August 17, 2025: Markets Expecting September Rate Cut?

Last week, Dow Jones rose 1.7%, S&P 500 gained 0.9%, and Nasdaq composite was up 0.8%. Latest macro data could suggest investors are expecting September rate cuts, as there appears to be rotation amongst stocks underneath rising indices. Crypto IPO Bullish soared 84% in its US$1.1 billion IPO debut, valuing the Thiel-backed firm at US$10 billion. Gemini filed for an IPO despite widening losses. StubHub revived its long-delayed IPO for September. SoftBank’s PayPay confidentially filed for a U.S. listing at a potential US$10 billion+ valuation. Perplexity continued its fundraising streak, seeking a US$20 billion valuation after quadrupling ARR to US$150 million. Reports also surfaced of Perplexity making bold acquisition offers, including US$34.5 billion for Google’s Chrome. Meanwhile, OpenAI employees are plotting a US$6 billion secondary share sale at a US$500 billion valuation, even as CEO Sam Altman acknowledged AI is in a bubble. CoreWeave tripled revenue to US$1.2 billion but faces scrutiny over cash burn and an IPO lockup expiry. Nvidia and AMD struck a deal to give the U.S. 15% of their China sales, while Intel explored a potential government-backed rescue stake. Circle reported 53% revenue growth, unveiled a new blockchain, and faced post-earnings share pressure. Apple plans a 2027 robot device with Siri at its core, while OpenAI is backing Merge Labs, a Neuralink competitor. Space broadband player AST SpaceMobile surged after announcing fully funded satellite deployment. In Canada, Cohere raised US$500 million at a US$6.8 billion valuation. Kitchener-based BinSentry secured a US$68.8 million Series C to expand its precision ag-tech platform into Brazil. Sophic Client, Intermap posted Q2 revenue of US$3.0 million, reaffirming its US$30–35 million 2025 guidance and highlighting Indonesia and U.S. DOD contract momentum alongside commercial AI-driven insurance adoption.

Sophic Client Intermap (IMP-TSX, ITMSF-OTC) reports second quarter 2025 results.

Intermap announced its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2025. Second quarter revenue declined year over year from US$3.6 million to US$3.0 million due to timing effects from Indonesia and a commercial contract. The Company generated US$2.1 million of operating cash flow during the quarter compared with a use of US$500 thousand in the second quarter of 2024. In Acquisition Services, results include demobilization and other pursuit costs associated with Indonesia’s Integrated Land Administration and Spatial Planning (ILASP) initiative. During the quarter, Indonesia completed its funding agreement with the World Bank, released a Draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for public comments, including World Bank requirements, and announced the U.S.–Indonesia trade agreement, specifically strengthening the opportunity for greater digital trade, services and investment in the country. Intermap has been a reliable, long-term investor in Indonesia with a permanent operation there and track record of capacity building and technology investment. During the quarter, the Company added to its pipeline of global government business. Intermap’s pipeline includes several new multi-year opportunities with priorities across Southeast Asia, North America, South America and the Middle East. While recent U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) budget adjustments affected the timing of certain programs during the quarter, none of Intermap’s DOD contracts experienced a reduction in funding ceilings as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) review. Intermap’s commercial insurance business continues to grow driven by AI/ML innovation. During the quarter, the Company began implementing with several clients its Insurance Risk Assistant Subsystem (IRAS), an agentic AI-driven SaaS solution that mitigates basis risk for insurers. This new and innovative product, developed over a 10-year period, improves property risk evaluation with authoritative data integration, advanced geospatial analytics and automation, supporting flood, fire, seismic, and wind vulnerability analysis, reducing underwriting errors, and improving claim predictability by up to 30%, while meeting regulatory requirements such as the EU’s General Regulatory Data Protections Requirements (GDPR). Reflecting the successful issuance of 5.3 million shares for C$2.25 per share in February 2025, the Company settled non-recurring accrued liabilities and payables of US$1.2 million during the quarter. Adjusting for these cash payments, earnings per share of US$0.01 were flat and working capital (current assets less current liabilities) improved to US$3.6 million. Dilutive shares were reduced by 1,309,308 and liquidity improved to US$8.6 million from US$3.8 million at December 31, 2024. Intermap reaffirms its previously projected 2025 revenue of US$30–35 million and a 28% EBITDA margin. The Company does not provide quarterly guidance and anticipates meeting its annual numbers based on expectations for the full year. Primary risks to the outlook include timing effects of government tenders and commercial adoption of new product launches. https://t.co/Q2iB1GCQr3

Cohere raises US$500 million, hires Ex-Meta research chief.

