March 21, 2026: Another Down Week

Last week, Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite all fell ~2%. US 10-year Treasury yield rose 11 bps 4.39%, for its highest close since last July, yields have risen globally. Markets now expect a modest chance of a rate hike in 2026, despite Fed signals. On the back of its GTC event, Nvidia dominated tech headlines, CEO Jensen Huang projected US$1 trillion in revenue from Blackwell and Rubin AI chips through 2027. This bullish outlook aligns with massive infrastructure spends, including Meta’s US$27 billion deal with Nebius Group for AI data centers. Nvidia unveiled NemoClaw agent software and a Groq-based chip system, while also restarting H200 manufacturing for the China market despite ongoing regulatory friction. Jeff Bezos is reportedly raising a US$100 billion fund for AI-driven manufacturing, and his space firm Blue Origin filed for a 51,600-satellite constellation for orbital AI compute. Prediction market Kalshi is raising US$1 billion at a US$22 billion valuation. Uber committed US$1.25 billion to Rivian for a future robotaxi fleet. Mastercard will acquire stablecoin startup BVNK for US$1.8 billion. The “AI hangover” continues to impact traditional software. Intuit leadership canceled stock sales and accelerated US$3.5 billion in buybacks. JPMorgan halted a US$5.3 billion debt deal for Qualtrics. A jury found Elon Musk liable for misleading Twitter investors. The DOJ charged Supermicro employees with smuggling US$2.5 billion in AI servers to China. In Canada, the federal government committed $225 million to advance sovereign space launch, headlined by a $200 million lease at Maritime Launch Services’ Nova Scotia spaceport. Calgary-based CoolIT Systems will be acquired by Ecolab for US$4.75 billion. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Kraken Robotics announced $24 million in new defense orders across five countries. Cybeats Technologies secured its first automotive contract for its SBOM Studio. Boardwalktech signed a new Silicon Valley semiconductor client and expanded its AI-driven Unity Central platform with an international chemical firm.

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) secures contract with global automotive parts manufacturer.

Cybeats announced that it has secured a contract with a global automotive parts manufacturer to support software supply chain risk management and SBOM operations across its environment. The global manufacturer selected Cybeats to support structured Software Bills of Materials (SBOM) intake, analysis, and governance workflows aligned with procurement, security, and engineering teams. The deployment marks Cybeats’ first in the automotive vertical and will support regulatory readiness and enable globally distributed teams to efficiently assess, triage, and act on SBOM data while sharing SBOMs and analysis with downstream consumers. The engagement will enable the manufacturer to ingest, analyze, and operationalize SBOMs across internally developed and third-party software. As part of the engagement, Cybeats’ SBOM Studio will also support the standardization and improvement of SBOM quality and actionability, enhancing the completeness, accuracy, and structure of SBOM data so it is machine readable and ready for downstream processes such as vulnerability lifecycle management and compliance reporting. Automotive manufacturers are facing increasing pressure to manage software risk across connected systems, embedded platforms, and complex supplier ecosystems. SBOM adoption is becoming a critical capability for procurement, product security, and compliance teams operating within highly regulated global markets. In particular, industries supplying the European market are beginning to align with the requirements of the EU Cyber Resilience Act, which will introduce enforceable cybersecurity obligations for software and digital products in 2027. “This engagement marks Cybeats’ first automotive customer and reflects how SBOM programs continue to move from concept to operational reality in large industrial environments,” said Justin Leger, CEO of Cybeats. “Automotive organizations are managing extremely complex supplier networks and software-defined vehicle platforms. They need scalable ways to understand what is in their software and where the risks sit across the lifecycle. We see this as the start of an important growth vertical for Cybeats as the automotive industry moves to secure its software layer in response to evolving cybersecurity expectations, regulatory pressure, and the rapid growth of software-defined vehicles.” https://t.co/92623F4sgf

