September 21, 2025: Major Indices Hit Record Highs

Last week, Dow Jones rose 1.05%, S&P 500 was up 1.2%, and Nasdaq gained 2.2%. Following an as-expected rate cut, risk appetite stayed firm across AI infrastructure and IPOs despite some mixed headlines pertaining to China’s scrutiny of Nvidia, and TikTok détente signals. Netskope priced at the top of its IPO range, and closed +18% (US$8.6B cap). StubHub finished below issue price (−6%). Crypto custodian BitGo filed for an IPO. Travel software company, Navan, showed 30% revenue growth but ongoing losses as it filed its IPO paperwork. Elon Musk’s xAI saw funding chatter. Microsoft announced a ~US$30B UK AI investment. UK Autonomous driving company, Wayve, neared a US$500M funding from Nvidia. Nvidia will also buy US$5 of Intel stock, alongside a CPU collaboration for AI systems. CoreWeave inked a US$6.3B capacity take-or-pay with Nvidia through 2032. Oracle is reportedly in multi-year talks with META after previously signing “significant” AI contracts with OpenAI, xAI, and Nvidia. Huawei laid out a 2026–28 AI-chip roadmap to blunt Nvidia in China. Beijing is also probing Nvidia’s 2020 Mellanox acquisition, and advised against purchasing certain downgraded Nvidia chips. Google crossed US$3T market cap. Robinhood is preparing a retail venture capital fund. META launched new Ray-Ban/Oakley smart glasses (one model includes display + wristband), spotlighting growing AR form-factor momentum despite Reality Labs losses. In Canada, the RCMP shut exchange TradeOgre, seizing ~C$56M in digital assets in Canada’s largest crypto seizure to date. Sophic Client, Intermap, filed a $100M base shelf (25-month window), adding financing flexibility for growth contracts. Sophic Client Plurilock, announced three new Critical Services wins plus two expansions. Management cited over >$10M additions to its pipeline.

Sophic Client Intermap (IMP-TSX, ITMSF-OTC) files final Short-Form Base Shelf Prospectus.

Intermap Technologies Corporation, a global leader in 3D geospatial products and intelligence solutions filed a final short-form base shelf prospectus (the “Prospectus”) with the securities commissions in each of the provinces of Canada, other than Quebec. A corresponding registration statement on Form F-10 (the “Registration Statement”) has been filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and has become effective under the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System. The filing of the Prospectus and Registration Statement will allow Intermap to issue or sell up to $100 million of common shares, preferred shares, debt securities, subscription receipts, warrants or units, or a combination thereof over the next 25 months in Canada and the United States. Intermap filed the Prospectus and Registration Statement to facilitate potential financings in the future in order to expand and develop its offerings and pursue new strategic contracts, among other things. However, as the Prospectus is a base shelf prospectus, there is no obligation or certainty that any securities will be offered or sold pursuant to the Prospectus (or the Registration Statement). Should Intermap decide to offer securities during the 25-month period for which the Prospectus and Registration Statement are effective, the specific terms of the offering will be set forth in one or more supplements to the Prospectus and Registration Statement, which will be filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities and the SEC, and made available under the Company’s profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on the SEC’s EDGAR website at SEC.gov. https://tinyurl.com/388md9yw

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) announces corporate streamlining.

Plurilock announces the completion of efficiency initiatives that are expected to deliver approximately $2,700,000 in annualized cost savings. This announcement follows the recently completed divestiture of Plurilock’s CloudCodes business, a transaction that sharpened the Company’s focus on its core strategy of scaling its higher-margin Critical Services business. Together, these actions reflect a broader effort to strategically reduce operating expenses, strengthen the balance sheet, and accelerate the path to profitability. https://t.co/yPfAJg2ueH

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) announces new Critical Services customers and account expansions.

