tech

Rani Molla6/26/25

Uber could be moving more into Google and Tesla’s territory

Travis Kalanick, the former Uber CEO who was forced out in 2017, is back at the company — sort of. Uber is in talks with Kalanick to help fund the purchase of autonomous vehicle company Pony AI, The New York Times reports.

Uber’s stock is up 2.6% today while Pony.ai has spiked 12% on the news. Kalanick would run Pony.ai if the deal goes through, but it’s unclear what role Uber would play.

This is all happening as the self-driving space is heating up. Earlier this week, Uber and Waymo (which is owned by Google) launched their self-driving partnership in a second city, Atlanta, sending Uber’s stock soaring. On Sunday, Tesla finally launched its long-awaited robotaxi in Austin with about 20 cars in a limited area to some Tesla influencers.

Uber in Talks With Travis Kalanick to Fund Self-Driving Car Deal

Uber in Talks With Travis Kalanick to Fund Self-Driving Car Deal

This is all happening as the self-driving space is heating up. Earlier this week, Uber and Waymo (which is owned by Google) launched their self-driving partnership in a second city, Atlanta, sending Uber’s stock soaring. On Sunday, Tesla finally launched its long-awaited robotaxi in Austin with about 20 cars in a limited area to some Tesla influencers.

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Alphabet’s Waymos are still getting caught in floods after recall

Waymo, the self-driving subsidiary of Alphabet, has paused operations in Atlanta after a new report of a vehicle driving into a flooded roadway and getting stuck, TechCrunch reports. The news comes just weeks after the company recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 driverless cars to deal with a previous flood incident in San Antonio, where the service is also paused.

After that incident, Waymo instituted an “interim remedy” to make the vehicles “exclude additional operating conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higherspeed roadway,” but added that it was still “developing the final remedy for this recall.”

As we’ve noted, Waymo has mostly kept its rollout — now public in 11 cities — to more temperate climates, as severe weather poses more challenges to autonomous vehicles.

Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods | TechCrunch

Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods | TechCrunch

After that incident, Waymo instituted an “interim remedy” to make the vehicles “exclude additional operating conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higherspeed roadway,” but added that it was still “developing the final remedy for this recall.”

As we’ve noted, Waymo has mostly kept its rollout — now public in 11 cities — to more temperate climates, as severe weather poses more challenges to autonomous vehicles.

tech

Report: Anthropic is in talks to use Microsoft’s custom AI chips

Anthropic is in talks to rent custom AI chips from Microsoft, according to a report from The Information, as the Claude coder’s scramble for compute continues.

During the first wave of the generative-AI boom, companies rushed to get their hands on Nvidia’s GPUs, as they were the only game in town if you wanted to build new models.

But as the role of inference has shifted to a top priority, with companies focusing on actually running models to make money, they’ve started shopping around, buying chips tailored for the task, and in some cases decided to make their own.

Additionally, Anthropic has become something of a victim of its own success at rolling out products that can be quickly adopted by enterprise clients. That rapid, wide-scale adoption has revealed significant compute constraints. Anthropic is now, effectively, looking for any and all compute capacity it can find, striking deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google and Broadcom, and even xAI.

Amazon and Google have both seen hot demand for their custom inference chips. But Microsoft is still trying to get its custom Maia chips into the mix, after encountering delays.

If Microsoft lands Anthropic as a customer for its Azure-based Maia computing services, it could open the door for other companies seeking another option for meeting the sky-high demand for AI inference, as agentic models gobble up trillions of tokens.

Anthropic Is in Talks to Use Microsoft’s AI Chips

Anthropic Is in Talks to Use Microsoft’s AI Chips

But as the role of inference has shifted to a top priority, with companies focusing on actually running models to make money, they’ve started shopping around, buying chips tailored for the task, and in some cases decided to make their own.

Additionally, Anthropic has become something of a victim of its own success at rolling out products that can be quickly adopted by enterprise clients. That rapid, wide-scale adoption has revealed significant compute constraints. Anthropic is now, effectively, looking for any and all compute capacity it can find, striking deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google and Broadcom, and even xAI.

Amazon and Google have both seen hot demand for their custom inference chips. But Microsoft is still trying to get its custom Maia chips into the mix, after encountering delays.

If Microsoft lands Anthropic as a customer for its Azure-based Maia computing services, it could open the door for other companies seeking another option for meeting the sky-high demand for AI inference, as agentic models gobble up trillions of tokens.

Tesla says FSD is “available” in China. What does that actually mean?

We’ll let you know when someone besides Tesla — like China — confirms.

U.S. President Trump Meets With China's President Xi And Attends State Banquet

tech

Jon Keegan5/20/26

WSJ: OpenAI IPO filing could be coming as soon as this week

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI could file for an IPO as soon as this week. The company is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the IPO, which is widely expected to be one of the largest ever. OpenAI is racing against rival Anthropic to be the first startup of the current generative-AI boom to go public.

OpenAI is targeting an IPO as soon as September, per the report.

Exclusive | OpenAI Is Preparing to File for an IPO Very Soon

Exclusive | OpenAI Is Preparing to File for an IPO Very Soon

Claire Yubin Oh

GitHub may have fumbled one of the biggest first-mover advantages in history

Rivals like Cursor and Claude Code are eroding GitHub’s Copilot user base, and Microsoft execs are sounding the alarm about the platform itself.

GitHub - Photo Illustration

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