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) related — Keysight launches SBOM Manager to help organizations prepare for emerging global cybersecurity regulations.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS) announced the launch of Keysight SBOM Manager, a new solution designed to help organizations meet growing global cybersecurity and software transparency requirements, led by the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The solution provides a unified approach to generating, managing, and using Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) for digital products, enabling organizations to meet regulatory obligations with greater accuracy, confidence, and consistency across the product lifecycle. Cybersecurity regulations worldwide are converging on a common expectation: manufacturers must understand, manage, and disclose the components within their digital products, including software and firmware. Regulations such as the EU CRA, U.S. Executive Order 14028, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cybersecurity requirements for medical devices, and emerging frameworks in Asia are making SBOMs a foundational requirement for market access, regulatory approval, and customer trust worldwide. Keysight SBOM Manager is designed to support this shift by addressing the practical challenges organizations face as SBOM requirements expand. The solution enables broader and more accurate visibility into digital products by analyzing binary software, firmware, containers, and other packaged components, including closed-source and deeply embedded dependencies. It continuously correlates SBOMs with multiple authoritative vulnerability sources, intelligently filters out vulnerabilities that are not applicable, and supports the use of Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange (VEX). This enables teams to focus on meaningful risk rather than being overwhelmed by raw vulnerability data. In addition, Keysight SBOM Manager supports secure and scalable sharing of SBOMs and vulnerability information through controlled, role-based access and version tracking, helping organizations meet regulatory and customer transparency expectations. Built-in validation and normalization help ensure SBOMs align with evolving standards and regulatory minimum requirements, while support for SBOM consumers enables organizations to ingest, manage, and map SBOMs to deployed digital assets, connecting transparency directly to real operational environments. Naoki Shimazaki, Fourth Design Department, Director, Software-Defined Solutions Division, Connective Engineering Division, Hitachi Industry & Control Solutions, Ltd., said: “The use of SBOMs is becoming an essential element in monitoring system security risks, including software composition management and supply chain risk management. We believe that solutions such as these, which enable visibility into system components and support vulnerability impact analysis, have significant potential to strengthen organizations’ cybersecurity efforts.” Dmitry Raidman, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, CyBeats, said: “While companies innovate at the speed of AI, they must also put tighter governance and stronger controls in place, especially as modern products increasingly rely on open source, third-party components, and AI-assisted development. Supply chain transparency and accountability are now paramount. To meet growing global regulations, organizations need the ability to continuously generate trustworthy SBOMs, correlate them with actionable vulnerability intelligence, apply VEX to reduce noise, and automate response workflows at scale. As transparency expectations expand across software, AI, cryptography, and hardware, visibility into the full digital product stack is becoming essential for secure-by-design development, regulatory readiness, and customer trust.” Ram Periakaruppan, Vice President and General Manager, Network Test & Security Solutions at Keysight, said: “As cybersecurity regulations mature, SBOMs are becoming a prerequisite for doing business globally. Keysight SBOM Manager helps organizations meet these requirements with confidence by bringing accuracy, consistency, and scalability to SBOM generation and management.” The EU CRA, which comes into force in 2026, requires manufacturers of connected digital products to implement cybersecurity risk management, maintain SBOMs, and report actively exploited vulnerabilities within 24 hours. Similar expectations are already in place through U.S. Executive Order 14028 and FDA cybersecurity guidance, while regulators in India, Japan, and South Korea are formalizing SBOM requirements across regulated sectors. Failure to comply can result in penalties, delayed approvals, recalls, or restricted market access. By bringing together accurate SBOM generation for digital products, continuous vulnerability intelligence, secure sharing, data quality assurance, prioritization, and consumer-side visibility in a single platform, Keysight SBOM Manager helps organizations reduce regulatory risk, improve vulnerability response, and build greater trust across global digital supply chains. https://t.co/mBavsVzNJw

Sophic Client Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC) announces $24 million in defence orders.

Kraken Robotics announces approximately $24 million in new orders to over 10 customers across five countries, including three new defence customers. The orders are for Kraken’s SeaPower batteries, KATFISH towed synthetic aperture sonar (SAS), and Kraken SAS. “SeaPower battery sales continue to be strong, with several new clients further diversifying our customer base in this area of the business. Manufacturing of our batteries in our new Nova Scotia facility is coming online in the next month, significantly expanding our production capacity” said Greg Reid, President and CEO of Kraken Robotics. “We are also pleased to share that we have sold a new KATFISH to the Polish Navy for their minehunting program and SAS to multiple defence customers for their autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) platforms.” The Polish Navy first selected KATFISH in 2020 for deployment on its Kormoran II-class minehunting vessels to support mine countermeasure operations in complex shallow water environments. This latest order was placed through Thesta, Kraken’s partner in Poland, which was appointed an authorized reseller of KATFISH during last week’s Oceanology International exhibition. https://tinyurl.com/y73km789

Sophic Client Boardwalktech, Inc. (BWLK-TSXV, BWLKF-OTCQB) signs new contract with semiconductor company.

