June 27, 2026: Indices Diverge, Tough Week For Nasdaq

Last week, Dow Jones rose 0.6%, and hit a record high Thursday, while S&P 500 lost 1.95%, and Nasdaq composite fell 4.6%. Samsung announced a massive US$648 billion South Korean investment package targeting chips and AI data centers. OpenAI and Broadcom unveiled their US$18 billion AI inference chip, Jalapeno, to reduce Nvidia reliance. Morgan Stanley is pitching leveraged loans and CLOs for AI infrastructure debt. Micron’s revenue quadrupled in FQ3 on soaring memory demand, passing a US$1 trillion market cap. Cerebras stock fell 10% on lower gross margin guidance despite a US$20 billion OpenAI contract. Qualcomm is buying software startup Modular for US$3.9 billion to challenge Nvidia’s CUDA. Sunrun partnered with Tesla and Renew Home on a 16.8 GW virtual power plant for data centers, sending Sunrun shares up 26%. Alphabet shares dropped over 7% after key AI leaders left for Anthropic and OpenAI. Meta launched US$299 smart glasses, and paused an internal employee monitoring tool after a major data leak. The Company is also building a prediction markets app called Arena. Charles Schwab is also entering prediction markets with Cboe binary options. SpaceX’s recent US$25 billion bond sale weakened in secondary markets. Tesla shareholders are betting on a SpaceX merger. Humanoid robot builder Agility Robotics plans a US$2.5 billion SPAC debut. Uber will anchor Lime’s US$1.8 billion IPO. Bumble is exploring a sale. President Trump signed two sweeping quantum Executive Orders. In Canadian venture tech, Toronto-based Float raised an $85 million Series C at a $550 million valuation. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Replenish Nutrients completed commissioning its Beiseker fertilizer facility, targeting 1,000 metric tonnes per month in Q3 2026. Ionik closed US$100 million in new credit facilities to finalize its debt reorganization. Intermap secured a third U.S. DoD subcontract for GPS-denied navigation. Hybrid Power Solutions signed a national defense distribution pact with Fair D Canada. Boardwalktech announced a strategic partnership with Xoriant to deliver AI-driven enterprise transformation.

Sophic Client Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp. (ERTH-CSE, VVIVF-OTC) Completes commissioning of patented pellet fertilizer facility at Beiseker Hutterite colony.

Replenish Nutrients has completed the commissioning of its patented pellet fertilizer facility at the Beiseker Hutterite Colony. The facility is expected to produce at least 1,000 metric tonnes of the Company’s patented pellet fertilizer per month beginning in the third quarter of 2026. Financial Impact: During the third quarter of 2026, the Company expects to increase production to at least 1,000 metric tonnes per month of its patented pellet fertilizer at the Beiseker Hutterite Colony. The Company further expects average pricing of approximately $600 per metric tonne and gross margins of 25% to 35%. These margins are expected to flow directly to the Company’s bottom line, contributing to increased profitability and cash flows beginning in the third quarter of 2026. Alignment on Soil Health Sustainability: Replenish’s partnership with the Beiseker Hutterite Colony is a natural fit, with strong alignment on soil health and sustainable farming practices. As generational landholders, Hutterite colonies are dedicated stewards of the land with a particular interest in soil health and long-term productivity. Replenish’s regenerative, soil-health-focused fertilizer not only advances these goals but also strengthens farm economics over time by restoring key mineral nutrients, critical biology, and a diverse microbiome to the soil. In turn, these benefits support stronger crop yields, better soil water retention, higher plant nutrient density, and improved plant and soil resilience to pests and disease. And while Replenish has not yet quantified the specific impact, healthier soil is generally understood to be more capable of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere than soil that is depleted and lacking in important biological activity. According to 2024 census data, Hutterite colonies manage approximately 4 million acres across Canada and the U.S., with roughly 75% of those acres located in Canada and 25% in the U.S. These 4 million acres represent approximately 4% of Canada’s agricultural land base. Alberta is particularly notable, with Hutterite colonies accounting for approximately 1.7 million of the 4 million total Hutterite acres in North America. Given these figures and Replenish’s natural alignment with the sustainable farming practiced by generational Hutterite colonies, the Company sees significant opportunity to expand partnerships of this kind across Alberta, into other Canadian provinces, and ultimately into the U.S. “Completing commissioning at the Beiseker Hutterite Colony is a meaningful milestone for Replenish and a clear proof point for our partnership model,” said Neil Wiens, CEO of Replenish Nutrients. “By partnering with a generational steward of the land like the Beiseker Hutterite Colony, we can scale production close to the acres we serve while generating high-margin revenue that flows directly to our bottom line. We view this facility as the first of many partnerships of its kind across Western Canada and beyond, and a foundational step toward building a scalable regenerative fertilizer platform for large-acre commercial agriculture.” https://t.co/7O4nJUHRBV

Sophic Client Ionik (INIK-TSXV, INIKF-OTCQX) announces closing of new US$100 million credit facilities and completion of debt reorganization.

