May 2, 2026: Fresh S&P 500 And Nasdaq Highs

Last week, Dow Jones rose 0.55%, S&P 500 gained 0.9%, Nasdaq composite was up 1.1%. Google came out on top after a big earnings week, which raised hyperscalers’ capex plans in the AI ecosystem. Alphabet and AWS reported revenue jumps of 22% and 28% respectively. Apple’s iPhone rebound continued with 22% growth. Meanwhile, Meta and Microsoft signaled aggressive AI infrastructure investment. Atlassian shares rose nearly 25% as AI search boosted product sales, sparking commentary that it could be time to re-enter software stocks after SaaSpocalypse. Anthropic is reportedly seeing investor interest at a US$900 billion valuation, supported by a US$20 billion convertible financing from Amazon. OpenAI reportedly missed internal Q1/26 goals but is maintaining its US$30 billion revenue target for 2026. SpaceX is targeting a mid-June IPO at a US$1 trillion valuation. S&P 500 is considering easing index entry rules for newly listed mega-cap stocks, following in Nasdaq’s footsteps. GameStop is reportedly preparing a bid for eBay. Chinese regulators blocked Meta’s US$2 billion acquisition of AI agent startup Manus. In Canada, the federal government has been selected to headquarter the new multinational Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB). B.C.-based General Fusion announced plans to go public on the Nasdaq via a US$1 billion SPAC merger. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Juno Industries completed an oversubscribed $12 million financing to support its platform of defence solutions. Cybeats reported 2025 revenue growth of 49% y/y, and is targeting US$5 million in ARR by Q2 2026. Replenish Nutrients Q4 results highlighted the company’s transition to high-margin commercialization at its Beiseker facility while advancing licensing deals in the U.S. and Alberta. Ionik reported record fiscal 2025 revenue of US$195.3 million and US$34.8 million in Adjusted EBITDA. Hybrid Power Solutions reported a 75% sequential revenue increase and a $12.5 million sales pipeline. and 01 Quantum elected post-quantum cryptography expert Dr. Edoardo Persichetti to its board.

Canada selected to headquarter new multinational defence bank, sources say.

Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver have pitched themselves as possible host cities. Canada has been selected to headquarter the multinational Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), sources have told Radio-Canada. The DSRB is a multilateral institution focused on financing defence, security and resilience projects for NATO members and allied nations. Three sources familiar with the matter, but not authorized to speak publicly, told Radio-Canada that Canada was selected to host the new bank. The Globe and Mail first reported the news. It’s estimated that securing the bank could create 3,500 jobs in defence finance, international operations and specialized research and analysis. Four cities — Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver — have put themselves forward as possible hosts for the DSRB. The federal government will decide where the headquarters will be located. The bank’s services would include providing long-term credit and helping to streamline the process of multiple countries buying defence resources together. https://tinyurl.com/ye64e69z

General Fusion prepares to continue its quest for commercial fusion power as a public company.

Richmond, BC’s General Fusion wants to become the first company to develop commercially viable fusion power, and thinks going public could help provide the capital it needs to win. Pending regulatory and shareholder approval, General Fusion is expected to debut on the Nasdaq by mid-2026, after striking a deal to merge with Dallas-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (Spring Valley) at a projected future equity value of US$1 billion ($1.4 million). General Fusion’s SPAC transaction, which would make it the first publicly traded firm focused exclusively on fusion power, is set to provide the business with $105 million in guaranteed funding from institutional backers, as well as up to $230 million in additional cash from Spring Valley’s trust capital, subject to redemptions, to fuel its quest. https://tinyurl.com/4brfht94

Sophic Client Juno Industries: Trail Blazer Capital Corp. announces completion of Juno Industries Inc.’s upsized Subscription Receipt financing for total gross proceeds of $12,000,000.

Trail Blazer Capital Corp., a capital pool company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (the “Exchange” or “TSXV”), announces that, further to its news releases dated March 25, 2026 and April 2, 2026, respectively, Juno Industries Inc. (“Juno Industries”) has further upsized and completed its non-brokered concurrent financing of 15,000,000 subscription receipts (the “Subscription Receipts”) at a price of $0.80 per Subscription Receipt for total gross proceeds of $12,000,000 (the “Concurrent Financing”). Each Subscription Receipt will, prior to the effective time of the Company’s acquisition of 100% of the shares of Juno Industries (the “Juno Shares”) through the amalgamation of Juno Industries with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company (the “Proposed Transaction”), automatically convert into such number of Juno Shares that will result in the holder receiving one common share in the capital of Trail Blazer (on a post 6:1 consolidation basis) in connection with the completion of the Proposed Transaction, for no additional consideration upon the satisfaction of certain escrow release conditions (the “Release Conditions”). The total gross proceeds of the Concurrent Financing are being held in escrow by Endeavor Trust Corporation, in its capacity as the Subscription Receipt Agent, and will be released to the Company upon the satisfaction of the Release Conditions. Upon completion of the Proposed Transaction, the Company (the “Resulting Issuer”) expects that it will be listed as a Tier 2 Industrial, Technology, and Life Sciences Issuer on the Exchange. The net proceeds from the Concurrent Financing will be used to support Juno Industries’ expansion, for research and development acceleration, for the development and deployment of needs-based solutions for Canadian and allied national security, and for general corporate purposes of the Resulting Issuer following the completion of the Proposed Transaction. In connection with the Concurrent Financing, Juno Industries has agreed to pay aggregate cash finder’s fees of $209,100 (the “Cash Finder’s Fees”), and issue 262,180 finder’s warrants (the “Finder’s Warrants”). Each Finder’s Warrant will be exercisable to acquire one common share in the Resulting Issuer at a price of $0.80 for a period of 24 months from the completion of the Proposed Transaction. The Cash Finder’s Fees will be paid, and the Finder’s Warrants will be issued, upon completion of the Proposed Transaction. Additional information concerning the Proposed Transaction is included in the Company’s news releases dated March 25, 2026 and April 2, 2026, respectively. https://tinyurl.com/cjkfx3rt

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) announces fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2025 financial results.