Boardwalktech announced that it has won a new contract with a Silicon Valley fabless semiconductor company for deployment of the Boardwalk Digital Ledger Platform. The platform will be used to automate and consolidate the client’s forecasting and planning environment, enabling improved demand visibility and decision-making. This will help optimize manufacturing build cycles, contract costs, inventory management, and margins. The initial contract value is approximately US$60,000 for the first year and is expected to expand as additional users are added across the platform. The Company is also pleased to announce the expansion of its AI-driven Unity Central product at an existing customer: an international chemical company headquartered in Japan. This marks the third expansion for this customer since 2020. This is the first time this customer will utilize the Boardwalk Unity Central platform for sales operations, order management, and enterprise-wide visibility. Providing complete visibility from order to cash in one centralized environment, Unity Central connects multiple systems of record while capturing and managing both structured and unstructured information, signals, and documents. This unified intelligence environment now allows the client to instantly understand where any order stands and quickly identify exceptions requiring attention. Initial revenue implications are expected to range between US$50,000 to US$75,000 annually, with potential for further growth as the solution expands across additional business units within the organization. https://tinyurl.com/r4p2psuw

Sophic Client Boardwalktech, Inc. (BWLK-TSXV, BWLKF-OTCQB) appoints Steve Mills to Advisory Board.

Boardwalktech announces the appointment of Steve Mills to the Company’s Corporate Advisory Board. Mr. Mills is a senior financial services executive with extensive experience in internal audit, risk management, governance, and regulatory compliance across global financial institutions, and is expected to act as both an advisor and liaison between Boardwalktech and its customer prospects. This move is part of Boardwalktech’s broader strategy to strengthen partnerships within the financial services sector and expand the adoption of its enterprise information management and AI governance platforms and solutions Velocity and Verity. Mr. Mills brings more than three decades of experience in the financial services industry, with a focus on internal audit and controls, risk management, regulatory oversight, and enterprise control frameworks. Throughout his career he has worked with international and domestic banking institutions of all sizes to strengthen governance processes, improve transparency in complex operational environments, and modernize enterprise control infrastructures. As Boardwalktech continues to expand its presence in the financial services sector, Mr. Mills’ expertise in governance, audit and controls, and regulatory frameworks will help support the Company’s continued growth and product innovation. https://tinyurl.com/c5s8krj9

Feds commit nearly $225 million to advance Canada’s sovereign space launch capabilities.

The federal government has committed nearly $225 million to build out Canada’s ability to send its own rockets into space, including $200 million to lease a dedicated launch pad that will serve as the central foundation for a multi-user spaceport near Canso, NS. “While these announcements today are about rockets and launch sites for the rockets, they’re also about ensuring that Canada can respond to our biggest defense and security challenges.” Defence minister David McGuinty. Defence minister David McGuinty announced the commitment at the Canadian Space Agency’s David Florida Laboratory in Ottawa on Monday morning. The funding, part of Canada’s $6.6 billion Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), secures a 10-year lease at Maritime Launch Services’ spaceport in Nova Scotia, and supports three companies building rockets in Canada. Standing in front of a thermal vacuum chamber, McGuinty said the investments will help strengthen Canada’s national security. These companies “are putting us on the path to launch satellites and payloads from Canadian soil, on Canadian-built rockets, at Canadian-run facilities,” McGuinty said. The cornerstone of the announcement is a $200-million agreement for the use of MLS’ spaceport near Canso, NS, starting this year. Following an initial $20 million cash payment by the end of the month, MLS said the federal government will pay $5 million per fiscal quarter to lease Spaceport Nova Scotia. The government said the spaceport will support the operational needs of the Department of National Defence (DND), the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and the wider Government of Canada, as well as “ad hoc access to allies and partners.” Until now, MLS has focused on commercial space launches. Alongside its $200 million commitment to MLS, the government is pledging nearly $25 million to Toronto-based Canada Rocket Company (CRC), Nordspace, and Longueuil, Que.-based Reaction Dynamics. Each company has been awarded an $8.3 million grant under the first round of the DND’s Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Launch the North contest to build out their rocket launch capabilities. At the event, McGuinty also announced that Canada has become a full member of NATO’s Starlift initiative. The initiative aims to create a network of space launch capabilities so launches can be conducted “at short notice” from spaceports across the alliance, according to a government release. “While these announcements today are about rockets and launch sites for the rockets, they’re also about ensuring that Canada can respond to our biggest defence and security challenges,” McGuinty concluded. https://tinyurl.com/3m646dx7

Ecolab to acquire CoolIT Systems for US$4.75 billion.

Ecolab is acquiring Calgary’s CoolIT Systems, a leader in liquid cooling technology for data centres. Based in Minnesota, Ecolab, which has traditionally provided products relating to commercial and industrial water treatment and sanitation, will pay approximately US$4.75 billion ($6.52 billion) for the acquisition. The company was put on the market earlier this month, after global investment firm KKR bought it in 2023. Founded in 2001 in Calgary, CoolIT designs and manufactures high-performance cooling systems, including coolant distribution units and direct-to-chip technologies that use liquid—rather than air—to cool CPUs and GPUs by circulating coolant directly across chips via cold plates. https://tinyurl.com/2j54hvsy

YScope closes US$3.9 million to track computer activity amid the rise of agentic AI.

