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Democrats swept Texas, Georgia and Ohio governorships on data center moratorium pledges, putting AI buildout billions at risk. Apple opened Siri AI to every developer, Google said it would turn K-12 AI off by default, and Revolut cut coding costs 90%.

Democratic gubernatorial wins from Texas and Georgia to Ohio and Pennsylvania are set to expose 50% of AI data center proposals to more scrutiny and pushback (Bloomberg)

Democratic gubernatorial candidates who pledged to halt data center development swept Texas, Georgia and Ohio, threatening billions in planned AI investment and rebuking Trump’s endorsement of the AI building spree (Financial Times)

The Texas results could be awkward for Elon Musk, who reportedly gave nearly $450 million to Republican midterm candidates and has bet big on the state with SpaceX, Tesla and the planned Terafab chip complex (The Information)

Apple opens Siri AI to all developers, letting any app on iOS 27.3 beta and other 27.3 OS betas bring its content and actions into Siri AI by using App Intents (Apple Developer)

Apple’s new “app skills” let any app build Siri AI integrations for the first time, and teach Siri to coordinate complicated multi-step actions, testable now in the iOS 27.3 betas (9to5Mac)

Google says AI tools for K-12 students will be off by default in 2027; schools that block AI entirely will lose Search, as “Search and AI are deeply integrated” (The New York Times)

Revolut says it cut AI coding inference costs by ~90% in less than a year by making self-hosted GLM models its default over commercial tools like Claude Code (The Register)

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Apple beat estimates in John Ternus’s first earnings call, but memory costs loomed. Investors told Anthropic to price its IPO near $1.5T. Google banned a TV box maker for preloading malware. Binance detailed its $6.3B hack. Anthropic said RSI might be imminent.

Apple reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to $114.48B, above $113.39B est., China revenue up 21% to $17.5B, below $18.9B est., in John Ternus’ first earnings report (Business Wire)

Apple guided Q1 sales up 7–10% YoY, above the 6% Wall Street expected, but shares slipped ~3% after-hours on a 45–46% margin forecast and Ternus calling memory pricing “unprecedented” (FT)

Opinion: Ternus’s tight-lipped first earnings call missed a chance to talk up the iPhone Duo, Apple’s AI-agent moat, and capex at just 6.5% of Meta’s (Bloomberg)

Sources: institutional investors told Anthropic that its IPO valuation should be ~$1.5T to $1.6T, below the $2T range, citing factors like a tech stock selloff (WSJ)

Google severs ties with and bans Android TV box maker Videostrong after finding it intentionally preloaded malware to open a backdoor to control the XCPE botnet (9to5Google)

Binance says North Korean hackers stole $6.3B through a months-long scheme with fake LinkedIn job interviews and an ad campaign to deliver malicious software (Fortune)

S-1: Anthropic says it may “imminently meet” its RSI threshold and may not identify “a significant acceleration” in its development until after it has occurred (TechCrunch)

Anthropic’s internal data shows Claude went from leading 1% of its AI R&D work in March to 26% by August; co-founder Jack Clark now thinks RSI arrives in 2027, not 2028 (WSJ)

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AvidXchange is a licensed money transmitter for B2B payments in the United States, licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as all other states that require AvidXchange to have a license.

OpenAI cut its funding round to about $20B at a $1.25T valuation as the AI selloff spooked investors. Anthropic’s S-1 showed nearly $17B in quarterly revenue, Marvell agreed to buy Lumentum for $115B, and Claude Code got game-cloning limits.