Cybeats announced its financial results for the three months (“Q4 2025”) and full year (“F2025”) ended December 31, 2025. Financial Highlights for the twelve months ended December 31, 2025 (“F2025”) with comparatives for the twelve months ended December 31, 2024 (“F2024”): Revenue in F2025 was $2,894,585, an increase of 49% or $951,641 over F2024 revenue of $1,942,944. The net loss was $3,414,211 in F2025, an improvement from F2024’s loss of $10,213,142, driven by the increase in revenue and decrease in expenses. Liquid assets increased by $2,046,249 to total $3,546,725 at December 31, 2025 ($1,500,476 as at December 31, 2024), comprised of cash of $2,751,202 and accounts receivable of $795,523. Subsequent to the quarter the Company closed a debt settlement for $1,200,000 with Scryb Inc. Financial Highlights for the three months ended December 31, 2025 (“Q4 2025”) with comparatives for the three months ended December 31, 2024 (“Q4 2024”): Revenue in Q4 2025 was $717,098 versus $510,737 in Q4 2024, an increase of 40% or $206,361. This growth was due to the addition of new customers and the expansion of our existing customers. Net loss in Q4 2025 was $(299,318), versus a loss of $(3,226,046) in Q4 2024, an improvement of $2,926,728 or 90%. The reduction in net loss was due to operational efficiencies. Quarterly revenue increased as a result of continued addition of new customers, and the expanded use of SBOM Studio / Consumer by existing customers. Management’s objective is to continue to increase revenues to drive cash flow and profitability, which we believe will increase future Company value for shareholders. Business Outlook. Cybeats enters 2026 with strong commercial momentum, a strengthened balance sheet, and growing demand for software supply chain security solutions as SBOM adoption moves from best practice to regulatory requirement. The Company continues to see increasing engagement from both existing customers and new prospects across medical devices, industrial automation, defense, healthcare, telecom, automotive, and critical infrastructure. The Company’s multi-year contract extensions with Schneider Electric and Emerson Electric reinforce Cybeats’ ability to expand within large enterprise accounts, while its first automotive customer marks entry into another high-value regulated vertical. With the commercial launch of SBOM Consumer in early 2025, Cybeats has significantly expanded its addressable market beyond software producers to include software purchasers, enabling enterprise-wide visibility across third-party applications, connected devices, and embedded systems. The Company now serves three of the top seven global industrial control systems vendors, alongside leaders in medical devices, telecom, and defense. A major strategic milestone was the OEM partnership with Keysight Technologies, which enables Keysight to sell Cybeats’ platform to its global customer base under the Keysight brand. This partnership materially expands Cybeats’ sales reach without requiring significant internal salesforce expansion and provides meaningful operating leverage as the Company scales. Management believes the Company is on track to increase Annual Recurring Revenue to approximately $5 million by the end of Q2 2026. Cybeats has 10 active proof-of-concepts underway across defense, global medical device manufacturers, major healthcare delivery organizations, and large industrial and technology enterprises. Combined with advancing channel partnerships and increased outbound commercial activity, management believes Cybeats is entering a phase of regulatory-driven expansion with a clear path toward profitability. https://t.co/LhteZogfsb

Sophic Client Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp. (ERTH-CSE, VVIVF-OTC) announces 2025 fourth quarter and full year financial results and provides 2026 strategic outlook.

Replenish Nutrients announced its 2025 fourth quarter financial results and key operational and commercial milestones, including achieving key hourly production rates at the Beiseker facility, and the signing of significant new licensing partnerships with Farmers Union Enterprises (FUE) in the U.S Midwest and MJ Ag Solutions (MJ Ag) in Northern Alberta. These developments support the Company’s long-term strategy to scale regenerative fertilizer production across North America while generating new revenue streams through high-value licensing agreements. 2025 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Operational Summary: Following a multi-year investment in technical validation and infrastructure, the Company has successfully established the foundation for its regenerative fertilizer platform and is now transitioning to a high-margin commercialization phase. Central to this shift is the scaling of the Beiseker facility, which is currently ramping to 2,000 metric tonnes per month with gross margins expected to range from 25%-35%, supporting a targeted annual capacity of approximately 24,000 tonnes of proprietary granulated fertilizer. While Fourth Quarter results were influenced by the final stages of platform development, including lower capitalized manufacturing costs on inventory lower inventory balances, the Company achieved significant structural improvements marked by a reduction in annualized selling, general and administration expenses. Management has successfully directed resources toward validating product efficacy and securing patented production processes, allowing the Company to aggressively pivot its sales mix. By moving away from legacy, modest-margin blended fertilizers toward high-demand granulated and pelletized offerings, Replenish is positioning itself to capture significantly higher unit economics across its core growth verticals. The Company continues to be very encouraged by the progress made on its licensing deals with FUE and MJ Ag. Construction and commissioning activities are well underway, and the Company expects initial commissioning production runs to begin in late spring/early summer 2026. As previously announced, the Company signed transformative licensing agreements with FUE and MJ Ag, providing FUE with rights to deploy Replenish’s proprietary regenerative fertilizer technology across a five-state, 100+ million-acre agricultural region in the U.S. Midwest, while the MJ Ag agreement serves the Peace Country agriculture region with over 10 million arable acres in Northern Alberta and British Columbia. Revenues increased $0.4 million and decreased $0.1 million for the 3 and 12 months compared to the same periods in the prior year. The increase for the quarter is due to higher sales volumes and higher average pricing in the fertilizer segment partially offset by lower revenues in the power segment due to lower average power pool pricing. Gross profit decreased $0.3 million and $0.4 million for the 3 and 12 months compared to the same periods in the prior year. The decrease was due to lower capitalized manufacturing costs related to lower inventory balances in the fertilizer segment and lower power pool pricing in the power segment. Net loss increased $1.5 million and $4.4 million for the 3 and 12 months compared to the same periods in the prior year. The increased loss is primarily due to increased finance costs from higher average debt balances during the year, the absence of a deferred tax recovery that occurred in the prior year, and the absence of a non-cash gain on the change in contingent consideration that occurred in the prior year. Cash flows used in operating activities was flat and increased $1.3 million for the 3 and 12 months compared to the same periods in the prior year. The increased use of cash was due to changes in working capital, partially offset by improved funds from operations on a year-to-date basis. Subsequent to year and as disclosed in recent press releases, the Company strengthened its balance sheet through the closing of a $4.2 million private placement, the receipt of a $250,000 government grant, and the closing of a $1.95 million expansion of its existing revolving credit facilities. 2026 Outlook: Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, Replenish provides a robust operational outlook focused on higher-margin revenue streams. Replenish continues to scale up its granulated fertilizer production at Beiseker and progress on its licensing deals with FUE and MJ Ag. These initiatives are expected to drive significant growth in the Company’s earnings and cash flows and have the potential to expand into additional new facilities given the expected capacity is a very small portion of the agricultural regions they serve. As previously guided, the Company is targeting 25-35% gross margins on the initial licensing royalties during a transition period where the Company finances the working capital for these licensing arrangements. Once the transition period is completed, which is expected to be within one year or less from the time of full-scale production, the Company expects to realize $40-$60 per metric tonnes at 90%+ margin for the duration of the licensing agreements. At full capacity, the FUE facility is expected to produce 50,000 metric tonnes per year while the MJ Ag facility is expected to produce 10,000 metric tonnes per year, with each facility capable of double production with 24-hour shifts. https://tinyurl.com/77twtp5k

Sophic Client Ionik (INIK-TSXV, INIKF-OTCQX) announces record fiscal 2025 results.