As AI agents put an ever-growing strain on traditional computer systems, Toronto-based YScope has set out to build a new way of tracking and analyzing their activity. “This is not just a clever research project with a great demo.” Allen Lau, Two Small Fish. Founded in 2021 by University of Toronto (U of T) computer engineering professors and PhDs, YScope is developing open-source software for log archive storage, search, and analytics. In a tech context, logging refers to the process of recording the events, actions, and errors that occur within computer systems. It plays a key role in compliance, troubleshooting, and security. https://tinyurl.com/mma8z4mp

Sophic Client Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC) related — Coda Octopus Group files Prospectus for up to US$100 million. https://tinyurl.com/3aft3czv

Canva plans public debut next year.

Design software firm Canva is planning to go public next year. Canva has been adding new artificial intelligence features to its design software, which is used primarily by individuals and small businesses. The company is planning an overhaul to focus on AI design tools as well as a new, usage-based pricing model, which it intends to announce at its annual conference in April, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The company has been mulling an IPO since at least 2024, when it replaced its chief financial officer and launched an offering for large companies, but so far hasn’t taken the plunge. Software stocks have taken a beating over the last year on fears of disruption by AI. Shares of rival design software firm Figma have fallen 27% since its July IPO. Canva last August conducted an employee stock sale valuing it at US$42 billion. The company grew its revenue more than 40%, to US$3 billion, last year and has been profitable on a free cash flow basis for several years. https://tinyurl.com/2s3n7va2

Kalshi raises US$1 billion at US$22 billion valuation in round led by Coatue.

Prediction market Kalshi is raising US$1 billion at a US$22 billion valuation in a new funding round led by investment firm Coatue Management, according to a person familiar with the matter. The round would double Kalshi’s valuation from last December, when it raised US$1 billion at a US$11 billion valuation in a round led by Paradigm, with participation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and others. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the new funding round. The two biggest prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket, have both seen their volume surge since last year, as more people used the platforms to bet on sports, geopolitical events and market prices. But they are also battling lawsuits with state regulators, who claim the platforms offer illegal sports gambling. About half of the trading volume on Kalshi were sports-related bets, according to data from Artemis. Separately, Polymarket on Wednesday signed a deal that made it the official prediction-market partner for Major League Baseball. Polymarket agreed to try to help limit prediction contracts that could be easily manipulated. https://tinyurl.com/mpnr4kas

Jeff Bezos in raising US$100 billion for AI manufacturing fund.

Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise a US$100 billion fund to buy manufacturing companies and implement AI to speed up their automation, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The fund will aim to purchase industrial companies in industries such as aerospace, chipmaking and defense. In the past few months, Bezos has met with large asset managers and sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Singapore, according to the report. Bezos is also the co-CEO of Project Prometheus, an AI startup that has raised over US$6 billion. The fund, if raised, would rival some of the biggest funds in the world, including Softbank’s US$100 billion Vision Fund. It follows major pushes by investment firms to modernize defense, supply chain, manufacturing and frontier technologies: In October, JP Morgan announced it plans to invest US$1.5 trillion into such industries over the next decade. https://tinyurl.com/mrx6dhfn

Nvidia CEO projects US$1 trillion in chip revenue through 2027.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company now expects US$1 trillion in revenue from its Blackwell and Rubin AI chips between 2025 and 2027, a huge amount for a company that in the year through January reported US$216 billion in revenue. In making the projection, Huang was updating a projection from last year when he said that Nvidia expected US$500 billion in revenue from sales of its latest AI chips, the Blackwell and Rubin, between 2025 and 2026. At that time, the projection created some confusion, as it wasn’t entirely clear what the US$500 billion figure represented and precisely what period. The number turned out to cover the calendar years 2025 through 2026 even though Nvidia doesn’t report on a calendar-year basis but instead on a fiscal year ending in January. On Monday, a slide behind Huang showed the US$1 trillion figure covered the period between 2025 and 2027 (presumably the calendar years, if he’s being consistent with the previous projection). That’s roughly consistent with the US$1.05 trillion that analysts are estimating Nvidia will earn in revenue for the three years through January 2028, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. https://tinyurl.com/mwbrafyn

OpenAI in talks with private equity firms to form joint venture.