Cohere, a Canadian artificial intelligence developer that competes with Anthropic and OpenAI, said Thursday it had raised US$500 million at a US$6.8 billion valuation including the new money, confirming The Information’s earlier reporting. The AI lab also said it had hired Joelle Pineau, Meta Platforms’ former vice president of AI research, as its new Chief AI Officer. Pineau, a professor at McGill University, previously oversaw Meta’s fundamental AI research (FAIR) lab and left the tech giant in May. Toronto-based Radical Ventures and Montreal-based Inovia Capital are leading the new round, which represents a 24% increase to its valuation from an equity financing a year ago. The company has told investors it expects to generate more than US$200 million in annualized revenue—or the most recent month’s revenue multiplied by 12—by the end of this year, up nearly threefold from US$70 million in annualized revenue as of February. https://tinyurl.com/2scejsr5

BinSentry raises $68.8 million Series C as it brings remote animal feed monitoring platform to Brazil.

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based BinSentry has raised US$50 million ($68.8 million) in Series C funding to help worldwide expansion for its remote farm feed monitoring solution. The round was led by New York-based growth equity firm Lead Edge Capital and follows what the company claims is 100-percent year-over-year growth with no customer churn. . https://tinyurl.com/yeykx6rd

Crypto exchange Bullish soars 84% in first-day trading.

Bullish, the crypto exchange operator and owner of news outlet CoinDesk, surged 84% on Wednesday after raising US$1.1 billion in an upsized initial public offering, showing the public market’s exuberance for crypto stocks. The Peter Thiel-backed firm opened trading at US$90 per share on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, after pricing its IPO at US$37 per share. The shares closed at US$68, giving it a market value of US$10 billion. Bullish’s first-day surge followed other IPO debuts recently, including stablecoin issuer Circle and software company Figma. https://tinyurl.com/ppb66fp5

Winklevoss twins’ crypto company Gemini files for IPO.

Another crypto company is headed for the public markets. This time, it’s Gemini Space Station Inc., the New York-based crypto exchange and custodian bank founded by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The outfit, which plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol GEMI, was founded in 2014 and operates as an exchange and custodian that offers a number of products and services, including a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin and a credit card that offers rewards in crypto. The company’s S-1 document, which was filed Friday after markets closed, provides a look at its finances. The upshot: Gemini appears to have widening net losses. The company reported a net loss of US$158.5 million on US$142.2 million in revenue in 2024. Net losses in the first six months of 2025 havw already exceeded that number. Gemini is the latest crypto company to turn to the public markets as the regulatory environment has eased and the Trump administration has embraced digital currencies and other crypto assets. https://tinyurl.com/2ea5szuy

StubHub IPO is back on for September after ticketing company delayed plans on tariff concerns.

StubHub, the ticketing marketplace that spun out of eBay in 2020, has resumed its plans to go public and is now aiming to hold its IPO next month, CNBC has learned. The company originally paused its IPO plans in April as the stock market was reeling from President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs. The decision came after StubHub submitted its prospectus in March indicating it would list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “STUB.” StubHub now expects to kick off its IPO roadshow after Labor Day, Sept. 1, and make its debut later in the month. It reported revenue growth in the first quarter of 10% from a year earlier to US$397.6 million. Operating income came in at US$26.8 million for the period, after the company lost US$883,000 in the year-ago period, but its net loss widened to US$35.9 million from US$29.7 million a year ago. The IPO market has come to life in recent months after an extended dry spell due to high inflation and rising interest rates. A flurry of startups have made their public debuts, including rocket maker Firefly Aerospace, design software company Figma, crypto firm Circle and AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave. The company had sought a US$16.5 billion valuation before it began the IPO process, CNBC previously reported. StubHub didn’t provide an expected pricing range for its shares in the filing. As it prepares to go public, StubHub is contending with hefty competition in the online ticketing market. In addition to Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, StubHub is up against secondary market companies, including Vivid Seats, SeatGeek and TicketNetwork. For the first quarter, StubHub reported gross merchandise sales of US$2.08 billion, up 15% from a year prior. That was a slowdown from 47% expansion the previous quarter. https://tinyurl.com/47692vwn