Pluriloc added three new clients to its Plurilock Critical Services (“PLCS”) portfolio over the past 30 days and also expanded two existing customer relationships, reflecting continued and organic growth as customers engage Plurilock as a trusted advisor across both commercial and enterprise markets. The new client wins represent initial Critical Services engagements across incident response, security architecture, and data protection. Consistent with Plurilock’s proven land-and-expand model, these initial 5-figure engagements are designed to establish trust, demonstrate value, and serve as the foundation for multi-year, recurring project revenue. Many of the Company’s largest and most profitable contracts began this way as smaller initial engagements. In addition, Plurilock expanded work with two existing PLCS clients, broadening the scope of services delivered and reinforcing its position as a trusted partner. These expansions highlight Plurilock’s ability to grow accounts over time by embedding deeply in client environments and addressing increasingly complex security requirements. “We are seeing strong momentum in our Critical Services offerings with three new customer agreements in a single month,” said Ian L. Paterson, CEO of Plurilock. “We also had two account expansions, demonstrating our ability to convert initial projects into deeper, long-term partnerships and the reoccurring nature of these projects. In the last 30 days alone, we have also added over $10 million in new Critical Services pipeline, with many of these opportunities starting as seven-figure initial bids. Thanks to our growing reputation, past performance, and key partnerships, Plurilock is now being invited into larger opportunities from the outset, including NATO-aligned defense programs.” Together with Plurilock’s recently announced CloudCodes divestiture and the broader program of corporate streamlining and operational optimization, these wins and the expanding pipeline further strengthen the Company’s path toward profitability. https://t.co/1hr3HLaPZx

Elastic Path founder’s new startup ShopVision secures $5.6 million seed round.

Vancouver-based ShopVision Technologies has secured a US$42.1 million ($5.6 million) seed round for its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered market research platform. The all-equity round was led by Brightspark Ventures, with participation from BDC Capital, Rhino Ventures, and undisclosed strategic investors from “category-defining brands.” https://tinyurl.com/zm4n8ese

FeX Energy raises $4.8 million on bet that iron can power the energy transition.

A Montréal-based startup spun out of a McGill University lab is building an iron-based reactor for energy storage that it believes can reduce dependence on fossil fuels. FeX Energy has raised US$3.5 million ($4.78 million ) from Houston-based Fathom Fund, Toronto-based Amplify Capital, and Singapore-based Antares Ventures. The all-equity round closed on Sept. 5 and will help the company launch its first pilot project for an unnamed Ontario client. https://tinyurl.com/4uksjtuj

Canada seizes $56 million in Bitcoin, XRP and other crypto as it shutters exchange TradeOgre.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say the exchange failed to comply with money laundering regulations and also confiscated Ethereum and Litecoin, among other digital assets. Canadian police have confiscated $56 million (US$40.5 million) in digital assets after shuttering an exchange in the country’s largest crypto seizure yet, according to a statement by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Thursday. The RCMP said that they took down the crypto exchange TradeOgre after a tip from European authorities, and that the platform failed to comply with money laundering regulations. TradeOgre’s website no longer works, instead showing a message that it has been seized by Canadian police. RCMP told Decrypt that it had seized Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Tron, and Qubic so far in the operation. “Investigators have reason to believe that the majority of funds transacted on TradeOgre came from criminal sources,” the RCMP statement said. “The main attraction of this type of platform, which doesn’t require users to identify themselves to make an account, is that it hides the source of funds. This is a common tactic used by criminal organizations that launder money.” It added: “The transaction data obtained from the platform will be analyzed and charges may follow. The investigation is ongoing.” Posts on Reddit show people asking why the exchange had stopped responding and working for users two months ago. One user wrote: “Guys, what the hell is happening at TradeOgre? They’ve been radio silent and offline for like 24 hours now, I had around 25k USDT in order deposited on the platform, is it an exit scam? What’s the latest news?” TradeOgre did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. Blockchain data firm Arkham Intelligence said in a blog post that it had been following TradeOgre transactions as millions of dollars in crypto left the exchange. It added that the exchange allowed users to trade in privacy coins—cryptocurrecnies whose transaction data is largely hidden to allow for anonymous money movements. Bitcoin was recently trading at US$116,670, up 1.8% over the past 24 hours and nearly 3% over the past week. https://tinyurl.com/s4v39eze

Netskope shares rise 18% following IPO, yielding Lightspeed US$1 billion.