OpenAI is in talks with private equity firms including TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management to form a joint venture that would sell OpenAI’s tech to companies funded by the investment firms, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo also confirmed the deal in a post on X. The deal is valued at about US$10 billion before the investment, with the PE firms committing about US$4 billion in capital, which will provide them with equity stakes and board seats in the venture, the person said. The deal will also give the PE firms early access to OpenAI’s tech. Reuters first reported details of the deal. OpenAI and rivals like Anthropic are increasingly courting PE firms because of those firms’ influence in numerous businesses, whom the AI developers are trying to turn into customers. Anthropic is also in talks with PE firms including Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman to form a similar joint venture to sell its tech to portfolio companies. https://tinyurl.com/55w3e9zu

Meta to spend US$27 billion on Nebius AI data centers.

Meta Platforms struck a deal to spend US$27 billion on Nebius Group’s AI data centers over the next five years, the cloud provider announced Monday. It follows a US$3 billion deal Meta struck with Nebius last November. In the latest deal, Dutch firm Nebius will supply Meta with US$12 billion of dedicated capacity starting early next year, which will include deployment of Nvidia’s latest generation of AI chips, known as Vera Rubin. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads will buy up to US$15 billion in additional capacity over a five year period. The deal underscores Meta’s appetite for greater compute capacity to support the development of its AI services. The company has projected it will spend between US$115 billion and US$135 billion in 2026 on capital expenditures, nearly double that of 2025, driven mostly by investments in AI infrastructure. https://tinyurl.com/y6352z8b

Nvidia CEO: Investment Risk in Neoclouds is ‘Extremely Low’.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said his firm has invested billions of dollars lately in upstart cloud providers that buy and rent out Nvidia chips because traditional cloud providers won’t be able to satisfy rising demand from large AI developers. “The reason why we know they’re going to be home runs is because we already see the pipeline of businesses that are coming toward it,” Huang said during a press conference at Nvidia’s annual GTC conference in San Jose, Calif. Investors have asked questions about Nvidia’s circular transactions with the young cloud firms, known as neoclouds, including CoreWeave, Lambda, Nscale and Nebius. Nvidia has given financial guarantees to CoreWeave, whose stock has doubled since going public last year. Many of the other neoclouds are preparing to go public as well. Huang said he views the investment risk in these firms as “extremely low.” He said he believes data center and cloud firms could raise money without Nvidia’s help. “We get involved as an extra booster, but it’s really a fantastic way to be part of the ecosystem,” he said. https://tinyurl.com/ymat6myv

Lenders struggle to find insurance cover for mega data centre projects.

Lenders looking to fund the build-out of data centres are being put off by a lack of sufficient insurance cover, as tech companies’ huge investment in the AI sector drives up the size and cost of these projects. Investors seeking cover for the total value of projects they are funding are finding much of the available insurance only offers partial cover. Large investors including KKR and Blackstone are among lenders to have turned down data centre debt because of insufficient insurance, according to people familiar with the matter. KKR and Blackstone declined to comment. Some investors worry a lack of insurance could leave them exposed to risks such as natural disasters, which could cause major damage to data centres that cost tens of billions of dollars to build. Others are struggling to secure sufficient cover for costly future disruptions in power or water supply. Mega data centre campuses designed specifically for AI development, which at maximum capacity often consume more than a gigawatt of energy every hour, were particularly underinsured, said Kimberly McGrath, a partner specialising in data centre financings at law firm Kirkland & Ellis. “At this scale, insurance either isn’t available in the market, or it’s just prohibitively expensive,” McGrath said. A one-gigawatt facility consumes the electricity of approximately 1mn homes. https://tinyurl.com/a7etm2rf

JPMorgan halts Qualtrics’ US$5 billion debt deal.

JPMorgan and other banks have suspended a US$5.3 billion debt deal for survey software company Qualtrics because debt investors were concerned over Qualtrics’ exposure to the decline in software valuations, according to Bloomberg. The troubled deal shows how investor fears about AI harming traditional software firms is having an impact beyond corporate share prices. Such news may not bode well for the likes of Salesforce, which last week sold US$25 billion in bonds to complete half of its planned stock buybacks and could further leverage debt for its remaining US$25 billion purchases. Qualtrics, which previously traded publicly, was acquired several years ago by private equity firm Silver Lake and other investors. In October last year, Qualtrics said it would acquire a data analytics firm Press Ganey Forsta for nearly US$7 billion, and the debt deal with JPMorgan was intended to support that acquisition, Bloomberg previously reported. https://tinyurl.com/3p6vsj94

Mastercard to buy stablecoin startup BVNK for up to US$1.8 billion.