Ionik Corporation announced record financial results for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2025, highlighting strong revenue growth, significant EBITDA expansion, robust cash flow generation, and continued progress in debt reduction and platform integration. Fiscal 2025 Highlights: Record revenue of US$195.3 million, up 16% from US$168.1 million in fiscal 2024. Record Adjusted EBITDA of US$34.8 million, up 49% from US$23.3 million. Record gross profit of US$79.9 million, up 24% year-over-year. Gross margin percentage of 41% up from 38% in the prior year. Adjusted Free Cash Flow of US$32.3 million, reflecting strong underlying cash generation. Reduced total debt by US$19.3 million year-over-year through disciplined repayment. Fourth Quarter 2025 Highlights: Revenue of US$54.7 million, up19% versus US$45.9 million for the same period of 2024 (“Q4 2024”). Gross profit of US$21.4 million (39% margin), compared to US$18.6 million (41% margin) for Q4 2024. Adjusted EBITDA of US$9.8 million, up 33% compared to US$7.3 million for Q4 2024. Adjusted Free Cash Flow of US$9.6 million representing a 99% Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion rate, compared to US$4.8 million (65% Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion rate) for Q4 2024. Net loss after tax from continuing operations of US$26.9 million, versus US$8.1 million for Q4 2024. The Q4 2025 net loss was primarily driven by a US$29.5 million impairment of intangible assets. The Q4 2024 net loss was primarily driven by a US$5.8 million impairment of intangible assets and goodwill. These impairment charges do not impact the Company’s cash generation or Adjusted EBITDA performance. Cash as at December 31, 2025 was US$11.3 million compared to US$14.6 million at December 31, 2024. At December 31, 2025, the Company had not drawn on its revolving facility of US$10.0 million and senior debt net of cash was US$58.0 million, compared to US$68.5 million at September 30, 2025 and US$74.6 million at June 30, 2025. Management believes that its current capital position and strong cash flow generation positions it well to execute its strategic priorities. Total undiscounted debt as at December 31, 2025 was US$116.7 million, including US$69.3 million of senior lender debt, US$39.1 million of convertible debt, US$5.3 million in a vendor take-back loan, and US$3.0 million in a working capital note compared to US$136.0 million in total debt as at December 31, 2024. Ted Hastings, Ionik’s CEO commented: “Fiscal 2025 was a strong year for Ionik, marked by meaningful progress in integrating our Marketing Optimization and Media Activation platforms, driving profitable growth, and strengthening our balance sheet. We delivered significant Adjusted EBITDA expansion and cash flow generation, enabling us to reduce leverage through a combination of EBITDA growth and disciplined debt repayment. As we move into 2026, we remain focused on platform integration, cash generation, and further debt reduction, while continuing to align our business with the accelerating pace of AI-driven technology and data-driven marketing.” https://t.co/4tFqHfxfGV

Sophic Client Hybrid Power Solutions (HPSS-CSE, HPSIF-OTC) reports Q3 fiscal 2026 financial results.

Hybrid Power Solutions announced its financial results for the Third Quarter ending February 28, 2026. “Hybrid Power Solutions continued to strengthen the foundation for sustained growth during the quarter, with sequential revenue improvement providing early validation of our strategy,” said Francois Byrne, CEO and Founder. “We were able to aggressively invest in working capital, product development and business development this quarter, which should drive growth in future quarters. In addition to the industrial sector, we are seeing increased momentum in the defence sector through ongoing product introductions, pilot deployments, and expanding sales activities. Hybrid’s portable power solutions are now gaining traction with military and public safety end-users, supported by real-world testing and growing relationships across Canadian, U.S. and European defence networks. With a current pipeline of $12.5 million in active, quoted opportunities across our four primary verticals, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on growing demand for our products.” Financial Highlights (for the period ended February 28, 2026). Revenue of $488,308, down 21% from $619,539 in the prior-year period, but up 75% sequentially from $279,445 in the previous quarter. Sales volumes were lower year-over-year due to lower cash availability to produce inventory and generate revenue, and up quarter-over-quarter due to increased traction with enterprise customers and greater availability of capital. Gross profit margin was 15.75%, a decrease from approximately 20.43% in the prior-year period, due to product mix, discounting, and lower sales volumes. Looking ahead the Company anticipates gross margin between 32-45% as the Company benefits from volume discounts on certain components and economies of scale on certain fixed costs. Total expenses of $830,818, down 5% from $874,096 in the prior-year period and up 15% from $723,409 in the previous quarter. Net loss of $762,027, compared to a net loss of $739,734 in the prior-year period and $871,826 in the previous quarter (a 13% sequential improvement). Available cash as at April 28, 2026 was approximately $189,000, the Company invested a significant portion of the recently concluded financing into inventory during the quarter in order to deliver on recent orders. Pipeline and Outlook. Entering the second half of fiscal 2026, Hybrid Power Solutions has built significant commercial momentum, characterized by a high-velocity sales pipeline. The Company’s strategy for the upcoming fiscal year is anchored in transitioning from a research-intensive phase to a high-velocity commercialization stage. Management currently monitors $12.5 million in high potential, quoted opportunities across four primary industrial verticals. Based on current sales velocity and lead engagement, over 70% of this pipeline is projected to materialize into firm contracts within the next 12 months. Our current pipeline is strategically diversified across sectors with the highest demand for fuel-free alternatives: Defence: $3.8 million in quoted opportunities. We are seeing a surge in interest for “fuel-free” rapid-deployment solar and battery systems for remote operations. Construction: $3.5 million in quoted opportunities. This reflects an industry-wide push toward carbon-neutral jobsites and the active replacement of traditional diesel generators. Transit: $3.0 million in quoted opportunities. This is supported by our established track record and repeat orders with major Canadian transit authorities. Utilities: $2.2 million in quoted opportunities. We are focusing here on local energy storage and grid-resilience projects. https://tinyurl.com/v763bbzt

Sophic Client 01 Quantum Inc (ONE-TSXV, OONEF-OTCQB) announces election of Dr. Edoardo Persichetti to Board of Directors.