Ionik Corporation announces the successful closing of new credit facilities totaling US$100 million (the “New Facilities”) and the completion of its comprehensive debt reorganization (the “Debt Reorganization”), previously announced on May 22, 2026, June 2, 2026 and June 15, 2026. Completion of the Debt Reorganization was a condition precedent to the closing of the Company’s New Facilities. “The closing of our New Facilities and completion of the Debt Reorganization represent a significant milestone for Ionik,” said Ted Hastings, Chief Executive Officer of Ionik. “This transaction materially strengthens our balance sheet, simplifies our capital structure, extends debt maturities and enhances financial flexibility. We appreciate the support of National Bank of Canada, ATB Financial and our acquisition partners throughout this process and believe the Company is now better positioned to execute its strategic priorities and pursue long-term growth.” The New Facilities consist of: US$80 million senior term facility (the “Senior Term Facility”); US$10 million revolving credit facility (the “Revolver”); and US$10 million subordinated facility with ATB Financial (the “Subordinated Facility”). National Bank of Canada acts as co-lead arranger (with ATB Financial), sole bookrunner and administrative agent for the Senior Term Facility and Revolver (collectively, the “Senior Facilities”), with participation from ATB Financial, Citibank Canada and Export Development Canada. Initial advances under the New Facilities were used to refinance the Company’s existing syndicated credit facility, fund cash settlements completed as part of the Debt Reorganization, pay transaction-related fees and expenses and provide additional liquidity for working capital and general corporate purposes. The Senior Term Facility amortizes on a quarterly basis at an annual rate equivalent to approximately 15% of the outstanding principal per annum, with the remaining balance due upon maturity in June 2029, subject to extension provisions. The Senior Facilities are secured by substantially all of the assets of the Company and certain of its subsidiaries. Borrowings bear interest at variable rates determined by reference to applicable benchmark rates and the Company’s total funded debt to EBITDA ratio. The Subordinated Facility is subordinated to the senior credit facilities, matures subsequent to the maturity of the senior credit facilities and, similar to the Senior Facilities, is also secured by substantially all of the assets of the Company and certain of its subsidiaries. The New Facilities contain customary covenants and other terms for transactions of this nature. Fort Capital Partners acted as credit advisor to arrange and refinance the New Facilities. Debt Reorganization: In connection with the closing of the New Facilities, the Company completed its comprehensive Debt Reorganization involving acquisition-related obligations (collectively, the “Acquisition-Related Debt”) arising from several of the Company’s historical acquisitions. The Debt Reorganization addressed approximately US$83.9 million of Acquisition-Related Debt through a combination of debt repayments, debt-to-equity conversions and maturity extensions. The Acquisition-Related Debt was addressed as follows: US$25.8 million of cash repayments, completed on June 23, 2026; US$32.2 million of debt converted into common shares of the Company, completed on June 11, 2026; and Amendments and maturity extensions relating to US$25.8 million of remaining indebtedness, completed on June 11, 2026. As a result of the completion of the Debt Reorganization, the Company materially reduced near-term debt maturities and extended its remaining Acquisition-Related Debt to 2030. The remaining Acquisition-Related Debt has been subordinated to the Senior Facilities and Subordinated Facility with maturities extended to March 2030. For more information on the debt to equity conversions, please refer to the Company’s press release dated June 2, 2026 and June 15, 2026. As previously disclosed in the Company’s June 2, 2026 and June 15, 2026 press release, completion of the Debt Reorganization is subject to final acceptance by the TSXV. The Company obtained shareholder approval (excluding those shareholders who are both Non-Arm’s Length Parties (as defined in Policy 1.1 of the TSXV Corporate Finance Manual) of the Company and receiving convertible securities, common shares and/or cash pursuant to the Debt Reorganization) of the applicable components of the Debt Reorganization by written consent resolutions. https://tinyurl.com/ymt3ewyy

Sophic Client Intermap (IMP-TSX, ITMSF-OTC) expands role in GPS-denied navigation with third DOD research contract.

Intermap has been awarded a subcontract through a leading defense prime contractor supporting a U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”) research program focused on positioning, navigation and timing (“PNT”) in GPS-denied environments. The award represents Intermap’s third contract supporting the development of alternative navigation technologies and builds upon the Company’s previous work with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The program is designed to advance navigation capabilities for military, aerospace and autonomous systems operating in environments where GPS signals are unavailable, degraded, denied or intentionally disrupted. Intermap will provide proprietary geospatial data, advanced terrain intelligence, engineering expertise and operational capabilities that support the development and validation of next-generation navigation solutions. The Company’s unique archive of global 3D terrain data and its ability to rapidly collect, process and analyze geospatial information provide critical inputs for systems that require assured navigation independent of satellite-based positioning. Reliable positioning, navigation and timing capabilities are becoming increasingly important across defense, intelligence, aerospace, autonomous systems and commercial applications. As electronic warfare capabilities continue to evolve, governments and commercial operators are investing in resilient navigation technologies capable of operating effectively in contested environments where traditional satellite-based navigation may be unavailable. “Positioning, navigation and timing is a foundational capability for modern military operations, autonomous systems and space-based platforms,” said Patrick A. Blott, Chairman and CEO of Intermap Technologies. “As GPS denial and electronic warfare rapidly evolve, governments are investing in alternative navigation technologies that can operate with precision in contested environments. Intermap’s proprietary 3D geospatial data, terrain intelligence and advanced analytics provide unique capabilities for these next-generation systems. This award further validates our strategy of transforming proprietary geospatial data into mission-critical intelligence solutions supporting some of the world’s most important defense and aerospace challenges.” The program expands Intermap’s growing portfolio of defense and aerospace initiatives, including previously announced work supporting the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA Artemis III and commercial space operators. The Company believes advances in GPS-denied navigation represent a significant long-term opportunity for geospatial intelligence, terrain intelligence and AI-powered analytics. Communications Security: Certain proprietary data, technical information, software and scientific approaches provided by Intermap under the contract represent controlled technology and are subject to applicable U.S. government security, export control and handling requirements. Access, use and distribution of such information may be restricted under applicable regulations, including Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and related U.S. government requirements. https://t.co/TbM8RUK7Iz

Sophic Client Hybrid Power Solutions (HPSS-CSE, HPSIF-OTC) signs distribution agreement with Fair D Canada.

Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. is pleased to announce the signing of a distribution partner agreement with Fair D Canada. Under the agreement, Fair D Canada, a Québec-based procurement and distribution specialist, will represent Hybrid’s complete portfolio of portable, fuel-free power solutions including compact battery packs and hybrid systems across its established network of government agencies, military, law enforcement, public safety organizations, and tactical professionals throughout Canada. Fair D Canada is a trusted supplier of mission-critical equipment, including tactical gear, UAV systems, deployable shelters, and portable power solutions designed for operational and emergency response applications. “We are thrilled to partner with Fair D Canada, whose deep relationships with Canadian government and public safety sectors will accelerate the adoption of our portable fuel-free power solutions,” said Francois Byrne, CEO and Founder of Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. “This agreement expands our reach into high-demand tactical and mission-critical markets, further demonstrating the growing acceptance of Hybrid’s technology across North America.” “Partnering with Hybrid Power Solutions allows us to offer our clients cutting-edge, fuel-free portable power solutions that meet the demanding requirements of government, military, and public safety operations,” said Mathieu Garzon, President of Fair D Canada. “Hybrid’s compact and highly portable systems perfectly complement our mission-critical equipment portfolio, delivering reliable, sustainable power for tactical and emergency response applications across Canada.” https://t.co/WmgGyy6MaD

Boardwalktech Announces Strategic Partnership with Xoriant to deliver AI-driven enterprise transformation.

Boardwalktech announced a strategic partnership with Xoriant Corporation, a global leader in digital engineering and technology services, with over 200 customers and 5,000 employees to jointly deliver AI-driven transformation solutions to enterprises worldwide. The partnership combines Boardwalktech’s patented digital ledger technology, AI-enabled software platforms, and enterprise information management capabilities with Xoriant’s extensive consulting, engineering, implementation, and managed services expertise. Together, the companies will focus on helping organizations accelerate digital transformation initiatives, modernize business processes, automate operations, and successfully deploy AI across the enterprise. The joint go-to-market strategy will focus on Boardwalktech’s three core platforms, which will be implemented by Xoriant for various new and joint global clients: Velocity™ – AI-enabled transformation of business-critical spreadsheet and manual processes into governed, automated enterprise applications. Verity™ – Intelligent controls automation, continuous monitoring, testing, and compliance management for highly regulated industries. Unity Central™ – A trusted enterprise AI platform that creates a governed digital thread across enterprise information, delivering AI-ready data with complete provenance, transparency, and auditability. Boardwalktech and Xoriant will help customers: Accelerate enterprise AI adoption, while responsibly managing AI costs, Modernize legacy and manual business processes, Improve workflow automation and operational efficiency, Enhance exception management and decision-making. Deliver trusted, governed, AI-ready information, Improve compliance, controls, and auditability, Generate measurable business outcomes and ROI. The companies are already identifying opportunities to collaborate with both existing and prospective customers seeking to leverage AI to improve business performance while maintaining governance, transparency, and operational control. “Organizations today are looking beyond AI experimentation and are focused on delivering measurable business improvements,” said Andrew Duncan, Chief Executive Officer of Boardwalktech. “By partnering with Xoriant, we are combining Boardwalktech’s unique AI-enabled information management and digital ledger technology with one of the industry’s leading digital engineering and transformation organizations. Together, we can help customers rapidly deploy AI solutions that improve business outcomes, make operations more efficient, automate critical processes, and unlock new business value.” “Xoriant has a long history of helping enterprises transform their businesses through innovative technology solutions,” said Mukund Rao, President of Xoriant. “Boardwalktech’s Velocity, Verity, and Unity Central platforms provide a powerful foundation for enterprise AI and intelligent information management. We are excited to partner with Boardwalktech to help customers accelerate transformation initiatives, modernize critical business processes, and realize the full value of AI investments.” As enterprises increasingly seek trusted and governed environments for AI deployment, the companies believe the combination of Boardwalktech’s patented digital ledger architecture, AI capabilities, and Xoriant’s deep engineering and delivery expertise creates a compelling solution for organizations looking to accelerate transformation while reducing implementation risk and time-to-value. https://t.co/CPayh416OU

DEFSEC Technologies announces $2.5 million Registered Direct Offering.

DEFSEC Technologies Inc. entered into definitive agreements for the purchase and sale of 673,006 common shares at a purchase price of $3.74 (US$2.63) per common share in a registered direct offering. In a concurrent private placement, the Company will issue unregistered warrants to purchase up to 673,006 common shares at an exercise price of $4.39 per share that will be immediately exercisable upon issuance and will expire five years following the date of issuance. The closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about June 26, 2026, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the exclusive placement agent for the offering. https://tinyurl.com/3y9t5f4s

Float announces $85 million Series C round to support AI push.

Toronto-based FinTech firm Float Financial announced an $85-million Series C round on Wednesday that will help fuel the company’s geographic expansion and AI investment plans. Inovia Capital is leading Float’s Series C, with support from fellow new investors BDC Capital and Northleaf Capital Partners, and existing backers Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Garage Capital. The predominantly Canadian round will bring Float’s total equity and debt funding to $300 million. Float plans to use the money to advance its AI capabilities, expand across Western Canada and Québec, and grow its 170-person team. The Series C round gives Float a $550 million post-money valuation, a 70-percent jump compared to the FinTech firm’s $70 million Series B in December 2024. Since then, Float has doubled its active customer base to more than 7,500 Canadian businesses, its revenue (which it did not disclose) has grown over 120 percent, and its business account balances have more than quadrupled. https://tinyurl.com/4na2zxkd

Sellit9 closes $4.1 million to help Canadians trade in old electronics.