Netskope shares rose 18% to US$22.49 in their first day of trading on Thursday, lifting its market capitalization to US$8.6 billion and resulting in returns for several top investors in the almost 13-year-old cloud security startup. Lightspeed Venture Partners, which owned 19.3% of the company at the time of the IPO, invested US$272 million in the startup since 2013, according to a person familiar with the firm’s investments. At the close of trading Friday, Lightspeed’s stake was worth US$1.45 billion, a gain of almost US$1.2 billion and a multiple on invested capital of more than five. Iconiq owned 19.2% before the IPO, a stake also worth close to US$1.45 billion by the close of the first day of trading. The firm previously invested US$493 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, a gain of US$952 million and a multiple on invested capital of almost three. The firm also bought additional shares in the IPO, making them the largest shareholder following Netskope’s debut. For startups choosing to go public right now, “the water’s warm, this is a very fortuitous time,” said Will Griffith, partner at Iconiq, who sits on the board of Netskope. He is also on the board of ServiceTitan, which went public late last year. Accel was the third largest shareholder with a stake of 8.9%, worth US$667 million after the first day of trading. The firm invested around US$78 million to get those shares, according to a person familiar with the investment, a multiple on invested capital of more than 8 times. Its gains were US$589 million. Netskope had priced its IPO at US$19, the top of its marketed range. It raised US$908 million in its IPO. It is part of a wave of venture-backed tech IPOs, the most seen in a single month since the market boom in 2021. https://tinyurl.com/4xassrm2

Ticketing platform Stubhub falls below IPO price.

Shares of StubHub closed at US$22 on its first day of trading, more than 6% below its initial public offering price of US$23.50. The offering raised US$800 million. Stubhub CEO Eric Baker said in an interview that the company is betting on future revenue growth from direct ticket sales. The company said in a securities filing that these sales represented about 1% of its gross sales volume. “They [buyers] just want access to the tickets they want for the events they want in the easiest, most convenient way.” Baker said. Stubhub’s lackluster IPO was a big contrast to the blockbuster debuts of crypto and AI-focused companies. Circle and CoreWeave shares have more than tripled from their IPO price. Shares of companies like Klarna and Figure that recently went public are trading above their IPO prices. https://tinyurl.com/5ezx5cxp

Crypto custody firm BitGo files for IPO.

BitGo filed for an initial public offering on Friday, becoming the first crypto custodian to go public in the U.S. Founded in 2013, BitGo is one of the largest crypto custody firms in the U.S., with US$90.3 billion assets on platform. Crypto custodians safekeep crypto assets for clients, preventing them from being hacked or misused. The company also provides stablecoin issuance services, and acts as a custodian and infrastructure provider for the stablecoin issued by President Donald Trump’s World Liberty. The Palo Alto, Calif.,-based company is seeking to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BTGO. It reported a profit of US$12.6 million on revenue of US$4.19 billion for the first six months this year, compared with a profit of US$30.9 million and revenue of US$1.12 billion during the same period last year. In 2024, it made revenue of US$3 billion and profit of US$157 million. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are lead advisers for the offering. https://tinyurl.com/4auw9bvx

Navan’s IPO filing shows losses, steady revenue growth.

Navan’s IPO Filing Shows Losses, Steady Revenue Growth. Travel software company Navan, in paperwork made public Friday for a planned initial public offering, said revenue rose 30% to US$329 million for the six months ended July 31. That’s roughly the same growth rate for the same period the year before. Navan, founded 10 years ago as TripActions, showed a net loss of US$100 million for the six months ended July 31 compared to US$93 million in the prior period. The company spends about half of the revenue it generates on sales and marketing. Navan was valued at US$9.2 billion in 2022 and its backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup lead the IPO underwriting. https://tinyurl.com/2t5xah7w

Nvidia to buy US$5 billion of Intel stock as part of chip collaboration.