Sources: OpenAI now seeks ~$20B at a $1.25T valuation for its latest round, from $30B at a $1.4T valuation, as some investors cut commitments amid an AI selloff (Financial Times)

Anthropic’s updated S-1 shows Q3 revenue of nearly $17B, up from $1.4B a year ago, and a $23.3B net loss, as it plans to spend more than $895B in the years ahead (Bloomberg)

Sources: neoclouds CoreWeave, Nebius, and Nscale have effectively been shut out of the bond market in recent weeks as lenders and investors demand tougher terms (WSJ)

The cost of insuring against debt defaults at hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle has hit its highest level since 2021, as investors and tech executives turn to options and credit-default swaps for protection (WSJ)

Marvell agrees to acquire optical components maker Lumentum in a $115B all-stock deal, as it aims to rival Broadcom; Nvidia invested $2B in each company in 2026 (Reuters)

Marvell shareholders get 67% of the combined company in the all-stock deal, which isn’t expected to close until the first half of 2028, and shares of both companies slid on the news (Bloomberg)

Anthropic confirms new Claude Code limits “to steer it away from recreating someone else’s specific game”, saying IP infringement violates its usage policy (Tom’s Hardware)

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AvidXchange is a licensed money transmitter for B2B payments in the United States, licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as all other states that require AvidXchange to have a license.

Overnight brought the biggest heist in crypto history, as hackers drained $6.3 billion from Binance. Amazon’s AI spending soared while retail growth stalled, Spotify eyed a $5-a-month AI remix tool, and longreads covered El Niño forecasting and old-time fiddlers.

Binance says initial investigation suggests a compromised DevOps laptop may have enabled a ~$6.3B hack; Tether froze 1.5B+ USDT and Circle froze 800M+ USDC (The Block)

Binance raced to cover losses from the biggest crypto heist ever; freezes recovered ~$3B, leaving hackers — attributed to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group — with ~$3.3B, against a $1.23B SAFU reserve plus company funds (WSJ)

An EIP-7702 permission let the attacker point Binance’s busy “Binance 14” hot wallet at a sweeper contract via 50 signed authorizations, draining $2.5B on Ethereum alone (CoinDesk)

Amazon reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $201.94B, vs. $202.31B est., net income down 2% to $20.7B, forecasts Q4 revenue below est. (Business Wire)

Amazon spent $77B+ on property and equipment in Q3 to meet AI demand, while online sales grew just 2%, the slowest since early 2023, and shares fell on the results (Bloomberg)

Sources: Spotify aims to launch an AI product in Q1 2027 that lets subscribers create their own remixes and covers for ~$5 per month, pending licensing deals (FT)

Longreads

AI’s ability to forecast extreme weather faces a major test in the coming months amid a historic El Niño, as some scientists question the tech’s accuracy (FT)

In a southwest Virginia fairground, thousands of musicians gather every August to keep the centuries-old tradition of fiddling from flickering out (Longreads)

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I covered the NYT report that US officials think Megaspeed’s Alice Huang is a Chinese asset who cozied up to Jensen Huang, the leak of 41,000 DHS workers’ data, DoorDash’s $17B Instacart grab, and Alphabet’s ugly free cash flow.

US officials believe Megaspeed executive Alice Huang is a Chinese asset who maintained a close relationship with Jensen Huang to pass intelligence to Beijing (The New York Times)

Hackers leak the personal data of 41,000+ DHS employees and contractors, including CBP and ICE agents; DDoSecrets says the data came from DHS’ Okta login system (Wired)

DoorDash agrees to acquire Instacart in a ~$17B deal, paying $65 per share, a 26% premium to its October 22 close, as the platform delivery market consolidates (Reuters)

DoorDash agrees to buy Instacart for $17B with both boards signing off; it plans to keep Instacart’s brand, enterprise tech, and app, and says grocers could build their own ordering and ad businesses (TechCrunch)

Alphabet reports Q3 negative free cash flow of $9.07B, worse than expected, capex of $51.36B, below $55.09B est., and keeps its FY capex forecast at $195B-$205B (CNBC)

Alphabet’s ad machine misses Q3 estimates as search revenue growth slows to 12% from 17%, even with cloud beating at $30.7B; shares fall about 10% after hours (WSJ)

Google expands ads in AI Mode to international markets, adding multi-turn ads in the US, betting generative AI can open new revenue as core search ad growth slows (TechCrunch)

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