August 07, 2026: Busy Earnings Week For Tech Investors

Celestica launched a US$3 billion treasury equity offering to fund capex for a multi-year AI infrastructure demand. Telesat won a $2.3 billion Defence Investment Agency contract, its largest ever, adding 69 Lightspeed satellites for Arctic military communications. The award also raised MDA Space’s build contract by $474 million. Options carry total contract value to $2.7 billion. Shopify rose 17% on 34% revenue growth and growth guidance for the high twenties, operating income was up 68% to US$488 million. AMD agreed to acquire Toronto’s Taalas, its second Canadian AI chip purchase in roughly a year. AMD’s reported revenue grew 50% to US$11.5 billion and the company guided to US$13 billion versus US$12.5 billion consensus, but shares fell 9% after hours as capex nearly tripled to US$808 million. SpaceX reported US$7.8 billion in revenue, up 92%, on US$18.3 billion of quarterly capex and US$25 billion of first-half cash burn, with over US$14 billion of compute contracted. Palantir grew 93% to US$1.9 billion, US commercial was up 149% to US$764 million. Sandisk revenue reached US$8.97 billion from US$1.9 billion. Datadog fell 19% after its largest customer cut spend. Alphabet received US$115 billion of orders for a US$25 billion bond sale. SoftBank borrowed US$10 billion against an OpenAI stake it marks at US$89.6 billion. Stripe entered exclusive talks to purchase OpenRouter for nearly US$10 billion, ~70x its US$140 million annualized revenue. Hedge funds gave back nearly 3% in July, but were still up ~8% YTD. Ottawa is investing over $20 million in a U of C-led quantum defence hub. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Cybeats launched RAVEN, an agentic AI intelligence layer for SBOM Studio providing vulnerability triage, reachability analysis and automated VEX evidence while keeping customer source code in-environment. Boardwalktech closed a first tranche of 15,800,000 units at C$0.05 for gross proceeds of approximately C$790,000, each unit carrying a two-year warrant at C$0.06.

Celestica announces US$3 billion equity offering to accelerate growth across global AI infrastructure.

Celestica announced an equity offering totaling $3 billion, in order to fund investments in its business to support unprecedented multi-year demand from its customer base. Celestica announced a US$3 billion treasury offering of common shares. The Company intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the common shares offered. BofA Securities and Citigroup are acting as joint lead bookrunners (in alphabetical order) and TD Securities is acting as bookrunner for the offering. Capitalizing on Multi-Year AI Infrastructure Expansion. Driven by robust demand and expanding visibility across the global AI infrastructure buildout, Celestica is announcing a $3 billion equity offering to accelerate its long-term growth strategy. As a critical engineering and manufacturing partner to the world’s leading technology companies, Celestica is investing to capture multi-year growth opportunities across its key markets of high-performance AI compute and data center Ethernet networking. Net proceeds from the offering are expected to be used for working capital and to support investments in capital expenditures, in addition to other general corporate purposes. Closing. The closing of the offering is subject to customary closing conditions, including the entering into of an underwriting agreement and the listing of the additional common shares on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange. https://tinyurl.com/42bnbfuw

Telesat, MDA Space tapped for $2.3 billion Arctic satellite buildout.

The federal government’s Defence Investment Agency (DIA) has awarded a new, $2.3 billion contract to Ottawa-based Telesat. The company is tasked with bolstering Canada’s military communications capabilities in the Arctic using satellites built by Brampton, Ont.-based MDA Space. The federal government announced the contract, which will be the largest in Telesat’s history, on Tuesday morning. As part of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty push, the constellation will provide the Canadian Armed Forces with secure satellite communication capabilities in the Arctic and other high-latitude regions to support regional defence, operations and search and rescue missions. The contract will expand Telesat’s low-Earth orbit satellite network by 69 satellites, bringing its Lightspeed constellation from 156 to 225 satellites. This ups the number of satellites MDA Space was already making for Telesat, increasing the total value of MDA’s contract by $474 million. The 15-year contract includes two five-year option periods worth around $200 million each, bringing its total value to $2.7 billion. “Secure, sovereign communications are essential to the Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to operate across Canada’s North, work seamlessly with our allies and partners, and contribute to continental defence,” Royal Canadian Air Force commander Jamie Speiser-Blanchet said in a statement. This deal is rooted in the first contract DIA awarded to Telesat and MDA back in December, which supported the initial engineering work for the contract’s underlying military communications project, the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project – Polar (ESCP-P). Telesat said the end-to-end network integration required for the project, such as ground and control infrastructure, training, and support services, will be covered under a separate agreement with the DIA. The satellites will be built out of MDA’s Montréal manufacturing facility, which was recently expanded in response to increased demand for satellite constellations. The door is open for even more work on this project. The feds have tapped MDA to be the prime contractor for the ESCP-P program’s next component: a secure, ultra-high frequency and X-band constellation in medium earth orbit. For this part, Telesat will serve as the subcontractor integrating the systems and implementing the project’s various communication bands. This contract’s details are still being negotiated, according to MDA and the DIA. https://tinyurl.com/3ue3z4xc

Shopify stock soars on strong revenue growth.