Nvidia is to invest US$5 billion in Intel stock as part of a partnership in which Intel will build Nvidia-custom designed CPU chips to integrate in Nvidia’s AI systems, the companies said on Thursday. The news sent Intel’s stock soaring 29%. The deal strengthens the prospects for Intel, which had been flailing in recent months as it struggles to catch up to chip design rivals such as Nvidia and to chip manufacturers like TSMC. Intel, known for its central processing units, will now count Nvidia as a major customer. CPUs are widely used in data centers for various types of computing, but they are also needed alongside Nvidia’s AI chips. Nvidia currently uses chip designer Arm’s architecture for its CPUs. This new deal will give Intel a piece of that business. On a call with reporters, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said a large portion of cloud providers and enterprises still use Intel’s architecture, known as x86, in their data centers, rather than Arm-based chips. The collaboration will give Nvidia a chance of selling more sophisticated AI systems to those customers. Nvidia would join the U.S. government, which recently took a 10% stake in Intel. Nvidia is likely to have a stake of around 3.6%, based on Intel’s market capitalization of Thursday of $140 billion. Huang declined to comment on whether Nvidia separately plans to manufacture any of its AI chips at Intel’s chip foundry. https://tinyurl.com/yua8xhak

Elon Musk’s xAI said to raise US$10 billion at US$200 billion valuation.

Elon Musk’s xAI is raising US$10 billion at a US$200 billion valuation, inclusive of the new financing, CNBC reported on Friday. CNBC said the money would come from several investors that “could include” Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Elon Musk wrote on X that CNBC’s report was “fake news,” saying “xAI is not raising any capital right now.” The reported new round would come after xAI raised US$10 billion in equity and debt earlier this summer. While xAI did not publicly state a valuation for that round, CNBC reported it was approximately US$150 billion. In March, xAI acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, in a transaction that valued the combined company at US$113 billion. A US$200 billion valuation would give xAI a higher valuation than Anthropic, which said it had raised US$13 billion at a US$183 billion post-money valuation earlier in September. OpenAI is currently letting employees sell shares at a US$500 billion valuation. https://tinyurl.com/3z25ftvh

Nvidia in talks to invest US$500 million in Wayve.

Nvidia is nearing a deal to invest US$500 million in Wayve, a self-driving car company based in the U.K., Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced Thursday. Wayve said it is considering the investment as part of an upcoming funding round. Wayve uses Nvidia chips to develop its artificial intelligence foundation models for autonomous vehicles. It previously raised US$1.3 billion, most recently at a valuation of US$2.78 billion in May 2024, according to PitchBook, from investors including SoftBank, Eclipse Ventures and Nvidia. Huang said that he expects the first U.K.-based company worth over US$1 trillion to be an AI company. He said Nvidia is also planning to invest in several other U.K. companies, such as Revolut, which provides a digital banking app, and AI video startup Synthesia. The announcement followed President Donald Trump’s visit to the U.K. earlier this week, during which tech companies pledged billions of dollars in investment in the country. https://tinyurl.com/bdarc8c5

Microsoft trumps Google with US$30 billion investment in the UK.

Microsoft is announcing that it’s investing £22 billion (around US$30 billion) in the UK to help support AI infrastructure and ongoing operations from 2025 through 2028. The investment includes US$15 billion in capital expenditures to build a supercomputer to support AI demand and adoption. https://tinyurl.com/39yxcmra

Oracle and Meta in talks for US$20 billion compute deal.

Oracle is in talks with Meta Platforms about a cloud computing deal worth around US$20 billion over multiple years, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Meta is an existing customer of Oracle, but the new deal could greatly increase the amount of Nvidia graphics processing units it rents from the firm. In addition to building its own data centers, Meta is expanding its cloud contracts to get capacity more quickly. Meta recently signed a more than US$10 billion cloud deal with Google. Bloomberg first reported on the talks. The terms of the new deal are not final and could still change, according to the report. The talks are the latest in Oracle’s rise as a major player in the cloud computing market. Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI committed to spending a whopping US$300 billion with Oracle over multiple years starting in 2027. On Oracle’s earnings call last week, the firm told investors it signed “significant” contracts with OpenAI, xAI, Meta and Nvidia, which has also become a big customer of cloud servers powered by its chips. Meta is still investing heavily in its own data centers—it recently raised nearly US$30 billion for a data center in Louisiana. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently that Meta plans to spend around US$600 billion on servers through 2028. https://tinyurl.com/ywe4xk2f

China says Nvidia violated Antitrust law in 2020 Mellanox deal.

