all white-collar workers’ — CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs.
Tracy Qu / Wall Street Journal: Alibaba plans $7B in delivery and shopping subsidies over the next year, opens a Singapore AI hub, and is opening data centers in Malaysia and the Philippines — The company plans to launch new data centers in Malaysia and Philippines — Alibaba Group is readying a $7 billion boost …
Wall Street Journal: Chinese AI models from DeepSeek and others are becoming more popular worldwide; Sensor Tower: ChatGPT has 910M global downloads compared with DeepSeek's 125M — Chinese AI models are becoming more popular worldwide, testing American superiority — Chinese artificial-intelligence companies …
Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: Amazon says it has 1M+ robots in its warehouses, the most it's ever had and near the count of human workers, with ~75% of global deliveries assisted by robotics — The e-commerce giant now counts more than one million of the machines at its facilities — | Photographs and Videos by Desiree Rios for WSJ
James Rundle / Wall Street Journal: Tel Aviv-based Cato Networks, whose tools help protect remote workforces, raised a $359M Series G at a $4.8B+ valuation, taking its total funding to $1B+ — Network security company plans to expand use of artificial intelligence with cash injection — Cyber company Cato Networks …
Wall Street Journal: A look at “The List”, a compilation of the most talented AI engineers and researchers that Mark Zuckerberg has put together in an effort to recruit them to Meta — Only a select few researchers have the skills for the hottest area in tech. Mark Zuckerberg and his rivals want to hire them …
Wall Street Journal: Sources: Apple execs have discussed starting a theatrical distribution unit; Warner Bros. is distributing the F1 movie and getting a share of box office revenue — Six years after getting into entertainment, Apple lags behind its rivals in streaming subscribers and mainstream appeal, despite lavish spending on A-list stars
Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal: OpenRouter, which directs prompts to LLMs based on factors like cost and speed, raised $40M across a seed and Series A; source: the startup is valued at ~$500M — The startup, now valued at about $500 million, directs artificial-intelligence prompts to various large language models based on cost, speed and other factors
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Abridge, which uses AI to automate doctors' notetaking, raised $300M led by a16z at a $5.3B valuation, after raising $250M at a $2.75B valuation in February — Startup raises $300 million in round led by Andreessen Horowitz, cash that will go to further develop its ‘ambient-listening’ products, Abridge CEO says
Esther Fung / Wall Street Journal: DHL, UPS, FedEx, and Walmart are using robots for warehouse logistics to cut costs, like by automating the backbreaking task of loading and unloading trucks — Technology breakthroughs are allowing DHL and other companies to automate the laborious, injury-prone work of loading and unloading
Wall Street Journal: Behind Mark Zuckerberg's sweeping recruitment effort for Meta's new Superintelligence lab, including hundreds of reach outs and $100M+ offers and counter offers — In a bid to address an AI crisis at his company, the Meta CEO has gotten personally involved in recruiting top talent
Ben Raab / Wall Street Journal: Purism's $1,999 security-focused Liberty Phone, assembled in the US with decade-old specs and some US-made parts, exposes the gaps in US phone manufacturing — Despite the president's domestic manufacturing push—and the Trump Organization's launch of an ostensibly U.S.-made phone—the challenges remain massive
Kimberley Kao / Wall Street Journal: Source: OpenAI is changing ChatGPT Enterprise's pricing structure from a fixed price to include a credits system, allowing more companies' workforces to use it — The new pricing comes amid increasingly heated competition in the artificial-intelligence space
Shen Lu / Wall Street Journal: Temu entered into a US data storage deal with Oracle last week and offered few details, but says it is part of an effort to localize more of its US operations — Data-storage deal with Oracle follows several states' allegations bargain site could hand over user data to Beijing
Wall Street Journal: How Chinese AI companies bypass US chip restrictions by transporting hard drives with AI training data to Malaysian data centers housing advanced Nvidia chips — Engineers carry data to countries where Nvidia chips are available, frustrating Washington's aims
Brian Gormley / Wall Street Journal: Ellipsis Health, which developed an AI voice agent to check in on patients between doctor visits, raised a $45M Series A led by Salesforce, Khosla, and CVS — Startup says its artificial-intelligence agent can make autonomous calls to patients — When hospitals discharge patients …
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal: The Army Reserve launches Detachment 201, an innovation corps with Palantir CTO, Meta CTO, and other tech execs advising on AI and tech as lieutenant colonels — Silicon Valley executives are joining a new innovation corps in Army Reserve — The nerd brigade is reporting for duty.
Wall Street Journal: Sources: Walmart, Amazon, and Expedia have recently explored issuing or using stablecoins in the US to potentially save fees from cash and card transactions — Corporate coins could take payments activity away from banks and the traditional financial system
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal: Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch says European companies and governments increasingly want non-US AI tools, and Mistral is on track to pass $100M in annual revenue — The AI developer says European customers are seeking independence from Silicon Valley, leading it to build a new Nvidia-powered facility near Paris
Wall Street Journal: Similarweb: Google's AI tools are significantly cutting organic search traffic to news publishers; traffic to BI, HuffPost, and WaPo is down ~50% in three years — Chatbots are replacing Google's traditional search, devastating traffic for some publishers — The AI armageddon is here for online news publishers.