Shopify stock jumped 17% on Wednesday after the ecommerce software service reported better than projected 34% revenue growth for the second quarter. While the growth rate was in line with Shopify’s first quarter, the company had projected revenue growth would slow to the “high twenties” in percentage terms. At the same time, Shopify’s operating income rose 68% to US$488 million. Executives said the company was seeing “broad growth across our merchandises, geographies and sales channels,” adding that AI-powered search was helping boost shopping. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said AI search was “particularly helpful to some of the smaller brands,” which make up most of Shopify’s merchant base. That’s a result of AI agents searching Shopify’s catalog to more precisely match what a shopper asks for than typically happens with traditional search. https://tinyurl.com/bdhpet8xs

Sophic Client Boardwalktech, Inc. (BWLK-TSXV, BWLKF-OTCQB) announces closing of First Tranche of Non-Brokered Private Placement.

Boardwalktech is pleased to announce that it has closed a first tranche (“First Tranche”) of its non-brokered private placement (“the Offering”) consisting of 15,800,000 units (the “Units”) at a subscription price of C$0.05 per Unit, for gross proceeds of approximately C$790,000 raised in the First Tranche. Each Unit consists of one common share (“Common Share”) and one Common Share purchase warrant (“Warrant”). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price of C$0.06, for a period of two years from the date of issuance. Certain finders received 8% cash and 8% non-transferable finder’s warrants exercisable for common shares of the Company at $0.06 per share for two years, for an aggregate of 64,000 finder’s warrants and C$3,200 cash commissions paid in the First Tranche. Insiders of the Company participated in the First Tranche in the aggregate amount of $750,000. Such participation will constitute a “related party transaction” as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (“MI 61-101”) and the Company will rely on the exemptions from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, as neither the fair market value of the securities purchased by insiders, nor the consideration for the securities paid by such insiders, will exceed 25% of the Issuer’s market capitalization. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering in connection with general corporate purposes. The Company anticipates completing and closing the Offering through one or more additional tranches within the coming weeks. https://tinyurl.com/zuwthx4j

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) introduces RAVEN, the Agentic AI intelligence layer enabling software supply chain security.

CyBeats announced RAVEN, an agentic AI intelligence layer for SBOM Studio that enables organizations to move beyond software visibility and toward automated, evidence-driven security decision making at the speed of AI. As software supply chains become increasingly complex, with exponentially increasing attack vectors and regulatory requirements, organizations face a growing challenge: they generate Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), but often lack the ability to continuously govern, analyze, and act on that information. This information is oftentimes unique to each organization’s products, and the way the components interact with each other, which makes managing reported vulnerabilities increasingly complex. RAVEN builds on CyBeats’ SBOM System of Record, applying agentic AI reasoning to help security teams rapidly understand which software vulnerabilities matter, why they matter, and what actions should be taken to mitigate or remediate the risks. “AI is rapidly changing how software is built, but it must also change how software is secured,” said Dmitry Raidman, CTO of CyBeats. “The level of detail this work demands has never been something human teams could scale, and human error was always the price of trying. RAVEN makes the impossible possible: SBOM Studio serves as the trusted system of record for software transparency, and RAVEN transforms that governed data into actionable intelligence, investigating every component and every vulnerability with expert depth, consistently and without fatigue. The result is faster decision making, stronger evidence, and greater confidence for organizations operating in increasingly regulated environments, ultimately reducing cybersecurity risks.” Unlike conventional SAST and SCA tools or cloud hosted AI code analysis services that require organizations to upload proprietary source code or binaries for processing, RAVEN is designed around enterprise governance. Vulnerability analysis is performed securely against the organization’s governed software inventory, while sensitive source code and intellectual property remain within the customer’s environment. Evidence is returned to analysts, audited, and stored in SBOM Studio, the system of record, preserving a defensible trail behind every decision. RAVEN integrates with customers’ existing agentic AI infrastructure, preserving control over models, data, and execution while delivering predictable operating costs. RAVEN extends SBOM Studio with AI-powered capabilities including: Intelligent vulnerability triage based on business context rather than severity scores alone. AI-assisted reachability analysis to help determine whether vulnerable code paths are actually executable. Automated generation of evidence supporting Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange (VEX) statements for human analyst review. Context-aware reasoning built upon an organization’s governed software inventory and software supply chain relationships. Complete auditability, preserving the evidence and rationale behind every recommendation. The announcement reflects CyBeats’ vision of software transparency as a living intelligence system rather than a collection of static compliance documents. SBOM Studio provides the governed memory of the software supply chain, while RAVEN delivers the intelligence needed to help organizations prioritize risk, accelerate incident response, and satisfy increasingly demanding regulatory requirements. As governments worldwide implement software security and AI governance requirements through frameworks including the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), FDA cybersecurity guidance, and other critical infrastructure regulations, organizations require more than software visibility. They require the ability to continuously demonstrate, defend, and document software supply chain decisions, and when a vulnerability is actively exploited, to determine exposure and report within the tight timelines regulators now demand. “Security teams don’t need another dashboard or another risk score,” added Raidman. “They need answers they can trust, backed by evidence they can defend and run autonomously at the speed of AI. That’s what RAVEN delivers.” RAVEN is currently available as an intelligence layer for CyBeats SBOM Studio. https://t.co/Q5PpqsCLj1