Mastercard said it agreed to buy BVNK, a stablecoin payment startup, for up to US$1.8 billion, including US$300 million in contingent payments, in its biggest bet that more companies will use the cryptocurrency to move money globally. With the acquisition, Mastercard is defending against the threat that stablecoins may disrupt traditional methods of payments such as cards. The deal allows Mastercard to have the technology, licenses and bank partners to offer stablecoin payments to its clients. BVNK, founded in 2021 and based in London, allows businesses to settle and process payments using stablecoins by providing the conversion between local currency and stablecoins. It counts human resources startup Deel and payments company Worldpay among its clients and processed US$30 billion in annualized volume in 2025. BVNK is a competitor to Bridge, the stablecoin startup acquired by Stripe last year in a US$1.1 billion deal. BVNK was backed by Visa, Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, and Citi Ventures, and raised US$50 million at a reported US$750 million valuation in late 2024. https://tinyurl.com/t5xkr9j8

Uber to invest up to US$1.25 billion in Rivian.

Uber said it would invest up to US$1.25 billion in electric vehicle maker Rivian over the next five years, and it will buy thousands of Rivian robotaxis. The announcement adds Rivian to a range of self-driving partnerships Uber has announced. Rivian stock was trading up 7% in pre-market trading on Thursday. On Monday, Uber had announced an expanded partnership with Nvidia, which has developed self-driving software. The two companies said htey planned to launch a fleet of Nvidia-powered self driving cars in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the first half of next year. While Rivian is best known for its electric trucks—including one used by Amazon, also a big shareholder—the automaker is this year releasing an SUV that will pit it more directly against Tesla. Rivian has also developed autonomous driving software, also pitting it against Tesla as well as companies such as Alphabet’s Waymo. https://tinyurl.com/ft9fz6x4

Micron revenue almost triples, tops estimates as demand for memory soars.

Micron’s revenue almost tripled in the latest quarter as results topped analysts’ estimates and guidance sailed past expectations. The stock, which is up more than 350% in the past year, slipped in extended trading. Micron is benefiting from soaring demand for Nvidia graphics processing units that run generative artificial intelligence models. Each generation of Nvidia chip packs in more memory, creating a supply crunch. Micron has been working to add capacity, as have competitors Samsung and SK Hynix. Micron’s stock has been on a tear. The shares tripled in 2025 and have jumped another 62% year to date as of Wednesday’s close. Among the 10 most valuable U.S. tech companies, Micron is the only one that’s up. Oracle is the leading decliner, down 22%, and Microsoft and Tesla have also seen double-digit percentage drops. Memory companies have been shifting production capacity largely to high-bandwidth memory, which is embedded onto Nvidia’s latest GPUs and many other chips powering AI. Those products have higher margins. Memory is typically a commodity business, which comes with lower margins than other silicon products and short-term contracts. In the past few months, memory companies have signed longer-term contracts as semiconductor makers work to ensure future capacity. https://tinyurl.com/mu93297n

Intuit leaders cancel stock sales.

Intuit’s founder and executive leadership team have canceled plans for future stock sales, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. At the same time, Intuit said it planned to “substantially accelerate” its remaining US$3.5 billion worth of planned stock buybacks, having repurchased US$1.8 billion worth of stock in the previous two quarters. In canceling planned stock sales, Intuit executives are following in the footsteps of other software firms, such as ServiceNow. Both companies are responding to declines in their stock prices, a reflection of investor anxiety about the impact of AI on the enterprise software sector. Other software companies, such as Salesforce, have also accelerated their stock buybacks. Intuit shares have picked up 15% since the firm last month reported financial results for the quarter ending Jan. 31 that showed revenue growing two percentage points faster than its prior projection for the period. Intuit also inked a new partnership with Anthropic to integrate Claude into its apps. https://tinyurl.com/2s3wxsau

Meta is shutting down VR social platform Horizon Worlds in further pivot away from the metaverse.

Meta announced Tuesday that it is shutting down Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality social network for Quest VR headsets that was once a key piece of the pivot to the metaverse. In a community blog, Meta announced that the Horizon Worlds app will be taken off the Quest store at the end of March, and fully removed from VR on June 15. After that date, it will only be available on a standalone mobile app. “We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience,” the company said in announcing the change. The shift for Horizon Worlds, which was once a central part of the company’s push into virtual reality, comes weeks after Meta cut over 1,000 employees from Reality Labs, the unit responsible for the metaverse. https://tinyurl.com/bdhrcjtp