01 Quantum is pleased to announce that Dr. Edoardo Persichetti has been elected to the Company’s Board of Directors following shareholder approval at its annual meeting. Dr. Persichetti, who previously served as a consultant for the Company, brings world-class expertise in post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to the Board as 01 Quantum continues to scale its enterprise-level cybersecurity solutions. “We are delighted to welcome Edoardo to the Board of Directors,” said Andrew Cheung, CEO of 01 Quantum. “His transition from a strategic advisor to a Director reflects the value he provides to our technical roadmap. As a leading voice in NIST’s standardization process, his oversight will be instrumental as we deploy IronCAP™ across security-sensitive enterprise environments.” Dr. Persichetti added, “Having worked closely with the team over the past year, I am honored to join the Board and help guide the Company’s strategic vision. The arrival of quantum computing necessitates a fundamental shift in encryption, and 01 Quantum is positioned for that transition with practical, patent-protected solutions.” Dr. Persichetti is a renowned researcher in code-based cryptography and currently serves as an Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University. He is a co-author of several algorithms submitted to the NIST Post-Quantum Standardization process, including HQC, which was selected as a global standard in 2025. His extensive academic background includes a PhD from the University of Auckland and research positions at Warsaw University. https://tinyurl.com/szb2mjwb

S&P 500 weigh faster entry for mega-IPOs.

S&P Dow Jones Indices, the index provider behind the S&P 500, said Friday it would consult with market participants to determine whether it should eventually let large stocks into indexes more quickly after their initial public offerings than current rules allow. The rule change could provide a big boost to demand for shares in the eventual IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. Under the proposed rule change, a company only needs to be public for six months, rather than 12 months, before being eligible to enter its indexes. Index and exchange-traded funds tracking these indexes represent trillions of dollars in investments. Mega-cap companies would also be exempt from financial viability criteria requiring them to be profitable before being included in S&P indexes. That’s significant since neither of the three companies expected to hold large IPOs in the next year are profitable. The index provider defines mega-cap companies as the top 100 companies by market capitalization and they typically have at least $100 billion in market capitalization. The consultation period is open until May 28 and any changes would be adopted prior to the market open on June 8. SpaceX is expected to go public in mid-June and targets raising US$75 billion at a valuation above US$1 trillion. Nasdaq said last month it was changing its rules to allow large companies to join the Nasdaq 100 just 15 days after their IPO. The change is set to go into effect Friday. https://tinyurl.com/3hvxmnfw

OpenAI Recently missed an internal revenue target.

OpenAI missed an internal revenue goal during the first quarter, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, after the company’s ChatGPT chat previously missed user-growth goals. The missed goals followed a surge or usage of Google’s Gemini chatbot and booming sales at archrival Anthropic, whose revenue has nearly closed the gap with OpenAI despite being founded five years later. The internal revenue miss, however, doesn’t mean that the company will miss the US$30 billion 2026 revenue target it has shared with investors, up from around US$13 billion in 2025 revenue. The company has also projected it would burn US$25 billion this year, compared to an US$8 billion cash burn in 2025. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar have diverged on the prospective timing of an initial public offering for the company, which Altman has wanted to accelerate. Friar didn’t believe the company would be ready to go public in 2026 because of the procedural and organizational work needed and the risks from its spending commitments, and she wasn’t sure yet whether OpenAI revenue growth, which has been slowing, would support the server spending commitments OpenAI has made. https://tinyurl.com/4rphkybs

Anthropic receives investment interest at US$900 billion valuation.

Anthropic has received investment interest at a valuation above US$900 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. An investment at that level would more than double a February valuation of US$380 billion. However, the company has not formally started a fundraise, said the person and a second. Bloomberg first reported that Anthropic has received investment interest and the news report said it was considering those offers. Anthropic has seen a surge in investment interest in recent weeks after its annualized revenue pace topped US$30 billion, potentially eclipsing its older rival, OpenAI. According to TechCrunch, the company’s annualized revenue is close to US$40 billion, a jump from US$30 billion at the beginning of the month. https://tinyurl.com/4tsyjerb

Amazon’s up to US$20 billion Anthropic investment will be Convertible financing.

Amazon has disclosed new details on its recently announced investment of up to US$20 billion in Anthropic. The deal will take the form of a convertible financing facility, the company said in a filing on Thursday, which Anthropic can start drawing down on once Amazon starts delivering certain compute milestones. Anthropic will receive cash in exchange for issuing convertible notes to Amazon, the filing said. The US$20 billion facility will expire 30 months after an initial public offering or direct listing by Anthropic. Amazon also has the option to invest an additional US$5 billion in future Anthropic financings, though however much Amazon decides to invest of that US$5 billion would come out of the US$20 billion facility. Amazon said it was investing US$5 billion in Anthropic earlier this month, and could invest up to US$20 billion tied to certain commercial milestones, but did not elaborate on the nature of that investment. Amazon on Thursday also said it amended its commercial agreement with Anthropic, in which Anthropic has agreed to buy billions of dollars worth of chips and cloud services from Amazon Web Services. Amazon said there are contractual obligations between the two companies related to the performance of Amazon’s chips. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has recently been touting Amazon’s Trainium business, and has said Amazon may sell Trainium to companies to use in their own data centers, instead of on Amazon’s servers. https://tinyurl.com/262e4z4w

Meta’s stock drops as new bond offering starts.

Shares of Meta Platforms dropped 8% on Thursday, as investors responded to the social media giant’s disclosure that it was raising its 2026 capital expenditure projection. Meanwhile Meta began efforts to raise another US$25 billion in bonds, Bloomberg reported. Meta’s bond sale follows a US$30 billion bond sale at the end of October. That sale lifted Meta’s debt to about US$58.7 billion, offset by US$81 billion in cash. Meta said on Wednesday it plans to spend as much as US$145 billion on capital expenditures this year to expand its AI computing capacity. https://tinyurl.com/y4vrj858

GameStop eyes EBay acquisition.

Video game retailer GameStop is preparing a bid that it could submit as soon as this month to buy e-commerce site eBay, according to The Wall Street Journal. The news comes after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, who took the helm of the company in late 2023, said as recently as this January that he was searching for potential acquisition targets in the retail sector to expand its own business beyond selling games in stores – an idea some of its prominent shareholders, including Michael Burry, have encouraged. Investors viewed news of the potential deal as positive for both companies, sending GameStop’s shares up 6% and eBay’s up 13% in after-hours trading as of the time of this report. The deal would be a stretch for GameStop, at least in terms of size, unless the company secures debt financing or offers its own shares in the transaction. EBay’s enterprise value was just under US$50 billion at the end of the trading day on Friday, a figure that incorporates the company’s US$4 billion or so in cash on hand and subtracts its outstanding debt of US$7 billion. GameStop, in comparison, is worth just US$7 billion, even after factoring in its US$9 billion cash pile. GameStop, which made US$3.6 billion in revenue in the year to January, has been struggling with declining sales growth for the last several years. EBay, conversely, expanded its revenue by 8% to US$11 billion in 2025. GameStop’s stock is down 3% over the last twelve months, whereas eBay’s share price has appreciated by 54% over the same period, outpacing the 29% rise in the S&P 500 index. https://tinyurl.com/4h6tbyn7

China blocks Meta’s US$2 billion acquisition of Manus.