US chip giant AMD to acquire Taalas.

American semiconductor giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based Taalas, which aims to hardwire AI models directly onto the chips that power them. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction remains subject to closing conditions and regulatory approval. Taalas was founded in 2023 by a trio of former AMD employees and leaders at Toronto-founded, now Santa Clara, California-based AI chipmaker Tenstorrent. The company emerged from stealth in 2024, revealing $50 million in funding from Quiet Capital and Pierre Lamond, among others. It announced another $169 million earlier this year from a group that included Fidelity. Taalas hopes to dramatically boost AI efficiency using hard-wired computation to convert AI models into custom silicon capable of replacing general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs). Taalas, which aims to offer faster and cheaper hardware for an AI-hungry world, has claimed it can launch new chips in just two months, well faster than the industry standard, which often takes upward of one to two years. The startup is betting it can produce models that are a thousand times more efficient than their software counterparts, with single chips that could outperform small GPU data centres. The Taalas acquisition marks AMD’s second purchase of a Canadian AI chip firm in just over a year. In 2025, AMD struck a deal to acquire the team behind Toronto startup Untether AI, which had been developing AI inference chips that it marketed as faster and more energy-efficient than its rivals. AMD, which trades on the Nasdaq, is also an investor in Toronto-based large language model maker Cohere and quantum computer developer Xanadu. Between Taalas, Untether, Tenstorrent, and CentML, which was acquired by current AI semiconductor market leader, Santa Clara-based Nvidia in 2025, four of Toronto’s most promising chip startups have either recently been acquired by or inked deals to sell to major US players, or in Tenstorrent’s case, redomiciled there. Ottawa-based semiconductor startup Hyperlume was also purchased by San Jose’s Credo in 2025. https://tinyurl.com/4pyvbk7n

Intellistake to acquire Dallas-based NanoAi for $17 million in stock.

Vancouver-based AI infrastructure company Intellistake has agreed to acquire Dallas-based NanoAi Technologies, which makes air screening devices with a variety of applications. Intellistake will issue $17 million worth of stock to purchase NanoAi, the company announced on Tuesday. The stock will be issued based on performance milestones related to NanoAi’s future revenue and contracts. Intellistake wants NanoAi for its proprietary standoff detection devices. Standoff detection devices can identify substances without physical contact; NanoAI’s specific devices can identify viruses, explosives, and illicit drugs in the air. The acquisition is still subject to due diligence around NanoAi’s intellectual property and financial statements. After that’s settled, the deal is expected to close within 60 days. NanoAi has completed more than 60,000 validation tests for infection detection using its NanoAi Analyzer, which delivered results in approximately 30 seconds, according to Intellistake. Intellistake said it wants to combine its enterprise AI infrastructure with NanoAi’s air screening devices to deliver a sensor-to-decision capability in defence, healthcare, and industrial settings. Intellistake is a broad-ranging company publicly traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) under the symbol $ISTK. It positions itself as an avenue for retail investors to gain exposure to non-traditional assets by taking its own stakes in crypto, blockchain, and AI infrastructure companies. Last month, it took control of Gravity, a technological infrastructure for prediction markets, and opened a beta test for Austen, its AI content generation platform. Final thought: In this instance, Intellistake is emphasizing an entry to the global defence market. In the NanoAi acquisition announcement, Intellistake noted the US government’s trillion-dollar defence budget for 2026 and a multi-billion-dollar opportunity in the defence AI and analytics market. While standoff threat detectors aren’t novel, Intellistake said most operators lack a software layer that brings the sensors’ data together. https://tinyurl.com/bdzz8sjf

Calogy secures $1.2 million contract to power Jaunt’s autonomous drones.