SoftBank-owned payments app PayPay files for US listing.

Japanese mobile payment app PayPay has confidentially filed for a U.S. listing, a move that could help fund owner Softbank’s AI ambition, the company announced Friday. Founded in 2018, PayPay is the largest mobile payment app in Japan with more than 70 million users. It also issues credit cards and provides banking services. Softbank is seeking to raise more than US$2 billion for PayPay, which could value the company at more than US$10 billion, the Financial Times reported. If the listing goes through, it will likely be the largest initial public offering for a Japanese company on a US stock exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The listing could help finance SoftBank’s massive ambition in AI. Its founder Masayoshi Son has pledged US$500 billion to the Stargate project and is exploring a massive robotics and AI complex in Arizona, among other AI investments. https://tinyurl.com/ykfm3vmw

Sam Altman says ‘yes,’ AI is in a bubble.

As economists speculate whether the stock market is in an AI bubble that could soon burst, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has just admitted to believing we’re in one. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI?” Altman said during a lengthy interview with The Verge and other reporters last night. “My opinion is yes.” In the far-ranging interview, Altman compared the market’s reaction to AI to the dot-com bubble in the ’90s, when the value of internet startups soared before crashing down in 2000. “When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said. “If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited.” He added that he thinks it’s “insane” that some AI startups with “three people and an idea” are receiving funding at such high valuations. “That’s not rational behavior,” Altman said. “Someone’s gonna get burned there, I think.” Over the past year, we’ve seen several AI startups, including Safe Superintelligence, led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, and Thinking Machines, founded by ex-OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, raise billions of dollars. “Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don’t know who, and a lot of people are going to make a phenomenal amount of money,” Altman said. “My personal belief, although I may turn out to be wrong, is that, on the whole, this would be a huge net win for the economy.” Even if we may be in an AI bubble, it seems Altman is expecting OpenAI to survive the burst. “You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future,” Altman said. “You should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands.” https://tinyurl.com/35e73v6v

OpenAI staffers plot US$6 billion share sale at US$500 billion valuation.

Current and former OpenAI employees plan to sell around US$6 billion worth of shares at a US$500 billion valuation, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp, and Dragoneer Investment Group are among the investment firms expected to buy the shares. The secondary sale, which is still early in its process, is higher than OpenAI’s last private market valuation of US$260 billion before the US$40 billion investment. OpenAI employees have already sold US$3 billion worth of shares; the new sale would push total cashouts to about US$9 billion if completed. https://tinyurl.com/4f44jba2

Perplexity’s valuation jumps to US$20 billion in latest fundraise.

Perplexity is raising yet another round of funding, Business Insider has learned. The AI search engine is seeking a fresh fundraise at a US$20 billion post-money valuation, according to an email sent to prospective investors seen by BI, and a source with knowledge of the raise. It’s been a busy year for Perplexity, which has become one of AI’s hottest startups with funding from investors including SoftBank, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos. The new valuation represents a US$2 billion jump from Perplexity’s most recent valuation of US$18 billion in its latest fundraising round in July, as first reported by Bloomberg last month. That’s up from a US$520 million valuation in January 2024. All the while, Perplexity’s business has been surging. The startup, which launched in 2022 to combine large-language models with web searches to provide real-time answers to user questions, boosted its annual recurring revenue above $150 million by the middle of 2025. That’s more than quadruple its roughly US$35 million in ARR a year ago, according to the email seen by BI. Perplexity head of communication Jesse Dwyer said Perplexity is currently doing more than US$150 million in ARR.. https://tinyurl.com/ymyzjr3v

Perplexity says it’s made a bid to buy Google’s Chrome browser.