Chinese regulators on Monday blocked Meta Platforms’ US$2 billion acquisition of Manus and ordered the companies to terminate the deal. The Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, an agency under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said it has made a decision to prohibit “foreign acquisition of the Manus project” “in accordance with laws and regulations,” without naming Meta nor giving specific reasons. “The Office requires the parties involved to terminate and revoke the acquisition transaction,” the regulator said in a statement on its website. In December, Meta announced a deal to acquire the company behind the popular AI agent Manus. Developed by Butterfly Effect, a company initially founded in Wuhan and Beijing, Manus went viral in March last year, and the company subsequently raised US$75 million from Benchmark. After receiving funding from one of Silicon Valley’s blue-chip venture firms, the company moved its headquarters and core engineering teams to Singapore and closed its China offices, in an attempt to water down its China image. The two companies didn’t disclose the price of the acquisition. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Meta would close the deal at more than US$2 billion. Chinese regulators started investigating the transaction early this year, and the probe has sent some of the country’s startups scrambling, worrying about a popular exit route being blocked. https://tinyurl.com/2f7czty6

AWS revenue grows 28% in first quarter.

Amazon Web Services’ revenue rose 28% in the first quarter to US$37.6 billion, the cloud giant’s fastest growth rate in nearly four years. Amazon’s overall net sales increased 17% to US$181.5 billion in the first quarter, an acceleration in growth from 14% in the fourth quarter. Growth also accelerated in Amazon’s retail division and advertising business. Amazon forecast net sales to total between US$194 billion and US$199 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 16% to 19% from the second quarter last year. The second quarter results will include Amazon’s Prime Day sales, with the event moving to June from its typical July date. Amazon’s free cash flow fell to US$1.2 billion for the 12 months through the end of the first quarter, compared to US$25.9 billion a year earlier, as Amazon’s property and equipment purchases jumped by US$59.3 billion due to spending on AI. AWS’ backlog for Q1 is US$364 billion, US$120 billion more than the backlog Amazon announced last quarter. CEO Andy Jassy noted that the backlog comes from a “reasonable breadth” of customers, and does not include the deal announced earlier this month where Anthropic agreed to spend US$100 billion on AWS infrastructure. Amazon has said it will spend a total of US$200 billion in capital expenditures this year, and Jassy on the call today said there was no update to this plan. When Amazon published the results after the market’s close, its shares were down as much as 5% but shares started to trade up 5% above the closing price during the course of the earnings call. https://tinyurl.com/tmw3dae6

Apple’s iPhone rebound continues following new CEO announcement.

Apple reported revenue from its iPhone business grew nearly 22% in the March quarter from a year earlier, continuing a burst of iPhone demand for its iPhone 17 smartphones. The device brought in almost US$57 billion in sales for the quarter. The broader China market has continued to rebound for Apple, jumping 28% to US$20.5 billion for the quarter. The results helped Apple further shake off a two-year decline in its China business. In the prior December quarter, China grew 37.9% to US$25.5 billion. Apple said that it expects revenue growth of between 14% and 17% for the current quarter that ends in June. Apple shares were up more than 4% in after-hours trading. Apple’s Mac business has been struggling with supply constraints and demand that has been higher than expected. The Mac Mini and Mac Studio saw huge uptake among artificial intelligence developers. The new lowest-cost model, MacBook Neo, also saw strong demand. The Mac business grew 5.7% annually to US$8.4 billion. “It’ll take several months to reach supply-demand balance,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. Overall revenue grew 16.6% annually to US$111.2 billion. Net income for the quarter advanced 19.3% from the prior year to US$29.6. This is the first earnings report following the company’s announcement that John Ternus, currently senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over as CEO from Tim Cook in September. Cook will stay on as executive chairman. “Over the coming months, John and I will be working closely together to make sure this transition is perfectly smooth,” Cook said on the investor call. Ternus also made a quick appearance on the earnings call. “In my view, Tim is one of the greatest business leaders of all time,” he said. “Stepping into the role of CEO is an incredible honor, and it means a great deal to me to have Tim’s trust and confidence.” Ternus further stated: “We have an incredible roadmap ahead, and while you’re not going to get me to talk about the details of that roadmap, suffice it to say this is the most exciting time in my 25 year career at Apple to be building products and services. There are so many opportunities before us, and I couldn’t be more optimistic about what’s to come.” https://tinyurl.com/2s3e3w5t

Alphabet revenue soars 22%, with strong growth in Cloud, Search.

Alphabet reported a 22% jump in revenue and strong profit growth in the first quarter, beating analyst expectations as AI drove sales increases across its cloud and search businesses. The Google parent company also increased its estimated capital spending—which overwhelmingly goes to data centers and other AI equipment—to between US$180 billion and US$190 billion as a result of its acquisition of the data center company Intersect, from a range of US$175 billion to US$185 billion estimated in February. And Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi said it expects capital expenditures to “significantly” increase again in 2027. Google Cloud revenue increased 63% to US$20 billion, well outpacing the 48% growth in the quarter before. Google said in its earnings release that AI product and infrastructure sales on its Google Cloud Platform were driving that growth, and that Google Cloud’s backlog—the value of contracts that have been signed but not yet turned into revenue—nearly doubled since the last quarter to US$460 billion. Ashkenazi said Google anticipates half that total will turn into revenue over the next 24 months, signalling expectations that the cloud business will continue growing at a blistering pace. CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google plans to deliver its custom tensor processing unit chips, or TPUs, to customers like financial institutions and frontier labs in their own data centers. Ashkenazi said that Google expects to see a small percentage of that revenue later this year and more in 2027. Revenue growth in Google Search accelerated again to 19%, more than the previous quarter’s 17% growth. That business accounts for the largest share of Alphabet’s revenue, which totaled US$109.9 billion in the quarter. CEO Sundar Pichai said that queries were at an all-time high as AI experiences were driving usage. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said that Google is focused on monetizing the AI Mode feature of its search product with advertising, but that Google believed that formats that worked well in AI Mode “would transfer successfully to Gemini app.” “Ads have always been a big part of scaling products to billions of people,” Schindler said, the clearest public indication yet that Google would put ads in Gemini. Google also reported a net gain of US$37.7 billion as part of its other income, primarily from unrealized gains on unmarketable equity securities. Google didn’t elaborate, but it owns stakes in two large companies that both increased their valuations in the first quarter, SpaceX and Anthropic. Google reported that its losses on Alphabet-level activities, which primarily reflect costs of AI research and development, nearly doubled to US$5.3 billion in the first quarter. Losses on Other Bets, which include Waymo, also increased to US$2.1 billion from US$1.2 billion. Google’s stock, already on a strong upswing in recent weeks, gained more than 6% in initial after hours trading following the earnings call. https://tinyurl.com/6zf3wrc2

Meta raises 2026 capex forecast to as much as US$145 billion.