Sherbrooke, Que.-based Calogy Solutions has been selected by Jaunt Air Mobility Canada to design the battery system for the aerospace firm’s next-generation autonomous drone. In an interview with BetaKit, Calogy co-founder and CEO Mahmood Shirazy said the $1.2 million contract demonstrates “clear product-market fit” for the cleantech startup’s batteries and its patented Uni T thermal management technology. Calogy claims its simple, compact air cooling solution is easy to install, outperforms legacy offerings, and is much cheaper than liquid cooling alternatives. “Their expertise in battery engineering and their innovative thermal management technology align well with our focus on building a safe, reliable, and high-performance aircraft capable of operating in demanding environments,” Jaunt Air Mobility Canada president Eric Côté said in a statement. Calogy claims it can provide battery systems with liquid-cooling-level performance, without the weight and complexity of liquid-cooling systems. Jaunt Air Mobility Canada, a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed American aerospace and defence firm Airo, is developing a new line of large, autonomous, hybrid-electric, dual-use drones that do not require runways to launch and can hover like helicopters, while also operating at the range and speed of fixed-wing aircraft, for defence and commercial applications. The 18-person startup, which has raised approximately C$3 million to date from Investissement Québec, ACET, and angel investors, is currently raising a pre-Series A financing to take Calogy to the next level. https://tinyurl.com/3w9w2cds

U of C to lead creation of Canada’s first quantum defence innovation hub.

The federal government is investing more than $20 million over two years to develop Canada’s first secure, quantum-focused defence innovation hub in Calgary. Speaking at the University of Calgary (U of C), Canada’s national defence minister, David McGuinty, said the investment would support a U of C-led consortium to establish a quantum Defence Innovation Secure Hub (DISH). The hub will be used to accelerate the transition of quantum technology into “mission-ready capabilities” for the Canadian Armed Forces. The announcement marks the first time a DISH—which are mission-oriented hubs aimed at enabling government, industry, academia, and the military to collaborate—has been solely focused on quantum technology development. The consortium establishing the DISH will bring together 13 organizations from Canada’s quantum, defence, and innovation sectors, including the University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Lethbridge, University of Saskatchewan, Lockheed Martin Canada, General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada, CAE, Dell Canada, and Calian. The University of Calgary has long been an academic leader in quantum development in Canada, going so far as to build a “Quantum City” research hub that opened in 2025. The cross-border collaboration with post-secondary institutions like the University of Saskatchewan—which is home to the Centre for Quantum Topology and its Applications and the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation—means the Quantum DISH project is building upon a growing quantum ecosystem in Canada’s Prairies. https://tinyurl.com/mppm9s8v

Hedge funds’ 2026 gains dented by tech trades in July, JPMorgan says.

Global hedge funds gave up almost 3% of their gains during July due to the unwinding of technology-related trades but are still up around 8% for the year across all strategies, JPMorgan said in a ‌note seen by Reuters. As the Iran war continued, a spike in crude oil prices upset markets, sparking a selloff in chip stocks and a sector rout in Asia in July, while an index of U.S. tech stocks fell more than 7%. Trading losses stemmed from crowded bets on technology stocks which, when markets turned sour, prevented speculators from exiting at more profitable levels, ⁠JPMorgan said in the note, which was published on Saturday. Leverage levels started and ended July at the same values, but wild swings occurred during the month, JPMorgan said, adding that on a five-year basis, hedge fund borrowing remains near all-time highs, but is below the peak of the last 12 months. Multi-strategy funds fared better than others, ending July with negative 2.2% returns, while stock pickers in the Asia-Pacific region averaged a negative 9.4% return, the bank said. Global quantitative equity hedge funds that trade less on the economic health of companies but more on their stock market performance, averaged a negative 5% for ‌the ⁠month. JPMorgan’s note identified quant hedge funds as the most leveraged strategy it tracked, with an assumed leverage of 450%. Hedge funds ditching U.S. stocks in July and then re-buying them in September is becoming a pattern, JPMorgan added. Since 2018, hedge funds have tended to dump unprofitable stock trades in July and this year’s “de-grossing” is more pronounced than ⁠in any year apart from 2020 and 2022, it said. In a separate note, Goldman Sachs said global stock pickers suffered their second-worst monthly losses in the last four years in July, while Asia-based stock pickers had their worst ⁠month ever recorded by the bank. https://tinyurl.com/3r6twxru

Situational Awareness not target of predatory shorts, S3 says.