Wall Street Journal: IBM plans to build IBM Quantum Starling, a “fault-tolerant” quantum computer with 20,000x the compute of today's quantum computers, in New York state by 2029 — The powerhouse computers can be sensitive and error-prone. Now, IBM is offering some details on how it will overcome …
Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: LVMH says AI and AI agents will be key to navigating a broad slowdown and waning demand in luxury goods, and is using AI in supply chains, pricing, and more — The luxury conglomerate, whose brands include Tiffany, Dior and Celine, said AI will be key to both operational efficiency and better customer retention in a tougher market
Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: A profile of Panos Panay, head of devices and services at Amazon, who has scaled back new releases to focus on perfecting products like Alexa+ before rollout — Panos Panay needs the more advanced Alexa+ assistant to be a hit. For 10 years, the product has struggled to evolve.
Maria Armental / Wall Street Journal: CapVest-owned Datasite, which offers workflow automation tech for dealmaking, acquires Grata, which helps users with all aspects of the deal process, for $200M+ — Datasite, a private equity-backed company that caters to dealmakers, has acquired private markets-focused Grata for more than $200 million …
Wall Street Journal: Sources: EchoStar is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect its valuable wireless spectrum licenses from potential revocation by the FCC — Telecom company is preparing for a possible chapter 11 as it faces FCC review of spectrum licenses — EchoStar is considering …
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Shield Technology Partners, an AI-enabled managed IT service platform, acquires four IT companies and launches with $100M from Thrive Holdings and ZBS Partners — The company established by venture-capital firm Thrive Capital joined with ZBS to invest $100 million into an entity that will integrate AI into IT firms
Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal: Broadcom reports Q2 revenue up 20% YoY to $15B, vs. $14.96B est., net income up 134% YoY to $4.97B, and AI revenue up 46% YoY to $4.4B+, driven by AI networking — Maker of semiconductors and software posted higher profit and sales as artificial intelligence demand continues to drive revenue growth
Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: How Morgan Stanley is using its DevGen.AI tool, built in-house on OpenAI's GPT models, to translate legacy code into modern coding languages — The finance giant built its own AI tool to help modernize its legacy code—something it said existing tools on the market still struggle with
Miriam Gottfried / Wall Street Journal: Thoma Bravo raised $34.4B across three funds, including $24.3B for its main software company buyout fund and $8.1B for its midsize software-focused fund — Many firms are struggling to return cash to investors and raise money — A reckoning in the private-equity industry is sharpening the divide between the haves and have-nots.
Edith Hancock / Wall Street Journal: Apple appeals the EU's iOS interoperability order under the DMA, saying the requirements create “a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation” — Companies face fines of up to 10% their worldwide annual turnover if the EU decides they are flouting its Digital Markets Act
Wall Street Journal: Sources: Meta aims to help brands fully create and target ads using AI by the end of 2026, including images and budgetary goals, expanding its current AI tools — AI-powered advertising is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the company's future — Meta Platforms is betting that automation is the future of ads.
Andrea Figueras / Wall Street Journal: Dutch information services company Wolters Kluwer agrees to acquire legal software maker Brightflag for ~$480M in cash, set to close in June 2025 — In 2024 Brightflag reported a 36% increase in revenue — Wolters Kluwer said it has signed an agreement to acquire global legal software provider Brightflag …
Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal: At Foxconn's shareholder conference, Chair Young Liu says 2025 revenue is set to reach ~$234B due to AI, and reassures shareholders amid US tariff uncertainty — The company has been diversifying its businesses, growing its footprint in areas like AI servers and electric vehicles
Chip Cutter / Wall Street Journal: Memo: Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff, set to become Tinder CEO in July, lays out a new vision for the app, including speeding up product changes and using AI — Spencer Rascoff is rethinking Match Group's biggest app as younger online daters grow tired of swiping
Edith Hancock / Wall Street Journal: The European Commission says it is investigating Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos for potential child safety DSA violations “as a matter of priority” — New rules compel large online platforms to do more to protect users from harmful illegal content
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal: Documents: self-driving truck startup TuSimple transferred critical autonomous driving tech and data to Chinese partners despite a 2022 agreement with CFIUS — TuSimple shared with Beijing a best-in-class autonomous driving system—and became a prime example of Washington's shortcomings in keeping critical technology in the U.S.
Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal: A look at the rise of “sovereign AI”, wherein countries invest directly in chip companies like Nvidia and AMD, making AI chips a highly politicized business — As Nvidia and others strike deals with sovereign nations, their business will become politicized as never before
Wall Street Journal: Trump hosted a gala dinner for the top buyers of his memecoin, including Justin Sun, and reaffirmed his commitment to making the US the world's “crypto capital” — The president hosted the biggest investors in his memecoin at his golf club outside Washington
Wall Street Journal: Sources: companies co-owned by JPMorgan Chase, BOA, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and other large commercial banks are exploring whether to issue a joint stablecoin — The discussions involve payments companies co-owned by JPMorgan Chase, other large banks — The nation's biggest banks …