Meta Platforms raised its 2026 capital spending forecast again, underscoring rising infrastructure costs as it continues to scale its artificial intelligence and data center investments. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp announced the increase Wednesday as it reported first-quarter revenue of US$56.3 billion, up 33% from a year earlier and just shy of the upper end of its own forecast range of up to US$56.5 billion. Net profit rose 61% to US$26.8 billion, although this included a one-time income tax benefit of US$8 billion related to U.S. tax legislation. Without that, earnings growth would have been below 13%. Meta also projected second-quarter 2026 revenue of between US$58 billion and US$61 billion. The company now expects full-year capital expenditures of between US$125 billion and US$145 billion, up from its January forecast of US$115 billion to US$135 billion. Meta said the latest increase reflects higher component prices and additional spending on data centers. That increase appeared to worry some investors, with Meta’s stock falling more than 6% in after-hours trading following the results. Asked on Wednesday’s earnings call about ensuring a good return on Meta’s AI investments, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it will “ramp up monetization” as it sees how model training and product development scale in the coming quarters. “I don’t think we have a very precise plan for exactly how each product is going to scale month over month or anything like that, but I think we have a sense of the shape of where these things need to be,“ he said. Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said that Meta will expand agentic capabilities for both consumers and businesses, adding that there will be clear monetization opportunities over time. Meta also warned that it continues to face regulatory scrutiny over youth-related issues and has additional U.S. trials scheduled for this year, any of which could ultimately result in a material loss. https://tinyurl.com/yccuaxcz

Microsoft cloud revenue accelerates and Office 365 Copilot sales rise 33%.

Microsoft revenue grew 18% to US$82.9 billion in the first quarter, 1 percentage point higher than its growth in the prior quarter, the company said Wednesday. Growth also slightly accelerated in its Azure cloud and Office 365 commercial businesses, which the company attributed to growing demand for AI software and the servers needed to run it. In one illustration of customer demand, Microsoft said its total AI revenue—including sales of specialized AI servers on its Azure cloud to OpenAI and other AI firms, as well as sales of its own Copilot AI software—exceeded US$9.25 billion in quarterly revenue. It was the first time Microsoft disclosed the figure, which the company said was 123% higher compared to the same period last year. The metric is difficult to parse, as it mixes several different types of revenue, including subscription-based Copilot sales and so-called consumption-based revenue from server rentals. Microsoft said it had 20 million paying users of its Office 365 Copilot software, which uses models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power AI features in Office apps like Word, Excel and Outlook, up from 15 million in the prior quarter. That figure only includes subscribers who pay a monthly rate per seat, which starts at $30 per month, but not customers that pay Microsoft for such tools based on usage. Revenue for Azure and other cloud services, including GitHub sales, grew 40% in the first quarter, or 1 percentage point higher than the prior quarter. The result is slightly higher than the 37% to 38% growth rate Microsoft had previously projected for the first quarter. Microsoft expects Azure growth of 39% to 40% in the current quarter, CFO Amy Hood said. Shares rose 1% in after-hours trading following her comment, after initially sliding 2%. (Shares are down about 10% so far this year.) Microsoft said it had a revenue backlog of US$627 billion, up slightly from US$625 billion last quarter. Microsoft did not specify what percent of the backlog came from OpenAI, after saying last quarter that the startup accounted for 45% of its revenue backlog. The company said 25% of the backlog, or US$157 billion, would become revenue in the next 12 months. Microsoft has been spending heavily on building and leasing new data center space to meet demand from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other firms that rent AI servers from Azure, though Microsoft said it spent US$5.6 billion less on capital expenditures in the first quarter compared to the prior quarter. Microsoft said the deceleration was due to normal fluctuations in construction schedules, not a decrease in demand. The company expects to spend US$190 billion on capital expenditures this year, up 61% from last year. Microsoft generated US$15.8 billion in free cash flow, down 22% from a year ago, which the company attributed to rising capital expenditures compared to a year ago. https://tinyurl.com/2h6mujjw

Spotify stock falls 13% as premium subscriber growth slows.

Spotify stock dropped 13% after the music streaming service reported 8% revenue growth for the first quarter but forecast a slowdown in its premium subscriber growth rate for the second quarter. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange movements, Spotify’s revenue grew 14%. Spotify recently raised prices, and there are signs that could be affecting subscriber growth. The expansion in the number of Spotify’s premium subscribers has slowed from 12% in the third quarter to 9% in the first quarter and Spotify said the growth rate would slow to 8.3% in the second quarter. On a call with analysts, CFO Christian Luiga said “we saw no surprises with respect to price increase-related churn following our January U.S. price increase,” implying any churn was in line with expectations. https://tinyurl.com/3brwaee3

Robinhood shares fall after crypto revenue tanked 47%.

Robinhood shares fell more than 6% in after-market trading after reporting a 47% plunge in crypto trading revenue from a year ago. Despite the slump, record volumes in prediction markets lifted Robinhood’s total revenue 15% to US$1.07 billion. The result shows individual traders that use Robinhood are shifting from crypto to investing in other asset classes. Robinhood said event contracts traded by its users reached a record 8.8 billion. Net income was $346 million, up 3% from a year ago. Robinhood currently sends its customer orders to prediction market Kalshi under a partnership, though it plans to begin operating its own prediction market exchange, a joint venture with Susquehanna, this year, which will reduce its dependence on Kalshi. https://tinyurl.com/yck3s9ra

Reddit reports 69% revenue growth as user growth slows.

Reddit reported 69% growth in revenue for the first quarter, a sign that the rapid surge in its ad revenue is continuing into this year, despite little growth in one of its key groups of users. The social media site, known for its in-depth chat forums on a wide variety of topics, said ad revenue rose 74% to US$625 million. Overall revenue, including data licensing fees, was US$663 million. Reddit’s user growth has been slowing, however, particularly among “logged in” users in the U.S.—those who have signed up for accounts, as opposed to people who arrive at Reddit after a web search, who are “logged out.” The number of logged-in U.S. users rose just 1% in the quarter to 23.2 million from 23 million, where it flatlined last year. Overall global users rose 17% year on year, a slightly slower rate of growth than in the fourth quarter. https://tinyurl.com/5d35jd6z

Atlassian shares jump nearly 25% as AI search boosts product sales.