The losses that forced hedge fund Situational Awareness to sell stocks at deep discounts appear to be the result of highly concentrated positions in crowded trades, rather than a concerted effort by short-sellers, according to the founder of a company that analyzes short positioning data. Instead of any clear pattern of “predatory trading,” S3 Partners’ data show there was no significant increase in short sales across the fund’s top holdings, according to the firm’s founder Bob Sloan. Rather, the data show that while short sellers increased bearish bets on some of the fund’s holdings, half of the top 10 saw short interest flat or declining. Among the holdings the hedge fund has publicly disclosed, T1 Energy Inc. and Iren Ltd. had the largest increase in shares sold short — up by 122% and 98% this year so far, while short interest in Sandisk Corp. and Applied Digital Corp. fell 10% and 7% during the same period, S3 data show. Situational Awareness, founded by artificial-intelligence researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, came under pressure after a sharp decline in AI-related stocks raised questions about whether the sector’s high valuations could be sustained. The fund has since exited the bulk of its public equity positions through a large transaction, with Ken Griffin’s Citadel purchasing a significant portion of those holdings. https://tinyurl.com/3ad6f2c9

Alphabet draws strong demand for US$25 billion debt sale with higher yields.

Alphabet, the parent of Google, has raised as much as US$25 billion in a new debt sale after attracting more than US$115 billion of interest by offering what is known as a new-issue concession, or higher yields than some of its existing bonds, according to Bloomberg. The sale comes as the world’s largest tech companies burn through free cash flow to build the infrastructure and computing power needed for artificial intelligence, and follows several weeks in which the bond markets have shown less appetite for some of the debt. A rush of new issuance in the investment-grade bond market tested investor appetites earlier this summer, with Nvidia, SpaceX and Amazon each selling US$25 billion within weeks of each other. “You’ve begun to sense some digestion issues,” Greenwood said July 22. “Supply and demand will continue to be incredibly constructive, but we’re seeing the implications of billions of dollars continuing to come to market each week.” Alphabet’s debt sale is on top of more than US$50 billion it financed in the first half, including issues denominated in Swiss francs, euros, Japanese yen and other currencies. The company also announced an US$85 billion equity raise earlier this year. Alphabet’s underwriters told investors that from here on out the company would sell debt twice a year, Bloomberg reported. https://tinyurl.com/3rk5uxfn

SoftBank borrows against OpenAI stake as it invests more.

SoftBank said it borrowed US$10 billion against its OpenAI shareholding on Wednesday, a month after it put another US$10 billion more into OpenAI, the latest sign of the financial high-wire that the Japanese investment giant is walking with its OpenAI foray. SoftBank has invested US$20 billion of a planned US$30 billion second investment in OpenAI following an earlier US$34 billion investment. It is due to pump the final US$10 billion into the ChatGPT creator in October. At that point, SoftBank said it would have about a 13% stake in the company. SoftBank reported it had recorded a gain of US$45 billion on its OpenAI stake, reflecting the AI firm’s rising valuation. SoftBank calculated the fair value of its OpenAI stake at US$89.6 billion. https://tinyurl.com/5426tk3t

SpaceX first earnings report since IPO shows heavy AI spending.

SpaceX’s second-quarter earnings showed how the company is spending heavily to build up its AI business, even as the company reported US$7.8 billion in revenue, up 92% from the previous year. SpaceX’s revenue was primarily driven by its Starlink satellite internet service and AI business. The company also reported more than US$18.3 billion in capital expenditures during the second quarter, the majority of which was driven by the company’s continued AI data center build out. As a result, SpaceX reported it burned US$25 billion in the first half of the year. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen said on an earnings call that capex in the third and fourth quarters would be in line with the second quarter. The company has said it plans to continue to expand its footprint of data centers and it has entered into more than US$14 billion in agreements to provide compute capacity to customers. SpaceX announced agreements to supply Anthropic and Google with compute earlier this year. Johnsen said that the compute deals will help the company recoup losses from data center expansion. The earnings report also highlighted several updates to its space and satellite businesses, including doubling Starlink subscribers from the previous year and completing two successful Starship tests in the past 90 days. During the earnings call, SpaceX executives highlighted several ambitious goals. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company aims to have “boots on the moon” in 2028. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said SpaceX aims for Starlink to be responsible for most of the world’s internet service in the next 10 years. https://tinyurl.com/fnxwsj8y

AMD shares fall after hours despite 50% revenue growth.