Artificial intelligence-powered search engine Perplexity has offered US$34.5 billion to acquire Google’s Chrome browser, according to Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer. The three-year-old startup has made the offer—amounting to nearly twice its recent valuation—as the government decides whether it will force Google to sell Chrome over antitrust violations. It’s not clear how much Perplexity itself could put forward for a deal. The San Francisco startup has raised at least US$1 billion from investors including Accel and IVP, most recently at a valuation of US$18 billion last month. It had US$850 million in the bank at the end of December. Google’s Chrome is estimated to be worth around US$50 billion. Multiple large investors could fund the transaction in full, Dwyer said, without identifying them. A Google spokesperson declined to comment. Perplexity indicated its interest in buying Chrome if the DOJ forces Google to sell in a letter to the company. In the event of an acquisition, Perplexity said it would keep Google as Chrome’s default search engine for users and will continue maintaining the open-source project Chromium that supports Chrome and other web browsers, according to Dwyer. The Department of Justice is expected to decide on legal remedies after a federal judge last August found Google violated antitrust law by using distribution deals with mobile phone carriers and others to cement an illegal search monopoly. Perplexity chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko, during an April trial to determine those remedies, said that it would be interested in buying Chrome. Perplexity has previously offered to buy assets far greater than its size would suggest is possible. In January said it would make a bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations, though it’s unclear if those talks ever progressed. Perplexity has also previously acquired much smaller AI startups, such as browser startup Sidekick. https://tinyurl.com/4yejnryh

Perplexity offered around US$1 billion for brave browser.

Before its unsolicited offer to buy Google’s Chrome for US$34.5 billion on Tuesday, Perplexity had been quietly exploring acquisitions of smaller browser startups. Earlier this summer, the AI search company offered about US$1 billion to buy Brave, a privacy-focused web browser and search engine, but the discussions stalled. Perplexity also had conversations with executives of other browser startups, including The Browser Co. and DuckDuckGo, although those conversations also didn’t lead to any transactions. These conversations reflect the priority that Perplexity has placed on a browser to the success of its company. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has told investors that a browser could provide important context on users’ browser activity for Perplexity’s search engine. While the company had roughly US$850 million in the bank at the end of last year, it has continued to raise money at a fast pace. It raised over US$500 million at a US$14 billion valuation and later at a US$18 billion valuation. The company is currently in talks to raise more funding at over US$20 billion valuation. The company generates over US$150 million in annualized revenue, up from US$100 million in March. Other startups, too, have explored buying browser startups. OpenAI, for instance, executives had also spoken to The Browser Co. about possibly buying the company as well. The ChatGPT maker is expected to release its web browser soon. https://tinyurl.com/bdebfns2

Nvidia, AMD agree to share China revenue with US.

Nvidia and AMD will give the U.S. government a 15% cut of the sales of their chips in China, in exchange for receiving export licenses for the Chinese market, The Financial Times reported. The unusual arrangement will affect China sales of Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308 chips, for which the U.S. granted the two companies export licenses last week, according to the FT. Trump had originally threatened to ban H20 sales to China, which critics have warned could help the country’s military advance its artificial intelligence capabilities. But Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has developed an increasingly close relationship with Trump and met with him last week, shortly before the U.S. granted the licenses, the FT reported. In a statement, an Nvidia spokesperson said: “We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide. America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s AI tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.“ https://tinyurl.com/mry3p4jv

Trump administration said to be in talks to take stake in Intel.