Chinese regulators announced Monday that Nvidia violated anti-monopoly law in its US$7 billion acquisition of Israel’s Mellanox Technologies. Beijing’s attack on Nvidia comes at a time when senior officials from the U.S. and China are entering the second day of trade negotiations in Spain. The State Administration for Market Regulation, China’s top antitrust enforcement agency, said its initial investigation launched in December found that Nvidia had breached the conditions set for the 2020 deal. The agency, without providing any details on the alleged violation, said the U.S. company would face further investigation. Nvidia acquired Mellanox in April 2020, and the networking company’s technology, which enables the construction of large clusters of chips, has since become essential for Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips. The deal was originally approved by Chinese authorities under conditions requiring Nvidia not to bundle Mellanox equipment with its chip sales in China and to avoid any discrimination against Chinese customers. Beijing has increasingly used antitrust reviews of both current and past acquisitions as a countermeasure against U.S. efforts to limit China’s technological advancement, The Information reported in December. https://tinyurl.com/44p28esx

China agrees to TikTok deal with U.S. that includes algorithm licensing.

A Chinese government official said the U.S. and China have reached consensus on TikTok’s U.S. operations that include licensing of ByteDance’s algorithms and other intellectual property rights. Wang Jingtao, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said the Chinese government “will examine and approve relevant matters involving TikTok, such as the technology export and the license use of intellectual property, in accordance with relevant laws and regulations,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Wang made the comments at a press briefing Monday in Spain, where delegations from the U.S. and China have been holding trade negotiations. Remarks from Chinese officials followed President Donald Trump’s social media post on Monday where he said “a deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.” https://tinyurl.com/4nvb2pmn

Workday to acquire AI agent startup Sana for US$1.1 billion.

Human resources software maker Workday has agreed to acquire Sana, a Stockholm-based startup developing enterprise AI agents, for US$1.1 billion, the company announced Tuesday. This is Workday’s latest effort to expand its AI agent offerings. In August, it has agreed to buy Paradox, another startup that makes conversational AI agents for job recruiting and Flowise, a no-code platform to build AI agents. Enterprise software companies and older tech companies are buying more AI startups to allay investor fears that consumers and businesses will shift to AI-powered alternatives. Shares of Workday have dropped more than 12% this year so far. https://tinyurl.com/5a8f23t8

Google becomes a US$3 trillion company by market capitalization.

Google’s parent Alphabet became a US$3 trillion company on Monday, joining Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple in that category. Shares of Google rose 4.5% to US$251, giving the company a market capitalization of US$3.04 trillion. The rally, part of a broader upswing in the market likely spurred by upbeat news on U.S.-China trade talks, means that Google stock has now risen 19% in the past two weeks, since a judge ordered Google to undertake fairly limited changes in response to his 2024 ruling that its search business was a monopoly. Uncertainty about the potential for a breakup of Google flowing from that case—the government had asked for Google to be forced to spin off its Chrome browser and maybe its Android mobile operating system—had pressured the stock for much of this year. Google shares have also been hurt by the perception of that its search business faced a dire threat from the rise of AI, although search revenues continue to grow. https://tinyurl.com/mrj6u4r9

Robinhood launches venture fund for retail investors.

Online brokerage app Robinhood said Monday it plans to launch a fund that will allow retail investors to get access to private companies before they go public, pending regulatory approval. Robinhood Ventures Fund has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to register the offering. It will be a closed-end fund that buys stakes in private companies in various sectors, such as AI, defense and consumer technology. It plans to make direct investments in the companies and may also invest indirectly through special purpose vehicles, venture funds and private equity funds. It’s part of Robinhood’s effort to expand access to private markets. In June, Robinhood announced its launch of “tokenized” equities – tokens that represent shares in companies such as OpenAI and SpaceX – in Europe. That prompted OpenAI to issue a statement saying it did not endorse the effort and didn’t approve any transfer of equity. The launch also faced scrutiny from Bank of Lithuania, Robinhood’s main regulator in the European Union. https://tinyurl.com/hesb9jja

Elon Musk buys US$1 billion in Tesla stock.