Advanced Micro Devices’ revenue in the second quarter rose 50% from a year ago to US$11.5 billion and net profit grew even faster, the company said Tuesday. The figures beat analysts’ expectations, as did AMD’s projection of about US$13 billion in revenue for the current quarter. That compared to consensus estimates of US$12.5 billion, according S&P Capital IQ. Still, AMD’s stock—which has been on a tear this year thanks to demand for the server chips that power AI—slumped 9% after hours after rising during the trading day. AMD’s earnings report coincided with that of SpaceX, whose CEO, Elon Musk, said on an earnings call that his company—one of the world’s biggest buyers of AI computing equipment—would only buy from AMD rival Nvidia going forward. Some analysts also flagged concern over a surge in AMD’s capital expenditures in the latest quarter, which nearly tripled from the same period last year to US$808 million. AMD is battling two longstanding rivals, Nvidia, which dominates the market for graphics processing units, or GPUs, and Intel, which leads the central processing unit market. But customers appear to want to get their hands on as many server chips as possible and many are willing to use multiple suppliers. Last month, AMD announced its first full-rack product that competes directly with Nvidia, and said OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Microsoft and Oracle have signed on as customers. The largest part of AMD’s revenue growth came from sales of its CPUs and GPUs that power AI in data centers. That slice of revenue now makes up 58% of AMD’s business, up from 42% a year ago. Despite Tuesday’s slump, AMD’s stock price has nearly tripled over the past year. At AMD’s annual customer conference last month, CEO Lisa Su said that the company’s market opportunity could reach US$2 trillion by 2030, and that the market for data center CPUs—which are increasingly in demand for agentic AI, or AI that can make decisions and control computers—will grow from US$26 billion in 2025 to US$220 billion in 2030. https://tinyurl.com/mvvma7n7

Sandisk revenue soars on AI data storage demand.

The company posted net income of US$6.9 billion, or US$43.97 a share, compared with a loss of US$23 million, or 16 cents a share, the year prior. Adjusted earnings were US$39.25 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected US$34.96 a share. Revenue jumped to US$8.97 billion from US$1.9 billion. Wall Street expected US$8.48 billion. The company guided for first-quarter adjusted earnings of US$44 to US$46 a share and revenue of US$10.3 billion to US$10.8 billion. Analysts see first-quarter adjusted earnings of US$44.72 a share and revenue of US$10.82 billion. Sandisk has seen surging revenue and profit as data storage has become a key bottleneck in the AI infrastructure buildout. Capacity has remained constrained, leading to higher prices for customers across a range of industries and boosting the bottom line of producers. https://tinyurl.com/5y5d3xpe

Palantir stock surges as U.S. enterprise sales jump.

Palantir reported accelerating revenue growth for the June quarter driven by continued expansion of its sales to U.S. businesses. The jump drove the company’s stock up more than 10% in extended trading hours. The software firm said Monday that U.S. commercial revenue climbed 149% to US$764 million, an even bigger jump than the segment’s 133% growth in the March quarter. Palantir said the value of contracts it closed with U.S. firms during the June quarter surged to a record-setting US$2.1 billion, up 153% from the previous year. Overall revenue grew 93% to more than US$1.9 billion, topping Palantir’s previous forecast. Sales to the U.S. government also jumped 90% to US$809 million for the three months through June 30, after climbing 84% in the previous quarter. As it did in its previous quarterly report, the company again raised its revenue guidance for the full year to between US$8.15 billion and US$8.158 billion, from its projection of around US$7.66 billion in May. CEO Alex Karp has tried to market Palantir as a more enterprise-friendly way for businesses to use AI than dealing directly with the big AI labs. He continued pushing the message in his quarterly letter to shareholders. “Every organization in the world is awakening to the risks of handing the creators of the language models the keys to their institutions, of letting the models loose within their homes,” he wrote. Palantir’s results for the previous quarter had failed to impress investors, who sold off the stock following the March quarter results as traders called attention to Palantir’s high valuation, despite the company outperforming its own projections. The stock has since recovered somewhat from its 2026 low point, hit in June. https://tinyurl.com/3jmez4mt

Datadog says largest customer reduced spending, shares drop 19%.