Toronto’s Sellit9 has secured $4.1 million in seed funding to expand its “recommerce” trade-in platform into more categories of goods and begin moving into the United States. The startup’s seed round, was led by BDC Capital’s Seed Venture Fund, with support from fellow new backers AQC Capital and Anges Québec, and existing investor MaRS IAF. The startup plans to use this capital to grow its 14-person team, expand across Canada, enter the US, and move into new categories like luxury purses, luggage, and eyewear. https://tinyurl.com/4sanbrfk

Qubic raises US$2.5 million to commercialize quantum signal amplifiers.

Sherbrooke, Que.-based quantum hardware company Qubic has raised US$2.5 million ($3.5 million) in seed funding to commercialize its signal amplifiers, which boost the signals from qubits used in quantum computing. Qubic announced on Tuesday morning that it raised a seed investment led by Two Small Fish Ventures, with participation from the University of California’s UC Investments, Sherbrooke-based quantum investor Quantacet, and the University of Calgary’s investment fund UCeed. The funding will help Qubic—which is a spin-off of the Institut quantique in Sherbrooke and the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing—complete the development of its cryogenic amplifiers, scale up its manufacturing capacity, and use the complete amplifier to build a radio-frequency quantum sensing platform. From the source: Qubic has raised nearly $10 million in combined equity investment and non-dilutive grant funding. It plans to triple its team to complete its goals, aiming to have 30 employees by the end of 2027. In May, Qubic secured a contract with its first customer for its cryogenic amplifiers, US-based Quantum Machines, which will benchmark it and compare it to competing solutions. https://tinyurl.com/ynbbbvtn

Humanoid robot startup Agility Robotics is going public at a US$2.5 billion valuation via a SPAC.

Humanoid robot maker Agility Robotics said Wednesday that it plans to go public in a deal valuing the company at about US$2.5 billion. The deal would make Agility, which builds a robot called Digit, the first humanoid-focused company to go public in the US. The startup, which spun out of Oregon State University in 2015, plans to merge with Churchill Capital Corp XI, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by former Citigroup executive Michael Klein. It is expected to trade under the ticker AGLT. The deal is expected to generate more than US$600 million in gross proceeds, including US$420 million in cash from Churchill XI and more than US$200 million through a common-stock private investment in public equity led by Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that is an existing Agility investor. Other Agility backers include venture firm DCVC, Nvidia, Amazon, and SoftBank. Hurst said going public will allow Agility to be more transparent as it scales and helps set benchmarks in a hyped-up industry. Agility plans to expand its Digit robot. Agility said the money raised from going public will go toward fulfilling existing customer orders, expanding deployments, and scaling production of its next-generation humanoid, Digit v5. https://tinyurl.com/bddfb6s7

Uber to back Lime’s IPO.

Lime, the electric scooter and bike rental company, is set to receive financial backing from its long-time partner and investor, Uber. In an updated IPO prospectus filing expected Monday, Uber will be named as an anchor investor for the deal. Lime is targeting a US$1.8 billion valuation and seeking to raise roughly US$200 million in the IPO. The offering serves as a key test for smaller tech offerings, which have struggled against larger competitors in recent years. The relationship between Uber and Lime is deep. Uber currently owns more than 10% of Lime and guarantees some of its debt. Additionally, roughly 14% of Lime’s revenue is generated through the Uber app, and Lime CEO Wayne Ting is a former chief of staff to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Lime recently reported strong growth, with first-quarter revenue up 32% year-over-year. https://tinyurl.com/4smkp6nc

SpaceX debt weakens, stock falls below first trading price.

SpaceX’s recent bond sale is weakening in the secondary market, with investors now demanding a significantly bigger yield premium versus U.S. treasuries from when the offering priced on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported on Friday. A large dealer was quoting SpaceX’s 2056 bonds at as much as 0.28% higher than their issue price, which was 1.75% above treasuries, Bloomberg reported. Bonds recently issued by other large tech companies, including Nvidia and Google, have been comparatively more stable. The move suggests SpaceX investors are already reassessing the risk of holding the company’s debt, which could make it more expensive for it to borrow more through the bond market. SpaceX raised US$25 billion in debt through bonds that mature between 2031 and 2056 in its recent deal. Meanwhile, SpaceX shares have steadily erased gains since they debuted two weeks ago. On Friday morning, SpaceX shares were trading at US$149.60, just below their opening trading price of US$150. The slump leaves the shares 10% above their initial public offering price of US$135. https://tinyurl.com/ykhd6pxr

Morgan Stanley pitches clients on a new market for data center loans.

Morgan Stanley, one of the most active banks in financing data center developers, is now pitching some of those same clients on tapping a market better known for funding leveraged buyouts. It’s a sign that in the race to raise money for AI infrastructure, developers and their advisors are turning over every stone. Over the last few months, Morgan Stanley has suggested to clients that the next time they need to raise money for data center projects, they consider the leveraged loan market rather than the bond market, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations. Leveraged loans are those made to companies that don’t have investment-grade credit ratings, typically because they don’t have businesses that throw off lots of cash or they already have lots of debt. Such borrowers could include AI firms like OpenAI or new cloud providers such as CoreWeave. Tapping this market allows borrowers to access money from a new type of investor, which will become more important as demand grows for funding to build data centers. Leveraged loans are typically underwritten by an investment bank like Morgan Stanley. Most are then sold to financiers that bundle the loans into a single pool. That pool is then sliced up and resold to other investors based on their risk tolerance. These pools are known as collateralized loan obligations. The broadly syndicated leveraged loan market in the U.S. at this time last year was about US$1.4 trillion in size, and CLOs held about two-thirds of that amount, according to S&P Global. The U.S. high-yield bond market is slightly larger. https://tinyurl.com/4fwntfpa

Qualcomm to acquire startup Modular for nearly US$4 billion.