Intel is in talks with the Trump administration for the US government to potentially take a stake in the troubled chipmaker, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The potential deal would have the government pay for a stake to help fund Intel’s planned factories in Ohio, according to the report. The plans came after Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with President Donald Trump on Monday after the President unexpectedly called for Tan’s resignation over his past investments in Chinese companies. Intel has spent heavily to build its foundry business but yet to secure a major customer. The company has struggled with low yields on its chip manufacturing. President Trump has called for more chips to be manufactured in the US to reduce reliance on foreign manufacturers TSMC and Samsung. Tan, a well-respected figure in the semiconductor industry known for turning Cadence System around, was tasked to do the same for Intel. Intel was criticized for failing to foresee the huge demand for AI chips. Intel shares have fallen by half since the start of 2024, while shares of rivals like Nvidia have soared. They jumped 7% today after news broke about a potential deal. https://tinyurl.com/4urn6m8c

CoreWeave revenue triples.

CoreWeave’s revenue more than tripled to US$1.2 billion in the three months ended June 30, reflecting new deals the AI chip rental firm has struck. But its cash burn rose to nearly US$3 billion. In the quarter, CoreWeave said it signed a US$4 billion expansion deal with OpenAI, which comes in addition to its previously announced US$12 billion deal. CoreWeave said its revenue backlock—estimates based on commitments from customers—rose to US$30 billion, due to its OpenAI deal and expansion deals with two unnamed cloud providers. In the quarter, Coreweave’s capital expenditures rose 12% to US$2.9 billion, which the company funded by borrowing more money. The quarterly report was the second since Coreweave went public in March. The stock has risen sharply since then, although in after-hours trading on Tuesday it was down 8.4%. CoreWeave’s chief financial officer increased the firm’s full year revenue guidance to as much as US$5.35 billion, up US$250 million from the previous estimate. https://tinyurl.com/49zr4vsu

CoreWeave IPO investors sitting on big gains get chance to sell.

CoreWeave Inc.’s March initial public offering has been a roaring success for anyone lucky enough to get in at the start. The stock more than quadrupled by mid-June. Even after a recent selloff, the shares are still up nearly 150%. The problem, though, is most of those early investors haven’t been able to cash in. That changes Friday for holders of more than 80% of CoreWeave’s Class A shares, with the IPO lockup expiring two days after its second earnings release as a public company. The stock has plunged 33% in those two days, in part, analysts say, in anticipation of a flood of selling. CoreWeave’s shares available to trade currently stand at less than 15% of those outstanding, compared to an average of roughly 95% for stocks in the S&P 500 Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Livingston, New Jersey-based company has become a popular way to bet on soaring spending for AI computing and counts Microsoft Corp. as its biggest customer. The stock closed at a record market value of US$88 billion in June, up from less than US$20 billion in the wake of its debut. But the shares have slumped amid concerns about CoreWeave’s money-losing operations as well as a proposed all-stock acquisition of data-center operator Core Scientific Inc. https://tinyurl.com/mway53kn

Google backs Bitcoin miner’s data center deal.

A bitcoin mining firm said Thursday that Google would help finance its move to lease data center servers for artificial intelligence development. The announcement didn’t disclose whether Google will rent the servers but it is one of the biggest AI developers and cloud providers, and it recently said demand for such servers is outstripping capacity. The bitcoin mining firm, TeraWulf, said Thursday that it leased a New York facility to a cloud computing startup, Fluidstack, for $3.7 billion over 10 years. Fluidstack plans to rent out the servers for AI development. In exchange for agreeing to help finance the deal as a “backstop,” Google will receive warrants entitling it to 8% of TeraWulf, which is publicly traded with a market capitalization of $3.4 billion following the deal’s announcement. (Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebrities backed TeraWulf when it was privately held.) The deal could presage similar activity involving a slew of bitcoin mining-related firms, some of whom have already parlayed their AI chip holdings into major data center businesses. And it shows how startups have found it difficult to raise debt to buy AI chips or servers on their own and have instead relied on cloud providers such as Microsoft, Google and Oracle that have large balance sheets. The initial deal between TeraWulf and FluidStack is for 200 megawatts of capacity, about enough to support 100,000 AI chips, which is a fraction of Google’s existing data center capacity. On a call with investors, TeraWulf said that the deal with Google was a “game changer” for its credit rating, meaning it can now raise money for the project at better terms. https://tinyurl.com/ykhamm6v

Circle revenue jumps 53%, unveils blockchain plan.