Elon Musk has purchased 2.57 million Tesla shares valued at about US$1 billion, the electric automaker said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Musk’s buying, which is his first significant purchase of Tesla shares since February 2020, brings his total stake in Tesla to about 413 million shares. The purchase increased his stake in Tesla from approximately 12.7% to 12.8%, based on Tesla’s 3.2 billion total shares outstanding. Tesla shares were trading up about 8% early Monday following the news. The news comes after Tesla’s board of directors earlier in September proposed granting Musk another 423.7 million shares if he meets several ambitious goals over the next decade, including Tesla reaching an US$8.5 trillion market capitalization. Tesla will ask investors to approve the pay package in November. https://tinyurl.com/bdctax5a

Webtoon shares soar on Disney investment, web comic venture.

Walt Disney Co. is bringing all of its marquee comics to a new digital platform and app in partnership with Webtoon Entertainment Inc., sending shares of the upstart company soaring. Disney announced on Monday it plans to acquire a 2% equity interest in Los Angeles-based Webtoon, part of a deepening partnership between the two that will build an ambitious new service to house all of Disney’s key assets in the genre. Stock in Webtoon rose as much as 90% to US$28.48 in extended trading. https://tinyurl.com/mtauumk7

CoreWeave inks US$6.3 billion deal to rent chips back to Nvidia.

Nvidia agreed to purchase US$6.3 billion of cloud computing capacity from CoreWeave, the latest example of the chip company striking a deal to rent its own chips from a third-party cloud business. Under the agreement, Nvidia will purchase cloud capacity that CoreWeave isn’t able to sell to other customers through 2032, according to a CoreWeave filing Monday. Nvidia is also one of CoreWeave’s largest shareholders. A CoreWeave spokesperson said, “The agreement reflects the scale, trust and pivotal role CoreWeave plays in accelerating AI innovation worldwide.” The agreement is an update to a previous deal the companies struck two years ago, according to the filing. Nvidia in 2023 agreed to spend US$1.3 billion over four years renting its own chips from CoreWeave in a deal the cloud company called “Project Osprey.” Nvidia also recently agreed to rent US$1.5 billion of chip capacity from Lambda Labs, making it the cloud startup’s biggest customer ahead of a planned initial public offering. Nvidia is an investor in Lambda Labs. https://tinyurl.com/2kx6n4x6

Meta introduces new smart glasses with display.

Meta Platforms introduced a version of its Ray-Ban smart glasses with a display and a wristband for controlling the device at its developer conference Connect on Wednesday. The company also unveiled a new generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses with several improvements but no display, as well as another version of its Oakley-branded smart glasses that wraps around the face and has one camera on the nose bridge. “Our goal is to build great looking glasses that deliver personal superintelligence and a feeling of presence using realistic holograms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a keynote speech at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. “These ideas combined will be called the metaverse.” The glasses with the display come with a wristband controller that interprets hand motions so that people wearing it can complete tasks like sending text messages. However, a live demonstration of the controller went awry on Wednesday, with Zuckerberg failing to make a video call with Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. The glasses with a display will cost US$799, and the new Oakley-branded glasses will cost US$499. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have been a bright spot for its augmented and virtual reality arm, Reality Labs. In July, the company attributed revenue growth in the division to increased sales of the glasses. Still, the unit’s operating losses have ballooned in recent years, from US$4.5 billion in 2019 to US$17.7 billion in 2024. https://tinyurl.com/2ah5cjdm

The Air Force wants more research on quantum computing, and it’s sending stocks in the sector soaring.