Qualcomm has agreed to pay around US$3.9 billion in stock for Modular, a software startup that allows developers to write software to run on different chips without having to rewrite the code for each chip. The deal price, based on Qualcomm’s last closing price on Tuesday, more than doubled the startup’s last private valuation of around US$1.6 billion last September. Founded in 2022, Modular aimed to challenge Nvidia’s proprietary CUDA, the dominant software for training and running machine-learning models on its chips. Qualcomm, which generates most of its revenue from selling chips for smartphones, has been looking for ways to compete better with rivals in the AI data center chip market. A deal with Modular could help Qualcomm to build out its own software to serve different chips from different suppliers. It has also been in talks with AI chip startup Tenstorrent. https://tinyurl.com/26yteney

Bumble explores sale as dating app growth slows.

Bumble is exploring a sale, Reuters reported Thursday, a sign of the struggles that the company has had with slowing growth and declining users over the past few years. The company is working with bankers at Morgan Stanley on a potential sale, the report said, though Bumble may not end up selling. A final decision is likely up to Bumble’s two big shareholders, Blackstone and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, who between them control 84% of the vote. Wolfe Herd, who stepped down as CEO in 2023 before returning to the top job a little over a year ago, has been trying to turn the company around. But revenue declined in 2025 by around 10% to roughly US$966 million. The company’s shares, meanwhile, have fallen 96% from its IPO price in early 2021. https://tinyurl.com/59vhe658

Tesla holders bet on SpaceX merger as Musk’s real endgame.

Tesla shareholders are betting that Elon Musk will engineer a merger of Tesla and SpaceX, which could create a massive technology conglomerate. The combination of the two companies would be driven by their shared interest in artificial intelligence, with SpaceX having absorbed xAI and embarking on a semiconductor manufacturing joint venture with Tesla. Analysts predict that if SpaceX’s stock continues to slump, Tesla shareholders may become more agreeable to a merger, with some analysts seeing a greater than 80% chance that the two companies will merge next year. https://tinyurl.com/3ecfd73x

Micron stock jumps 15% as soaring prices from memory crunch lead to quadrupling of revenue.

Micron reported fiscal third-quarter results that topped analysts’ estimates. The company has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, which has caused historic demand for memory. Micron’s stock price is up about 700% over the past year, lifting the company’s market cap past US$1 trillion. Micron’s revenue more than quadrupled in the fiscal third quarter, the company said on Wednesday, as the memory maker continued to benefit from soaring demand tied to the artificial intelligence boom. The stock rose 15% in extended trading. Memory prices have skyrocketed in the last couple years as AI chips eat up all the production capacity of the small crop of vendors. With data center demand increasing by the day, prices are also rising for memory used in smartphones, laptops and other gadgets. “Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve, even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said on a call with analysts. That’s turned Micron into a Wall Street darling as its technology is essential for chips made by Nvidia and Google, as well as the servers that house those companies’ processors. https://tinyurl.com/355ptzyw

Cerebras falls 10% after chipmaker forecasts shrinking margin in first earnings report since IPO.

Cerebras reported financials for the first time since its IPO in May. Revenue increased 92% from a year earlier. The artificial intelligence chipmaker saw its stock pop out of the gate, but the shares are down 28% since then. The stock fell 10% in extended trading as the company forecast a drop in its gross margin. Capitalizing on investor interest in infrastructure for running AI models, Cerebras went public on the Nasdaq in May. After pricing its IPO at US$185, Cerebras saw its stock open at US$350 and close at US$311.07. The shares have since dropped 28%, closing on Tuesday at US$226.72. Cerebras said its core gross margin, or the profit left after accounting for the cost of goods sold, will shrink to between 36% and 38% in the second quarter from 46.5% in the first. The company said it expects core revenue growth of 88% from a year earlier to US$914 million. And full-year core revenue will be between US$855.5 million and US$865 million, representing 69% growth at the midpoint, Cerebras said. Founded in 2015, the Cerebras raised over US$6 billion in the offering, the most for a U.S. technology company since Uber’s debut in 2019. Cerebras is trying to challenge AI chip leader Nvidia in one corner of the market, and it also operates a service for running AI models through data centers filled with its processors. Cerebras enjoys a performance advantage in part by packing many times more SRAM memory on its chip than Google’s latest tensor processing unit or the Groq 3 LPU chip that Nvidia announced in March, Mizuho said in a June 8 note to clients. During the first quarter, Cerebras said its chips will go inside Amazon Web Services’ data centers, and it announced a deal worth over US$20 billion to supply OpenAI with computing power. https://tinyurl.com/3xxutfk8

Alphabet shares drop after second AI star departs for rival.

Alphabet shares tumbled on Monday following the departure of another high-profile artificial intelligence leader to a rival. The stock fell as much as 7.2%, the most intraday since February, after Google DeepMind Vice President John Jumper said over the weekend he was leaving for Anthropic. Last week, one of Google’s most prominent researchers, Noam Shazeer, announced he was leaving for OpenAI. https://tinyurl.com/z2erwfsz

Kioxia shares slump 12% as AI-related stocks fall.

Shares of Japanese chipmaker Kioxia slid 12% on Friday after a report that ChatGPT maker OpenAI was considering delaying its initial public offering sparked a selloff ‌in AI-related shares. Kioxia, previously called Toshiba Memory and carved out of Toshiba in 2018, is a major producer of memory chips. Its shares have surged as AI investment has boosted the chip industry, making it the most valuable ⁠company on the Nikkei 225 index. But on Friday it was hit by a broader selloff after the New York Times reported that OpenAI is considering holding off on its IPO until next year as CEO Sam Altman seeks a US$1 trillion valuation. Kioxia said on Thursday it is considering a stock split and aims to list American depositary shares on a U.S. exchange at the ‌beginning ⁠of the next financial year, which runs until March 2028. Asian tech firms are looking to expand their investor base in the U.S., with chipmaker SK Hynix saying this week it ⁠plans to raise up to $29.4 billion through a U.S. listing. https://tinyurl.com/2hxc3fn9

Trump signs sweeping Quantum Executive Orders.