Shares of Atlassian, a provider of software that helps teams of developers and employees collaborate on projects, jumped nearly 25% in extended trading after its third-quarter earnings, as investors responded to signs that AI is giving a boost to its business. Atlassian’s revenue grew 32% to US$1.8 billion during its March quarter compared to last year, up from 23% last quarter. On an earnings call, Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said customers that use Rovo, the company’s AI-powered search tool, are generating twice as much annual recurring revenue, the value of contracts over the next 12 months, as customers that don’t use it. Atlassian doesn’t sell Rovo as a standalone product, and instead includes it with its higher-end subscriptions. Atlassian does track Rovo usage through a monthly allotment of credits, but it doesn’t yet charge customers for going over their limit. The setup shows how Atlassian is testing the waters for charging customers for Rovo based on how much they use it, which is the direction in which many of its software peers are headed. At the same time, Cannon-Brookes said Atlassian is still focused on selling bundles of its software products via subscriptions, which he described as “the largest amount of value” it provides to customers at the moment. Atlassian’s results suggests that investors may be more confident in its AI strategy than they’ve been in the past year, during which its shares had dropped nearly 70% prior to its earnings report. It remains to be seen if Rovo will continue to be a driver for its other products, but for now, investors’ perception of the company appears to be shifting. https://tinyurl.com/2jjbpe5y

Microsoft gives up exclusive rights to sell OpenAI models.

Microsoft and OpenAI amended the terms of their arrangement, allowing OpenAI to sell its models on competing cloud providers, the companies said on Monday. The companies also scrapped a controversial clause in their deal that would have granted Microsoft a share of OpenAI’s revenue and certain IP rights up until OpenAI achieved “artificial general intelligence,” or AI on par with a human. Microsoft will now keep getting a share of OpenAI’s revenue until 2030 regardless of whether the startup achieves AGI, the companies said. Microsoft will also retain the rights to use OpenAI’s models and products until 2032, but Microsoft’s rights to the IP will no longer be exclusive. Microsoft will also stop sharing some of the revenue it makes from selling OpenAI models on Azure. Up until now, Microsoft shared 20% of the revenue from those sales with OpenAI, while OpenAI shared 20% of its total revenue back to Microsoft. OpenAI will keep sharing revenue with Microsoft through 2030, the companies said Monday. The amended deal, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and their deputies hammered out over the last several weeks, was designed to resolve legal questions that arose from OpenAI’s plans to sell AI products on Amazon Web Services, according to someone briefed on the deal talks. The new agreement resolves those concerns by letting OpenAI sell its technology anywhere. https://tinyurl.com/2e9zm4yf

SpaceX, Anduril among companies to win Golden Dome contracts.

The US Space Force awarded 12 companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and SpaceX, contracts worth up to US$3.2 billion to develop prototypes for space-based interceptors under President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome plan. The companies will be tasked with demonstrating a capability for space-based interceptors by 2028, Space Force said in a press release. The interceptors, which are designed to destroy enemy missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere, are a key but unproven component of Golden Dome. Other companies getting awards under the program are Anduril Industries Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and General Dynamics Corp., GITAI USA Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., Quindar Inc., RTX Corp.’s Raytheon, Sci-Tec Inc., True Anomaly Inc. and Turion Space Corp. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the price tag for a network of space-based interceptors could be as high as US$542 billion over 20 years. https://tinyurl.com/59c6wr9k

US’ first integrated humanoid factory to build 100,000 NEO robots by 2027.

U.S.-based robotics firm 1X has started full-scale production of its humanoid robot NEO at a new manufacturing facility in Hayward, California. The factory marks a key step toward commercializing general-purpose humanoid robots designed for home use. The company says the robots are built to safely operate alongside humans and assist with everyday tasks such as mobility support, light household activity, and routine interaction. Spanning 58,000 square feet, the facility currently employs more than 200 workers and is expected to expand further as production scales. It has the capacity to produce up to 10,000 robots annually, with plans to increase output beyond 100,000 units by 2027. The setup is designed for rapid iteration as hardware and AI systems evolve. The company has already seen strong early demand. It said its first-year production capacity of over 10,000 units sold out within five days of launch in October, signaling early commercial interest in humanoid home robotics. A key feature of the factory is its vertically integrated production model. 1X designs and manufactures core components in-house, including motors, batteries, sensors, structures, and transmission systems. This approach allows the company to control the entire production process, from raw material handling to final assembly. It also reduces reliance on external suppliers and supports faster iteration cycles, especially for hardware upgrades and safety improvements. Each NEO robot is powered by NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor computing platform, which serves as the system’s onboard processing unit. The platform enables real-time AI inference directly on the robot, allowing it to perform perception, reasoning, navigation, and decision-making tasks without depending heavily on cloud infrastructure. This improves response time and reduces latency in real-world environments. https://tinyurl.com/yzuerr6b

Meta Platforms enters solar-power pact.

Meta Platforms wants to get some of its solar power from space. The Facebook parent has agreed to purchase up to a gigawatt of solar power from Overview Energy, a startup that aims to deploy satellites capable of providing power to customers on Earth’s surface. Overview is working toward an in-space demonstration in 2028, said Chief Executive Marc Berte, and targets commercial service two years after that. The deal is a sign of how technology giants are trying to identify new power-supply options that could support their ambitious goals for artificial intelligence. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. https://tinyurl.com/yc43fx7f

OpenAI could be making a phone with AI agents replacing apps.

There have been plenty of rumors about OpenAI’s hardware plans, which involve launching a pair of earbuds. A new note from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that the AI company might be working on a phone in collaboration with MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare. Kuo, who has reported on several Apple hardware plans in the past, said that OpenAI would develop a smartphone chip with MediaTek and Qualcomm, with Luxshare acting as a co-design and manufacturing partner. The analyst’s note also suggests that instead of apps, the smartphone could rely on AI agents to complete different tasks. Currently, Apple and Google control the app pipeline and the type of system access they get, restricting some of their functions. Kuo suggests that by creating its own smartphone and hardware stack, OpenAI would be able to use AI in all kinds of features without restrictions. With ChatGPT nearing a billion weekly users, a hardware product for daily use could also bode well for OpenAI’s ambition to reach more consumers. This thinking is not restricted to OpenAI. Vibe coding app makers are predicting a future that doesn’t involve apps. Nothing CEO Carl Pei said at SXSW that apps will eventually go away. Kuo believes that OpenAI’s smartphone would be designed to continuously understand users’ context. By offering the phone itself, the company could gain access to more data about users’ habits than an app on the phone could. He also said that the company will work on a mixture of small on-device models and cloud models to handle different types of requests and tasks. The analyst said the smartphone’s specifications and its component suppliers are expected to be finalized by the year-end or by the first quarter of 2027, with mass production of the device expected to start in 2028. Earlier this year, OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane said that the company is on track to announce its first hardware product in the second half of 2026. Several reports at that time indicated that the device could be uniquely designed earbuds. https://tinyurl.com/3mhhtrsh

OpenAI plots big expansion of cheaper ChatGPT.