The US military’s curiosity about quantum computing is driving stocks across the sector higher on Thursday. Rigetti Computing stock surged on Thursday after the company announced a contract with the US Air Force worth US$5.8 million over three years. Rigetti will advance the Air Force Research Laboratory’s supercomputing quantum network. Rigetti has enjoyed a month of steady growth, rising 52%. Now its new Air Force contract has sparked fresh momentum that’s boosting other stocks in the space. “Quantum networks could provide a path for scaling to larger, more powerful quantum computing systems by networking smaller systems together to solve problems by using multiple quantum processors,” Rigetti said in a statement. As part of the deal, the company will work with Dutch quantum computing startup QphoX. A solid earnings report from D-Wave Systems also helped prop up stocks in the sector. https://tinyurl.com/yur2hhdr

China’s brain implant startups take on Musk’s Neuralink in new tech race.

For years, US companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. have led the industry with state-of-the-art procedures implanting chips into patients’ brains. A wave of clinical trials by Chinese startups this year is shifting that narrative. A May video by Shanghai StairMed Technology Co. showed a paraplegic patient playing a computer game using only his thoughts, enabled by a coin-shaped implant comparable to the one used in Neuralink surgeries. Once seen as a niche and futuristic concept, brain-computer interface technology has emerged as a new front in the high-stakes rivalry between the US and China. While current trials focus on helping the disabled regain essential functions, industry experts envision a broader use beyond medical purposes if, and when, the technology becomes commercially viable. China is intent on harnessing that potential, leaning on a proven playbook to accelerate its path to dominance. A pan-ministerial statement in July pledged support across research, clinical trials, and commercialization to create a world-class brain tech cluster – the sort of top-down drive that powered China’s rise in industries ranging from electric vehicles to semiconductors. Companies are hopeful that the policy momentum will ease regulatory bottlenecks. https://tinyurl.com/25p8bamf

SpaceX plans to test direct-to-cell Starlink on EchoStar spectrum next year.

SpaceX is aiming to test direct-to-cell Starlink service late next year using wireless spectrum it plans to acquire from EchoStar, the company’s president Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday. “We hope to be launching our next-generation direct-to-device satellites in two years, and hopefully maybe have some tests on phones late next year,” Shotwell said at a space conference in Paris, according to SpaceNews. SpaceX said last week that it would buy wireless spectrum from EchoStar for US$17 billion in cash and stock, which SpaceX said would let it offer satellite-to-cell service anywhere in the world. SpaceX now has to launch a new generation of satellites with hardware that’s compatible with the spectrum it has acquired, which it plans to start doing in the next two years, Shotwell said. SpaceX is also now working with chip manufacturers so that future generations of mobile phones will have chips that will work with Starlink service, according to Shotwell. https://tinyurl.com/4hjp8ty4

Elon Musk’s xAI says Grok has 64 million monthly users.

Elon Musk’s xAI told staff this week that its Grok chatbot has 64 million monthly users, the New York Times reported on Thursday. By contrast, OpenAI said in August that ChatGPT had hit 700 million weekly users, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in July that its Gemini app had 450 million monthly users. xAI also has a much smaller enterprise business than OpenAI or Google. Musk pushed through several changes to xAI’s leadership this summer. https://tinyurl.com/2ur5t7bc

Amazon launches AI-powered ad creation tools.

Amazon unveiled a range of new artificial intelligence-powered tools for sellers Wednesday, including a tool that will allow merchants to create ads through a conversational chatbot. The ads created by the tool, which is powered by AI models including Amazon’s Nova model and Anthropic’s Claude, can run across the e-commerce giant’s ad network, including in Amazon’s search results, on Prime Video and outside websites where Amazon sells ads. The tools could help boost Amazon’s ad business by expanding the range of ads it can sell besides search ads, which are responsible for the bulk of Amazon’s ad revenue. Other ad giants like Meta have said they plan to incorporate more AI into the creation and management of ads on their sites. Amazon is also adding in more agentic capabilities to Seller Assistant, a chatbot for merchants that Amazon launched last year. The tool can help monitor sellers’ operations and proactively flag potential issues so that merchants can address them, like slow-moving products in Amazon fulfillment centers that could incur fees or problems with regulatory or compliance information. https://tinyurl.com/34kcpf4e

Huawei unveils AI chip roadmap to challenge Nvidia dominance.