President Trump signed two long-awaited executive orders on Monday focused on quantum technology, a focus area for the administration that has often taken a back seat to AI. The first order, whose draft has been circulating for months, encourages different agencies to invest in research, including developing a government-hosted quantum computer and coordinating public-private partnerships. The second is focused on building safeguards against cryptographic attacks as quantum capabilities accelerate. The signing comes on the heels of the White House’s AI-focused executive order, which also built up cybersecurity protections while ensuring that the United States remains a technological leader. “Leadership in quantum is not dissimilar to being able to be the leader in the world’s cutting-edge large language model,” said VJ Sahi, a partner at the strategic advisory firm Clark Street Associates. “This administration in particular is very attuned to the optics of wanting to be in that leadership position.” The two orders are the latest developments in the Trump administration’s efforts to boost quantum technology. In May, the Commerce Department announced US$2 billion in grants that included the government taking equity stakes in quantum-computing companies. https://tinyurl.com/2myjmca5

Meta pauses employee monitoring tool after internal data exposure.

Meta Platforms is pausing its employee monitoring tool after a major internal security lapse last week left sensitive employee data collected through the tool broadly accessible to staff across the company. The news was earlier reported by Business Insider. According to an incident report, an internal system exposed data captured from Meta’s Model Capability Initiative, a tool rolled out internally in April to monitor how employees interact with computers to help train its AI models. The exposed data, which was viewable in more than 45,000 database tables, included full prompts and transcriptions from internal AI tools, outputs generated by those systems, private employee conversations and performance-related information, according to the report. Because the company didn’t apply access controls properly, sensitive data was effectively open to any employee rather than being restricted to approved teams. The incident was first detected on Thursday and resolved on Monday. The report attributes the exposure to missing permission rules that normally restrict access to sensitive datasets. It also indicates that the data was actively accessed by dozens of employees before the issue was contained. A Meta spokesperson said: “We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we’re pausing it while we investigate.” https://tinyurl.com/3xadaavt

Apple raises Mac, iPad prices due to ‘extraordinary’ component shortage.

Apple on Thursday increased prices on all Macs, iPads, HomePods, Apple TV and the Vision Pro to offset a dramatic surge in memory and storage chip prices. It left prices on iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods untouched for now, though it hinted at possible changes in the future. Its shares fell nearly 5% to US$278.59. “The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,” Apple said in a statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” “We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” it continued. “We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.” The price jumps include the MacBook Neo, which now starts at US$699, up from US$599, and the MacBook Pro, which starts at US$1,999, instead of US$1,699. The iPad Air now starts at US$749, instead of US$599, while the iPad Pro starts at US$1,199, rather than US$999. https://tinyurl.com/bdf4fzva

AWS raises prices for some Nvidia compute by 20%.

Amazon Web Services is raising the price for its AI workload rental service by 20%, the company said on Friday. The move comes as the global compute crunch is increasing costs throughout the tech supply chain. AWS’s price increase affects its EC2 Capacity Blocks, which is a service that lets businesses rent out space to run AI workloads in advance, on Nvidia GPUs. Prices won’t be increased for Capacity Blocks using Amazon’s Trainium chips. Amazon noted that for this service pricing is “updated periodically based on supply and demand.” The change, which goes into effect July 1, follows a price increase for the service in January. Some users of AWS’ government cloud service won’t be affected by the price increase. AWS introduced the capacity blocks service in 2023 after the AI boom made GPUs hard to come by, and AWS previous on-demand pricing model no longer worked in this supply-constrained atmosphere. Capacity blocks allow customers to reserve compute in advanced. https://tinyurl.com/6htt5p7b

Nvidia seeks to make humanoid AI robots safer around humans.

Nvidia Corp. is working to make humanoid robots safer around people, arguing that they’ll need to handle split-second decisions before they can be trusted to work closely with humans. The chipmaker is offering software and semiconductors that will allow humanoids to enter the workplace and truly interact with people — even making physical contact if necessary. Nvidia’s Halos software, developed from systems used for self-driving vehicles, will be the basis of computers that give robots a much better awareness of what’s happening around them, the company said in a statement Monday. Nvidia and its Silicon Valley peers are racing to develop technology for robotics, billing it as the next big market for artificial intelligence. The machines will evolve into a market with billions of devices, tech executives predict. Humanoid robotics — technology designed to resemble people, with heads, torsos and limbs — will generate US$200 billion in revenue by 2035, according to Barclays estimates. But the industry will have to overcome some hurdles. Current safety systems force robots to stop or reduce speed when there’s a chance they might come into contact with a human. That makes them less productive. The safeguards also hinder cooperative activities, such as handing an item to coworkers or helping them lift something heavy. Nvidia will provide technology for robots like Agility Robotics’ Digit, allowing the machines to make their own decisions based on analysis of what’s going on around them. That will require hardware that supports safety awareness, according to Nvidia. The company is offering up Halos as an operating system that runs on top of its IGX Thor hardware. The machines will also have connections to external sensors. An autonomous forklift, for example, will be able to tap cameras in a warehouse to see what’s around a corner and decide whether it can keep going full tilt or slow down to avoid a collision, the company said. https://tinyurl.com/46ss5ny5

Nvidia launches open-source software for life sciences.