Nvidia unveils NemoClaw agent software.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday the company will offer new software tools that allow customers to build their own open-source AI agents for business use. Launch of the software, NemoClaw, follows the popularity of OpenClaw, open-source software to create personal agents that can write code, edit files and surf the web on behalf of users. Speaking onstage at Nvidia’s annual developer’s conference, Huang said NemoClaw was designed to use Nvidia’s Nemotron large language models, and can connect to other AI models on users’ computers or in the cloud. NemoClaw adds more security and privacy controls compared to the default version of OpenClaw, according to Nvidia. It uses OpenShell, software intended to help large companies adopt computer using agents that allows users to set restrictions on the actions agents can take and the files they can access. Such security measures are important. OpenClaw agents that have deleted files or caused other snafus have tempered some of the enthusiasm for the open-source software. https://tinyurl.com/3u7yxndv

Nvidia unveils Groq-based chip system to speed up AI tasks like coding.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a new AI server system based on technology the company licensed last year from chip startup Groq, designed to make its AI servers more energy- and cost-efficient for tasks such as AI coding. This is the first time Nvidia has integrated another company’s AI processor into its server racks, and it’s a tacit admission that its graphics processing units, on their own, may not always be the best option for certain AI workloads. The system, Groq LPX, will be an optional add-on for Nvidia’s upcoming AI server chip system, Vera Rubin. The Groq part of the system will handle some of the computing tasks that would otherwise run on the Vera Rubin servers. Huang said during his keynote at Nvidia’s annual developer conference that the Groq system will begin shipping in the third quarter of this year. He also confirmed s earlier reporting that the main chip used in the Groq system will be manufactured by Samsung. (Nvidia’s chips are produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) Unlike Nvidia’s graphics processing units that underpin the Vera Rubin system, Groq’s design integrates memory directly onto the chip, which can help deliver faster responses for tasks like software coding that benefit from quicker response times. While Groq’s chips have historically been limited by the small amount of memory that can be placed on each chip, Nvidia plans to address this by linking up to 256 Groq chips so they work together in unison. https://tinyurl.com/ayh2zr98

China’s second-largest chipmaker develops technology to produce AI chips.

Hua Hong Group, China’s second-largest chip manufacturer, has developed 7-nanometer chip-making technology for AI chips, Reuters reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. Chips made at that level of precision are powerful enough to drive AI applications and support model training. Until now, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, the country’s largest foundry, was the only Chinese company capable of producing 7-nanometer chips at scale. Hua Hong, backed by Shanghai’s municipal government, spent decades making less advanced chips for consumer electronics and cars before pivoting to cutting-edge manufacturing. Its latest breakthrough suggests Washington’s restrictions on China’s access to foreign chipmaking tools and suppliers haven’t stopped Chinese companies from making progress. Tighter U.S. export controls have pushed China to step up its domestic effort to build its own AI chips. Hua Hong has been collaborating with Huawei Technologies to develop chipmaking technology, according to Reuters. Biren Technology, a Chinese AI chip designer blacklisted by Washington, is using Hua Hong’s advanced plant to test prototypes ahead of full production, Reuters reported. https://tinyurl.com/4pph4akc

Amazon CEO sees AI doubling prior AWS sales projections to US$600 billion by 2036.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during an internal all-hands meeting he expects artificial intelligence could help cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services achieve US$600 billion in annual sales, double his own prior estimate. “I’ve been thinking for the last number of years that AWS, call it 10 years from now, could be about a US$300 billion annual revenue, run rate business,” Jassy said, according to a review of his comments by Reuters. “I think what’s happening in AI that AWS has a chance to be at least ⁠double that.” Amazon held one of its regular all hands meetings on Tuesday to provide employees updates on businesses ranging from drone deliveries to advertising sales to Amazon Fresh groceries. AWS in 2025 booked US$128.7 billion in sales, up 19% from 2024. Jassy’s projection suggests an average growth rate of nearly 17% every year for the next decade. He did not elaborate on how those sales might be distributed and an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment beyond Jassy’s comments. https://tinyurl.com/yc5fucdz

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin wants to launch data centers into space.

Jeff Bezos’ space firm Blue Origin asked the U.S. government for permission to launch up to 51,600 satellites that would one day handle artificial intelligence computing from orbit. The plan could put Blue Origin in competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which said in a January filing that it wants to put as many as one million satellites into space to form a gigantic data center. Blue Origin outlined its rival plan, called “Project Sunrise,” in a Federal Communications Commission filing late Thursday. While both Musk and Bezos have talked up the idea of data centers in space, their companies’ filings have been light on detail, such as the proposed design of the data center satellites or when each company would expect to launch them. Musk said this year that it will be cheaper to run AI compute in space than on Earth by 2028 or 2029, while Bezos said last October that it could take “a couple of decades” to build large data centers in space. https://tinyurl.com/4mp29fda

Apple made roughly US$900 million from generative AI apps in 2025.