China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies unveiled on Thursday a three-year roadmap for its artificial intelligence chips designed to challenge Nvidia’s stranglehold on the market. The roadmap is the latest example of China’s effort to reduce its dependence on American semiconductor technology. The Shenzhen-based company plans to release four new generations of its Ascend AI chips through 2028, starting with two variants of the Ascend 950 series in 2026, followed by the Ascend 960 in 2027 and the Ascend 970 in 2028. The company also said it will launch computing clusters capable of linking up more AI chips efficiently. The announcement is highly unusual for Huawei, which has been extremely secretive about its semiconductor development since U.S. sanctions severed the company from global supply chains in 2019. The rare public disclosure signals Huawei’s confidence in Chinese chipmaking capabilities and the urgency of China’s push to achieve self-reliance in key AI chip supply. Eric Xu, Huawei’s deputy chairman, said at Huawei’s annual Connect conference that the new Ascend 950 series in 2026 will feature Huawei’s own high-bandwidth memory, addressing a critical bottleneck that previously forced the company to rely on South Korean and U.S. suppliers. The announcement confirmed The Information’s report last year that Huawei is leading a group of Chinese chip firms to produce high-bandwidth memory chips in 2026. https://tinyurl.com/bd38cht7

Chinese officials urge firms to shun Nvidia AI chip.

Nvidia was dragged further into the U.S.-China trade war after Beijing’s top cybersecurity regulator urged big tech companies not to buy one of its newest chips. The guidance from the Cyberspace Administration of China effectively blacklists Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chip, which is designed for industrial artificial-intelligence applications, people familiar with the move said. It is the latest in a string of actions targeting Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company. China is signaling that it doesn’t need the less-advanced AI chips that the U.S. allows Nvidia to sell to Chinese customers, but it still wants Nvidia’s top-of-the-line products. The RTX Pro 6000D chip was announced by Huang during a July trip to Beijing. The guidance follows an earlier directive by Chinese regulators that companies shouldn’t buy Nvidia’s popular AI chip specially designed for the Chinese market, called the H20, owing to cybersecurity concerns. And China’s antitrust regulator this week said a preliminary investigation found that Nvidia violated the country’s antimonopoly law in connection with an acquisition completed in 2020. More analysts now predict Nvidia won’t book any revenue from the two chips or other planned offerings this year in China. Shares of Nvidia closed down 2.6% Wednesday. The U.S. has allowed Nvidia to sell certain chips in China that Trump administration officials describe as less-advanced technology whose sale shouldn’t affect American national security. With actions such as the guidance against buying Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D, Beijing is showing it doesn’t like receiving the tech equivalent of hand-me-downs—and is willing to hurt Nvidia as a bargaining chip in trade talks. Even before the guidance, major Chinese tech companies had shown tepid interest in the RTX Pro 6000D chip. Engineers at those firms said initial testing results were unimpressive, while they could easily access Nvidia’s older but still useful RTX products, including some controlled by U.S. export rules. China has encouraged domestic firms to switch to homegrown hardware. China Unicom, a state-owned telecommunications operator, has used around 23,000 Chinese AI chips in a computing facility, according to state television. Longtime Nvidia customers such as Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent have increased the use of domestic chips to fill the void Nvidia left. https://tinyurl.com/5hb3nt3n

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) Code and Country Podcast – Episode 19

Michael Daniel – President and CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance. In this episode of Code and Country, Michael Daniel, President and CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance and former White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, shares lessons from the frontlines of national cyber policy. From shaping early government cyber budgets to confronting incidents like the Sony hack and OPM breach, Daniel reflects on how U.S. policy thinking matured in real time. He outlines the evolution of ransomware, structural flaws in how cybersecurity risk is distributed, and why the future of cyber resilience depends on smarter collaboration between public and private actors. Essential insights for CISOs, systems architects, and IT leaders facing today’s complex threat landscape. https://tinyurl.com/zs2mje27