Datadog shares dropped more than 19% after the software firm forecast a slowdown in annual revenue growth for its current quarter and said it stemmed from its largest customer reducing its spending. On an earnings call, CEO Olivier Pomel declined to name the customer, saying only that it renewed its contract with the firm during the quarter. While this may seem counterintuitive, Datadog charges customers based on how much they use its products, in the same way as major cloud providers, and it’s normal for savvy customers to find ways to cut their bills over time. Otherwise, Datadog posted solid results for its June quarter, with revenue growing 36% compared to last year to US$1.12 billion—around US$45 million more that it forecast last quarter. Datadog also raised its annual revenue forecast by around US$140 million. For its current quarter, Datadog expects revenue of US$1.14 billion, which would represent annual growth of around 29% compared to last year’s quarter. https://tinyurl.com/bdcr6awk

Spotify reports 14% higher revenue.

Spotify reported 14% higher revenue, driven by 9% growth in the number of paying subscribers, while the music streaming service’s ad business continued to lag. Spotify said ad revenue rose just 1% in the quarter, which is an improvement on the past three quarters where ad revenue fell as much as 6%. Spotify co-CEO Alex Norstrom told analysts on a conference call that the results of Spotify’s effort to rebuild its ad business “are really starting to show.” New technology Spotify has introduced is making it easier for advertisers to reach users, he said. Spotify reported 61% growth in operating income, while free cash flow rose 14%. The company projected revenue growth accelerates to 17% for the third quarter. https://tinyurl.com/yte4m2hm

Airbnb raises its forecast as travel demand rebounds.

Airbnb said late Thursday that revenue for the three months ended in June rose 17% from the year-ago quarter to US$3.6 billion, topping its guidance of 14% to 16%, as the short-term rental company reported higher demand across regions. Net income climbed 27% to US$816 million. Shares jumped 9% late Thursday. Airbnb now expects full-year revenue to grow “at least mid teens,” up from “low to mid teens” guidance in the first quarter, and for third-quarter revenue to rise 15% to 17%. Nights and seats booked, a metric combining room stays and service bookings, rose 10% to US$148.3 million. Growth in nights booked in the U.S., France and Australia, also accelerated, the company said. The raise of the full-year forecast reflects a rebound in its largest market: North American revenue rose 16% in the quarter, roughly double its first-quarter pace, while every other region slowed. Latin America remained the fastest-growing region at 26%, but accounts for just 8% of revenue. Airbnb credited its efforts for pivoting to an AI-first platform, launching tools that surface information from host listings and guest reviews, a home-comparison feature and its AI-powered assistant for customer support. The push comes as AI assistants threaten to take traffic that has historically gone directly to Airbnb away from the company. The short-term rental firm hired a new chief technology officer from Meta in January and has rolled out a series of AI features since. https://tinyurl.com/4n7c37ws

Snap revenue shows improvement in Q2 but user count stays flat in U.S.

Snap reported 19% higher revenue of US$1.599 billion for the June quarter, along with higher profits as measured before deductions for interest, depreciation, amortization and stock compensation. Snap stock, which has been trading near its historic lows, rose 9% in after-hours trading to US$5.50. The growth reflected 9% higher ad revenues, a still-anemic growth rate compared to other big ad-based tech companies, but a big improvement on the 2.7% growth rate of the first quarter. At the same time, subscription and other revenue rose 85%, lifting the overall growth rate. Despite the improvement, Snap’s user base is still not growing where it matters most—the U.S. and Europe. Snap’s North American daily active users stayed flat at 92 million in the quarter, compared with the first quarter. It has fallen 7% over the past 12 months. The European DAU count picked up to 98 million, compared with 97 million in the first quarter, but that’s still down 2% from a year ago. Snap’s user growth is coming mostly from other parts of the world, which are much smaller sources of revenue. https://tinyurl.com/yjmtp9c4

Disney’s streaming revenues grow 11% despite Ad weakness.

Walt Disney Co.‘s entertainment streaming service grew 11% in the June quarter, the company reported Wednesday, just a couple of percentage points behind industry leader Netflix. But Disney’s results showed that growth is coming almost entirely from the subscription side, rather than advertising. That highlights the extremely competitive nature of the streaming ad market, which is crowded with everyone from Amazon to Warner Bros. Discovery, suggesting newer players such as Netflix could struggle to build a sizable business. Disney’s streaming ad revenue rose just 3% in the quarter to US$851 million, while subscription revenue expanded 15%. Meanwhile, Disney’s sports business—which includes its ESPN streaming and cable TV service—ad revenue rose 5% to US$1.2 billion while subscriptions rose 8% to US$3.1 billion. https://tinyurl.com/33m2surh

Stripe in exclusive talks to buy startup OpenRouter for around US$10 billion.