Between January and August 2025, App Store revenue from generative AI apps nearly tripled, largely driven by ChatGPT subscriptions. Here are the details. GenAI apps reportedly paid nearly $900M in App Store fees in 2025 According to a new report by AppMagic (via WSJ), “Apple’s revenue from GenAI apps rose from about US$35 million in January 2025 to a high of US$101 million in August,” before trending back down due to a decline in downloads of ChatGPT. And speaking of ChatGPT, AppMagic says that OpenAI’s chatbot accounted for nearly 75% of the total commission gains from generative apps on the App Store, followed by Grok, at 5%. As the WSJ notes, that’s a notable sum for a company that still lacks a true rival to ChatGPT and similar products, and a welcome buffer as Apple works out its partnership with Google to have Gemini work as the underlying technology of the revamped Siri. https://tinyurl.com/4kyu5p6a

Meta to cut back on third-party moderators, rely more on AI.

Meta Platforms is scaling back on its use of third-party vendors for content moderation in favor of artificial intelligence systems, the company announced Thursday. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads said it will roll out more AI systems to review content across its platforms over the next few years. Meta said it will continue to employ human content reviewers, but its AI systems will increasingly handle tasks such as moderating graphic content, illicit drug sales and scams. “As we do this, we’ll reduce our reliance on third-party vendors for content enforcement and focus on strengthening our internal systems and workforce,” the company said in a blog post. According to Meta, early experiments have shown its AI systems can catch content violations more accurately, and are better at detecting scams. As a result, it plans to invest more in internal AI-driven enforcement. The company is also launching a Meta AI support assistant on Facebook and Instagram, to help with account issues. https://tinyurl.com/55ewpn7u

Elon Musk misled Twitter investors, jury finds.

A jury found Elon Musk liable on Friday for some Twitter investor losses after he threatened to back out of his plan to acquire the social media site in 2022. Musk had originally offered to buy Twitter for US$54.20 per share in 2022, then wrote that the deal was “temporarily on hold” due to what he said were a high number of bots and spam accounts on the site. The statements led to fluctuations in Twitter’s share price that led to losses for some investors. Musk ultimately purchased Twitter for US$44 billion. The decision in San Francisco federal court is likely to be appealed by Musk. Total damages could reach US$2.6 billion, CNBC reported, citing attorneys for the plaintiffs. https://tinyurl.com/mrys3psp

Supermicro employees charged over alleged billion-dollar AI chips smuggling.

The U.S. Justice Department has charged three Super Micro Computer employees with illegally shipping at least US$2.5 billion worth of advanced AI servers to China, violating U.S. export controls. U.S. officials didn’t name the specific chips involved, though Nvidia commands a dominant share of the AI chip market. One of those charged is Supermicro’s co-founder and board member Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw. Supermicro said the alleged conduct “is a contravention of the Company’s policies and compliance controls” and the company has been “cooperating fully with the government’s investigation.” Prosecutors said the defendants and their co-conspirators installed thousands of hollow, non-functioning server replicas at warehouses in order to deceive U.S. companies’ compliance teams, while the actual chips were already en route to China. The DOJ said that the defendants used dryers to remove labels from the machines, citing a surveillance video tape. Chip smugglers have been using such tactics for years. The Information’s article in 2024 showed how smugglers disguised as legitimate chip buyers leased data centers and moved the chips to China as soon as Nvidia staff finished inspecting the facilities. https://tinyurl.com/29knz3sd

Nvidia restarting manufacturing for H200 China sales, CEO says.

Nvidia is in the process of restarting manufacturing for the H200 chips that it plans to sell to Chinese customers, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at a press conference Tuesday. Huang said Nvidia had received purchase orders from customers in China, implying that the Chinese government has given local businesses the green light to buy the chips. Nvidia’s ability to sell the H200 chips to China has been up in the air for several months, both because of restrictions imposed by the U.S. government and Chinese authorities. The Trump administration recently signaled it would relax its restrictions but the Chinese government’s approval remained uncertain. Nvidia disclosed in February that it received government approvals for small amounts of H200 sales for Chinese customers, but that it did not know whether the Chinese government would allow the sales. Executives did not project any revenue from Chinese customers in its forecast. At the press conference, Huang said “President Trump’s intention is that the United States should have a leadership position in access to Nvidia’s best technology. However, he would like us to compete worldwide and not concede those markets unnecessarily.” https://tinyurl.com/5d2hk32s