Stablecoin issuer Circle, which went public in a blockbuster IPO in April, reported second-quarter revenue of US$658 million, up 53% a year ago, on growing circulation of its USDC tokens. But a rally in the stock which followed the earnings, sending shares up 1.3% by the close of trading, reversed in after-hours trading after Circle filed to sell 2 million new shares. Circle shares were trading down 6% at US$153.50 in late afternoon trading. As part of the offering, existing shareholders including CEO Jeremy Allaire, will sell a total of eight million shares. Allaire is unloading 357,812 shares, the filing said, worth US$55 million at current prices. Circle announced plans to launch a blockchain, called Arc, designed for stablecoin payments, foreign exchange and capital markets applications. The blockchain will introduce a new source of revenue for Circle through so-called gas fees, which users pay to execute transactions on the blockchain. In an interview on TITV, Allaire said the blockchain will appeal to traditional financial institutions because it’s only for stablecoin-related activities and has the high standards for privacy and settlement that banks expect. Net loss in the second quarter was US$482 million, in part driven by stock-based compensation. Circle makes the majority of its revenue through interest income generated by reserve assets backing its stablecoins, such as short-term Treasury bills. It shares a portion of the revenue with crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance to incentivize them to encourage their users to use USDC. Currently, there are US$65.6 billion USDC stablecoins in circulation, up from $44 billion at the beginning of the year. In the second quarter, Circle’s revenue after distribution costs was US$251 million, or 38% of total revenue. For full-year 2025, Circle expects revenue less distribution cost margin to be 36%-38%. https://tinyurl.com/ycka53e6

Hedge Funds add Microsoft, Netflix in position shuffle: 13F wrap.

Hedge funds added exposure to technology giants including Microsoft Corp. and Netflix Inc. in the second quarter, a stretch that saw an initial surge in volatility due to President Donald Trump’s trade policies but ultimately ended with major benchmarks posting significant gains. Hedge fund holdings of Microsoft grew by US$12 billion to US$47 billion in the three months ending June 30, according to Bloomberg analysis of data from 13F filings, a result of both net buying and the company’s surging stock price. In other notable changes, billionaire investors Warren Buffett and David Tepper scooped up shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. as the conglomerate tumbled nearly 40% in the second quarter, the filings show. The value of hedge funds’ combined investment in China technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. dropped US$1.55 billion, the biggest decrease by market value of any holding. Bloomberg has so far analyzed 13F filings by 716 hedge funds. Their combined holdings amounted to US$726.54 billion, compared with US$622.94 billion held by the same funds three months earlier. Technology accounted for the biggest weighting in their portfolios, at 23%, followed by financials, at 17%. The value of investments in energy rose the least of any sector. https://tinyurl.com/bdff8vbm

Billionaire Porsche family prepares for war with new defence fund.

The German billionaire family behind Porsche is launching a new fund focused on investing in defence as it seeks to cash in on Europe’s rearmament drive. https://tinyurl.com/v85nebtv

Apple to make Siri centerpiece of robot push.

Apple plans to put an animated version of its Siri voice assistant at the center of a new robotic device that could launch in 2027, according to Bloomberg. Apple is testing out a new version of Siri that would power a device that resembles an iPad mounted on a robotic arm that swivels about, reported Bloomberg. Video calls through FaceTime will be one of the main features of the tabletop robot. Siri will be able to interrupt conversations that take place around the device with restaurant suggestions or recipe recommendations, according to Bloomberg. Putting Siri in such a prominent position may be a risky move for Apple. First launched in 2011, Siri has lagged behind rival voice assistants for a long time now. Siri’s struggles have become more pronounced in recent years as more advanced chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have emerged. Apple failed to deliver a more advanced version of Siri that it promised to launch this year, delaying it until sometime next year. https://tinyurl.com/2np57cmr

OpenAI to back Neuralink Rival Merge Labs.