OpenAI is banking on subscribers to a cheaper, ad-supported ChatGPT subscription will drive revenue from advertising over the next several years. Earlier this year, OpenAI forecast that consumer subscribers to ChatGPT Go, which costs US$8 a month in the U.S. and around US$5 monthly in other countries such as India, would surge about 36 times to 112 million this year. As a result, leaders have projected that the number of subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will fall 80% to about 9 million. The company expects to make up for the drop in consumer subscriber revenue with an increase in advertising shown to ChatGPT Go users. Annual advertising revenue per user will rise from nothing last year–since it hadn’t launched the ads business yet–to over US$3 next year and about US$59 per user in 2030, it projects. The company didn’t adjust its full year revenue targets. https://tinyurl.com/62ktuwzd

OpenAI models, Codex now available in AWS bedrock.

OpenAI models will finally be available on Amazon Web Services, the companies said Tuesday, a day after OpenAI and Microsoft announced new terms in their long-standing partnership that freed other cloud providers to sell OpenAI’s models with fewer restrictions. OpenAI’s 5.4 model is now available in limited preview on AWS and 5.5, the latest model, will be available in the coming weeks, AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a San Francisco event. AWS will also offer OpenAI’s Codex coding tool. The cloud giant also provided more details on a product now called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents, which it had announced in February alongside plans to invest an initial US$15 billion in OpenAI. That announcement had caught Microsoft offguard, and was a major factor in bringing OpenAI and Microsoft back into negotiations, The Information reported. “This is what our customers have been asking for a really long time. Their production applications run in AWS; their data is in AWS; they trust the security of AWS,” Garman said, noting previous to this announcement, customers had to go elsewhere to access OpenAI models. “Now we don’t force people to have to make that choice.” https://tinyurl.com/3tcjdmu4s

UK group says OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 is comparable to Anthropic Mythos in cybersecurity capabilities.

A UK government group that tests AI for cybersecurity capabilities says OpenAI’s latest GPT-5.5 model is roughly on par with Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model in some tasks. GPT-5.5 completed a difficult corporate network attack simulation in two out of 10 attempts, while Anthropic’s unreleased Claude Mythos Preview completed the attack in three out of 10 attempts, according to the UK AI Security Institute, which ran the simulation. Such an attack would take a human expert around 20 hours to complete, AISI said in a blog post. On another evaluation of 95 cyber tasks with a narrower focus, GPT-5.5 achieved a “pass rate” of 71.4% while Mythos Preview achieved a pass rate of 68.6%, AISI said. The results highlight the advanced cybersecurity capabilities of the latest large language models, which prompted Anthropic to avoid releasing Mythos publicly so that a small group of organizations could first use it to find and fix security vulnerabilities. (Despite the move, unauthorized outsiders gained access to Mythos anyway.) OpenAI is similarly testing a cybersecurity-focused version of its latest model, GPT-5.5-Cyber, with help from a small group of firms and organizations such as AISI before releasing it widely. AISI called out in the blog post that the version of GPT-5.5 it tested lacks some safety guardrails that the publicly available version of the model has, which could prevent the model from creating certain exploits or writing damaging code when customers use it. https://tinyurl.com/2s3e3w5t

NSA uses Anthropic’s Mythos to find Microsoft tech flaws.

The U.S. National Security Agency is using Anthropic’s Mythos model to find security flaws in Microsoft software, Bloomberg reported Thursday. One of the cyber intelligence agency’s primary goals is to find or exploit security vulnerabilities in computer systems. Microsoft develops the most used PC operating system and business app suite and has long been one of the biggest targets of cyberattacks. Microsoft said last week that it was also using Mythos to look for flaws in its own software and patch them faster. Anthropic has been sharing an early version of Mythos, which it says is exceptionally good at finding previously undiscovered vulnerabilities, with the U.S. government and around 40 other companies so they can patch vulnerabilities before hackers discover them. Anthropic has said it didn’t release Mythos widely because of the model’s potential to be used for cyberattacks. https://tinyurl.com/mtcdyfpa

Zuckerberg tells Meta employees: we’re tracking you because you’re really smart.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg said using employees’ computer activity to train its AI models could give the company an edge over rivals, arguing that its staff are of higher average intelligence than contractors typically used by data-labeling firms. In a company-wide meeting on Thursday, Zuckerberg described internal employee activity as a valuable source of training data—one that could outperform industry-standard approaches that rely heavily on contractors. “We’re in a phase where basically the AI models learn from watching really smart people do things,” he said, adding that enabling systems to “observe really smart people doing those things is very important.” Zuckerberg was responding to a question about a new policy Meta informed staff about last week that has caused concern among some employees. Meta said that it would install a new monitoring tool called the Model Capability Initiative to track keystrokes and mouse movements to help train its AI models, according to earlier reporting by Reuters. Zuckerberg said using internal activity as training input could translate into better-performing models. “One basic insight and hypothesis that we have is that a lot of data generation across the field is done by these like contract companies,” he said. “In general, the average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you’re working through these contractors.” Zuckerberg also discussed broader company plans in Thursday’s wide-ranging meeting, including expected layoffs of around 10% of staff next month and new investments in personal and business AI agents. He said he has discussed building as many as 50 new apps with Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, adding that restructuring teams would allow Meta to “spin up more efforts” and “build a lot more apps.” A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. https://tinyurl.com/sud6yubc

Meta launches Stablecoin payouts for creators using Stripe.

Meta is launching stablecoin payouts for creators, using Stripe as its payment provider, according to its webpage. Meta is offering Circle’s stablecoin on the Solana and Polygon blockchain to pay out creators, starting with those in Colombia and Philippines, the webpage shows. Once creators receive the stablecoins, they are advised to convert them into local currency by using a local crypto exchange. Meta itself doesn’t provide such services, known as an off-ramp. Meta abandoned its effort to create its own stablecoin, initially called Libra, in 2022 after facing opposition from lawmakers and global regulators. The company recently said that it has no plan to develop its own stablecoin. https://tinyurl.com/ycye5r63

U.S. senators ban themselves from prediction markets trading.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a rule barring senators from trading on prediction markets effective immediately. The move came amid concern about insider trading on prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, and about event contracts involving wars and elections. Kalshi on April 22 said it suspended and fined one U.S. Senate candidate and two candidates for the House of Representatives for political insider trading on their own campaigns. U.S. Army Special Forces Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke has been charged in an indictment accusing him of using classified information to make bets on Polymarket related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. https://tinyurl.com/4jrf27jf