Nvidia on Tuesday released new open-source software for scientists and biotech firms to develop AI agents for their research, even if they don’t have coding experience. The software, Nvidia’s BioNeMo Agent Toolkit, is part of the AI chip leader’s effort to convince companies to use its AI development tools, which run especially well on its server chips. Pharmaceutical and life sciences firms are already large users of AI models for drug discovery and back-office tasks. Nvidia said life-sciences software firm Dassault Systemes and AI research startup Lila Sciences are using the new BioNeMo agent tools. The tools work with Nvidia’s NemoClaw, an open-source software to create personal agents that can write code, edit files and surf the web. “ We need to create the conditions [where AI] agents can specialize because the work that’s done in science and life sciences is deeply specialized,” said Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. https://tinyurl.com/yh9b557n

Japan’s Sakana AI says its new tool rivals Anthropic’s Fable 5.

Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based startup founded by former Google researchers, has launched Fugu, a new artificial intelligence service that coordinates multiple AI models through one interface. Fugu uses various proprietary and open-source models to perform tasks, but Sakana packages it as a single AI model that users can access through a single application programming interface. Sakana said Fugu and its more advanced version, Fugu Ultra, are “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos Preview models based on benchmarks for coding, engineering, scientific tasks and reasoning. On LiveCodeBench, for example, Fugu Ultra scored 93.2, while Fable 5 scored 89.8, Sakana said. On GPQA-D, a scientific reasoning benchmark, Fugu and Fugu Ultra scored 95.5, slightly above Mythos Preview’s 94.6, it said. Sakana, which means fish in Japanese, was founded in 2023 by former Google researchers David Ha and Llion Jones. Its backers include Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Lux Capital, as well as many Japanese companies including banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. In its most recent fundraising in November, Sakana was valued at US$2.6 billion. https://tinyurl.com/54bpstp5

AI models capable of devastating attacks on governments and business months away, rare Five Eyes statement warns.

Powerful AI models capable of devastating new cyber attacks on governments and businesses are mere months away, intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes have warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to “act now”. The surprising public intervention by signals agencies for Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada comes after the Trump administration earlier this month decided to block “foreign nationals” from using a much-hyped AI model built by tech company Anthropic, called Fable. The statement, issued late on Monday night, Sydney time, said while AI “would help us improve cyber defence over time, it also accelerates the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats”. The cybersecurity agencies said the leaps in AI models showed the technology would lower barriers for bad actors and increase the speed and complexity of attacks. “A whole-of-organisation and whole-of-society response is required,” the statement continued. The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance set up between the five countries after the second world war. “Cyber risk can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue. This is a core business risk and leadership responsibility.” https://tinyurl.com/2wdupsp4

A new paper argues Microsoft exaggerated its quantum claims a year ago.

A critique published in Nature Wednesday calls the basic technology behind Microsoft’s “breakthrough” quantum computing chip the Majorana 1 into question. Microsoft unveiled the chip in February 2025 and said it featured a brand-new technology known as a topological qubit. Topological qubits, they said, would be the “building blocks” for their future quantum computer. Microsoft announced the next generation chip Majorana 2 at Build earlier this month. But in a peer-reviewed article, Henry Legg, a physicist at the University of St Andrews, reanalyzed Microsoft’s data on their device and argued that the company’s researchers did not conclusively demonstrate a working topological qubit in the first place. Theory predicts that the electrons in this wire behave in a collective pattern known as a Majorana particle, for which the chip is named. Proponents of quantum computing predict that the technology’s computational abilities will advance new medicine discovery, encryption, and machine learning. Companies like Google and IBM have already demonstrated more advanced machines than Majorana 1 or 2, although presently, no one has conclusively gotten any quantum computer to perform anything useful. But Microsoft claimed that Majorana 1, and subsequently Majorana 2, paved their path toward a practical quantum computer. https://tinyurl.com/yb77au7w

Meta unveils new smart glasses for US$299.

Meta Platforms unveiled a new line of smart glasses on Tuesday, pricing one of the devices US$80 below its previous entry-level model despite adding no new major capabilities—a move that underscores the company’s desire to expand market share ahead of expected rival entries from Apple and Google. “This is the first set of Meta Glasses that we’ve designed from the ground up to be great-looking, comfortable glasses, accessible to a lot more people,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post, adding that one of the pairs, called Meta Starfire, was custom-designed by reality TV star Kylie Jenner. The new Meta Glasses, made in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, are priced at US$299, US$80 less than the starting price of the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses, while the Kylie Jenner edition costs US$399, according to Meta’s online store. This is the first smart glasses line Meta has positioned entirely under its own “Meta Glasses” branding, rather than using the Ray-Ban or Oakley co-branding that has defined its earlier products. The new glasses include a built-in camera and integrated speakers, and run on Meta’s latest AI model, Muse Spark, but do not come with augmented reality features like the glasses Snap unveiled last week. Wearers can use Meta’s AI assistant to take photos and videos, answer questions about what they’re seeing in real time, and handle everyday tasks such as livestreaming to social media, making phone calls, and playing music. The company plans to release four new lines of glasses this year as part of a broader strategy to increase appeal and drive sales. As part of this effort, one of the glasses lines code-named “Modelo,” was expected to debut this month. https://tinyurl.com/5a327fvz

Meta is building a prediction markets app.