Merge Labs, which aims to develop brain-computer interfaces, is in early talks to raise US$250 million at an US$850 million valuation from investors including OpenAI, the Financial Times reported. Merge Labs would join a growing number of companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, that are developing technology to allow people to control devices with their brains. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to be a co-founder but will not invest in the company or be involved in day-to-day operations, according to the report. Alex Blania, who co-founded the blockchain project Worldcoin with Altman, will also help launch Merge Labs. In 2017, Altman wrote a blog post titled “The Merge” in which he laid out the need for humans and human-level AI to join forces. “If two different species both want the same thing and only one can have it—in this case, to be the dominant species on the planet and beyond—they are going to have conflict,” he wrote. “My guess is that we can either be the biological bootloader for digital intelligence and then fade into an evolutionary tree branch, or we can figure out what a successful merge looks like.” https://tinyurl.com/yzvevec9

SpaceX rival AST SpaceMobile prepares to deploy nearly five dozen satellites.

Satellite designer AST SpaceMobile said it’s preparing to deploy nearly five dozen satellites to power cellular-based broadband networks, a move that establishes the company as a rival to Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX. The company, based in Texas, released its second-quarter earnings after the bell on Monday, reporting that its satellites are fully funded and preparing for deployment with more than US$1.5 billion on its balance sheet. Shares of the space company surged more than 10% on the news on Tuesday. The stock is up more than 140% year to date in what’s been a boom for space broadband technology. “We are confirming our fully-funded plan to deploy 45 to 60 satellites into orbit by 2026 to support continuous service in the US, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets, including the U.S. Government,” CEO Abel Avellan said in the report. “We also have planned orbital launches every one to two months on average during 2025 and 2026.” AST SpaceMobile currently has six satellites in orbit, used for both commercial and government applications. The company plans to deploy service in the U.S. by the end of the year, followed by the U.K., Japan and Canada in the first quarter of 2026. Avellan added that AST SpaceMobile plans to launch satellites every one to two months to reach its goal of 45 to 60 by next year. With Monday’s announcement, the company joins the growing race to build broadband service in space, with notable player SpaceX currently boasting more than 8,000 Starlink satellites in orbit. Other rivals in the space include Globalstar, backed by Apple, and Project Kuiper, backed by Amazon. https://tinyurl.com/mvehmdpf

Amazon plans same-day grocery delivery expansion.

Amazon announced plans to expand its same-day grocery delivery offering to more than 2,300 U.S. cities by the end of this year, as the e-commerce giant aims to continue to grow sales of low-margin but frequently purchased items like groceries and personal care products. The service is currently live in more than 1,000 cities, Amazon said. In those markets, customers can order groceries including fresh items like produce, meat and dairy on the same order as other quick-ship items like electronics and cleaning products. The same-day service is free for Prime members for orders over $25 or $12.99 for non-members, and is in addition to Amazon’s other Fresh and Whole Foods delivery offerings. Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington has long advocated for growing the company’s grocery business as a way for it to get shoppers to make purchases more frequently. The company’s sales of “everyday essentials” like groceries and health and beauty items grew 90% faster than the rest of Amazon’s selection in 2024. But expanding the fresh, mass-market grocery business is more challenging, since it has fewer overlapping efficiencies with Amazon’s existing supply chain. https://tinyurl.com/yp8kmb4b

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) Code and Country Podcast – Episode 17 – Dmitri AlperovitcZ – Co-founder Crowdstrike, Executive Chairman Silverado Policy Accelerator.

In this episode of Code and Country, Ian Paterson sits down with Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator executive chairman, and author of World on the Brink. Dmitri shares his journey from teenage encryption entrepreneur to leading some of the most consequential cyber investigations in history, including Operation Aurora. He discusses the evolution of cyber threats from spam to state-backed espionage, China’s Volt Typhoon campaign, and why Taiwan may be the “new Berlin” in a looming geopolitical standoff. With candid insights on deterrence, offensive cyber operations, and the role of private companies on the front lines, this conversation offers CISOs, IT leaders, and security architects a front-row seat to the strategies shaping national security in the 21st century. https://tinyurl.com/mjyuwv9r