Stripe recently entered exclusive talks to buy OpenRouter in a cash-and-stock deal that would value the startup for close to US$10 billion, according to people with knowledge of the discussion. This step means OpenRouter has effectively taken itself off the market while the companies negotiate price and other details to finalize a transaction. Terms of the deal could still change or it could fall apart. It’s possible that another bidder could still emerge if the exclusivity window expires. OpenRouter, last valued at US$1.3 billion, has been working with an investment bank to evaluate its options, the people said. Other big tech companies had been considering potential deals for OpenRouter. A deal for OpenRouter could help Stripe, which processes billions of transactions mainly for business customers, direct customers to the cheapest model and the ones best suited for specific tasks. OpenRouter uses Stripe to process payments and for invoicing, tax and other services. OpenRouter, which helps app developers access hundreds of AI models, was recently generating about US$140 million in annualized revenue. If a deal goes through, Stripe would be paying a substantial premium of about 70 times its recent annualized revenue. https://tinyurl.com/4ne5axv3

Bending Spoons to acquire Airtable for around US$1.3 billion, steep drop from pandemic peak.

Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons agreed to buy once high-flying productivity startup Airtable for US$1.285 billion, a steep haircut to its last valuation of US$11 billion in 2021. Founded in 2012, Airtable raised more than US$1.3 billion from venture investors including Benchmark and Thrive Capital. Its valuation soared thanks to three funding rounds—led by Greenoaks, XN and Thrive—in 2020 to 2021 as investors flocked to back productivity apps during a surge of demand during the pandemic shutdowns. AirTable has US$900 million in cash on its balance sheet. Including that, AirTable’s investors who hold preferred stock will get their money back. Airtable was one of The Information’s 160 enterprise startups primed for a takeover, a group of enterprise software startups that raised money before the AI boom that haven’t announced new funding in at least two years. The deal is Bending Spoon’s first acquisition after it went public in July and adds to its portfolio of left-for-dead internet businesses such as Vimeo and AOL. Bending Spoons, whose stated mission is to buy and overhaul aging digital businesses, will likely try to run Airtable more efficiently. It said Tuesday that Airtable grew its revenue by 20% since last year to approximately US$480 million as of June. https://tinyurl.com/4ewef3v9

OpenAI’s smart speaker will cost over US$300.

OpenAI’s first hardware device will be a doughnut-shaped smart speaker about the size of a hockey puck, designed to be carried around the house, Bloomberg reported. OpenAI has discussed pricing the screen-free devices, which is set for a 2027 release, at between US$300 and US$400, Bloomberg reported. The device will feature moving parts intended to give it a sense of personality, as well as lights to show when it’s listening and a camera to sense its surroundings. Previously, The Information reported that the smart speaker would have a camera that takes in information about users and their surroundings and was likely to be priced between US$200 and US$300. https://tinyurl.com/mr8kthkb

Major PC makers start using memory chips from China’s CXMT.

Major personal computer makers including HP, Asus and Acer have started using small amounts of chips from Chinese memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies, Nikkei Asia reported. The move by the PC makers comes as the global tech industry is facing a severe shortage of memory chips due to soaring demand for AI infrastructure around the world. CXMT makes Dynamic Random Access Memory, which helps phones, computers and servers quickly retrieve data while running programs. The Chinese company has quickly become the biggest challenger to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron, the three companies that dominate the memory-chip industry. Its share of global DRAM sales rose to 8% in the first quarter from 3% a year earlier, making it the world’s fourth-largest supplier, according to research firm Counterpoint Research. https://tinyurl.com/2tse7px4

Uber plans to invest US$10 billion over time in autonomous vehicle fleet expansion.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company expects to invest US$10 billion in “the coming years” to bringing self-driving cars onto its service, both through investments in autonomous vehicle firms and expanding infrastructure for autonomous vehicles such as managing fleets of cars. Uber has partnered with a very wide range of autonomous vehicle developers, making their cars available on its platform, as it endeavors to keep ahead of the technological transition. Speaking on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Khosrowshahi played down reports that the relationship between Uber and its early partner, Alphabet’s Waymo, was fraying. Waymo is the most advanced of the autonomous vehicle developers, operating robotaxis on its own in many cities while operating through Uber in others. Khosrowshahi praised the relationship but said “we want to make sure that we’re not dependent on one partner.” Uber reported 12% higher revenue in the second quarter, as the volume of its business in both delivery and ride hailing surged. Changes in how Uber defines revenue in the UK has dampened reported topline growth. Ride hailing revenue was essentially flat in the quarter, while delivery revenue rose 28% and freight revenue expanded 26%. Uber said that ride-hailing’s gross bookings—the value of dollars spent on the platform—rose 22% in the quarter. https://tinyurl.com/2etjn8m5