Meta Platforms is building a prediction market app that could rival offerings from Polymarket and Kalshi, The New York Times reported. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has instructed a small team to develop the app, internally known as Arena, through which users could potentially wager on events using either a points system or real money, according to the report. The effort underscores Meta’s push to expand beyond its core social media products and capitalize on growing consumer interest in prediction markets, a category that has gained momentum as users increasingly turn to events such as political changes and sports as betting opportunities. The plans are part of a broader effort to launch a wave of new apps. During an April company-wide meeting, Zuckerberg said he had discussed building as many as 50 new apps with Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. In May, Meta launched two new apps: Instants, which integrates with Instagram and allows users to send disappearing photos, and Forum, a Reddit-like app designed for communities to connect. https://tinyurl.com/2hnhwcd9

Tesla, Sunrun team up on 16 GW virtual power plant for data centers.

Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home announced an agreement today to aggregate more than 16 gigawatts of home batteries, thermostats, and other devices into what they say would be the largest distributed power plant in the country, aimed squarely at the surging electricity demand from data centers. The deal sent Sunrun shares up as much as 26% on Wednesday, as Wall Street bet the residential solar company can turn AI’s power crunch into a recurring revenue stream. The framework pools dispatchable capacity from hundreds of thousands of home battery systems operated by Sunrun and Tesla, plus flexible peak capacity from more than 8 million smart thermostats and devices managed by Renew Home. Combined, the three companies say they can orchestrate more than 16 GW of capacity — 16.8 GW by their own infographic — across most major US electricity markets. They’re pitching it as a “capacity-as-a-solution” framework that data centers and utilities can tap with “no additional hardware, software, interconnection, water, or land usage.” The selling point is speed. Distributed resources can be switched on “in months, not years,” the companies say, while new transmission lines, substations, and gas plants take far longer to permit and build. he timing is no accident. US data center power demand is projected to hit 41 GW in 2026 and 66 GW in 2027, and interconnection queues are stretching for years. The companies are positioning their fleet as a “first-come, first-served” resource for hyperscalers racing to bring AI compute online. “The grid of the 1800s cannot power the innovation of 2026,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “When data centers are asked to throttle down operations during the most expensive and stressful hours of the day, we can activate our distributed power plants to help provide them the power they need.” https://tinyurl.com/48mj5meh

Charles Schwab breaks into the prediction market business.

Charles Schwab is wading into the prediction markets. The brokerage is working with Cboe Global Markets to roll out all-or-nothing options contracts that allow customers to place yes-or-no wagers on the performance of the S&P 500, according to people familiar with the matter. The contracts differ slightly from those offered by platforms like Kalshi or Polymarket, which list futures contracts, not options. But these binary options essentially function the same way: they pay a set cash settlement or nothing at all, depending on if the index closed above or below the target price. Schwab will make the contracts available to customers in the coming months, the people said. Schwab is also rolling out a similar options offering with a Cboe feature called “the plus zone” that allows traders to earn a partial payout if they are mostly right, even if the closing price of the index isn’t exactly on target. Schwab isn’t the first mainstream brokerage to offer some form of prediction market, and rivals such as Robinhood and Interactive Brokers were quick to embrace what had emerged as a popular tool among many traders. Schwab’s CEO, Rick Wurster, had criticized event contracts tied to sports or entertainment as blurring the line between gambling and investing. In December, he told The Wall Street Journal that prediction markets were “not high on our list at the moment.” https://tinyurl.com/s28az9um

Samsung plans US$648 billion investments in South Korea, including new foundries.

Samsung Group, the South Korean tech giant, plans to unveil an investment package of more than 1,000 trillion won (US$648 billion) next week, a record pledge aimed at chips, AI data centers, batteries and display, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. The investments, amounting to half of South Korea’s GDP, will stretch over the next decade and include about 300 trillion won (US$194 billion) for chipmaking facilities in the country’s southwest, the newspaper reported. The spending shows how Samsung is funneling profit from chipmaking business back into expansion to defend its technology lead. Its chipmaking unit, Samsung Electronics, posted record sales and profits in recent quarters. A global shortage of chipmaking capacity, spanning AI processors and memory chips, has put South Korea at the center of global AI buildout. The country is home to two of the world’s largest chipmakers, Samsung and SK Hynix. https://tinyurl.com/8u2nm6ht

OpenAI and Broadcom unveil AI server chip.

OpenAI and Broadcom unveiled a new inference server chip the two companies have developed for running AI, a step forward in OpenAI’s effort to reduce its reliance on Nvidia chips and control its own hardware. Talks between OpenAI and Broadcom date back to 2024, and the companies were recently figuring out Broadcom’s financing of the effort, which initially will cost around US$18 billion, and which cloud provider would commit to buying the chip. OpenAI’s blog post implied that Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest cloud providers, is a buyer of the chip, called Jalapeno, and it said in a blog post that “early testing” showed it would “deliver performance per watt substantially better than current state-of-the-art.” If successful, the chip is also a big step forward for Broadcom, whose AI chip design business has taken off in the past 12 months thanks to customers such as Google, which works with Broadcom on its TPU AI chips. https://tinyurl.com/5yfzx37w

IBM claims world’s first sub-1 nanometer chip technology.

A new chip architecture from IBM can integrate nearly 100 billion transistors on a chip the size of a human fingernail—nearly twice the transistor density of the company’s previous generation of chip technology. The resulting improvement in chip compute performance and energy efficiency comes from what IBM describes as the “world’s first sub-1 nanometer chip technology” for AI data centers. “It’s not just an incremental step, it’s a meaningful leap forward,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow, in an advance media briefing. He described the new chip technology as “pointing to a future where computing becomes significantly more powerful without a corresponding increase in energy.” The nanostack architecture could pave the way for 50 percent higher computing performance or 70 percent greater energy efficiency than IBM’s previous generation of 2-nanometer node chips, according to projections from the company’s published technical reports. The company introduced its nanostack transistor architecture at the 2025 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits held in Kyoto, Japan. https://tinyurl.com/mra26vuy