News — 2026-06-24

More than $27 million poured into a New York congressional primary as AI‑focused super PACs battled over Assemblyman Alex Bores' bid for the 12th district. Bores, a coauthor of the state‑level RAISE Act, narrowly lost to fellow Democrat Micah Lasher. Pro‑Bores groups spent $19.26 million, while the rival Leading the Future PAC, funded by OpenAI, Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz executives, contributed $8.15 million. The costly showdown, described as a bellwether for AI regulation politics, highlighted the growing influence of tech money in local races.Read more

China’s LineShine supercomputer, housed at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, claimed the top spot on the TOP500 list this week, achieving 2.198 exaflops without a single Nvidia, AMD or Intel chip. Built entirely on domestically designed Arm‑based processors and running the Chinese Linux variant KylinOS, the system marks the first time in nearly a decade that a Chinese machine has led the world’s fastest‑computer ranking. The achievement underscores Beijing’s push for self‑sufficiency after years of U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductor technology.Read more

French AI firm Mistral unveiled OCR 4 on June 23, a lightweight model that transforms PDFs, Word files and other documents into structured data. The system draws bounding boxes, tags each block and assigns confidence scores, supporting 170 languages and running on a single container for on‑premises deployment. Priced at $4 per 1,000 pages, the tool targets back‑office automation such as invoice processing, compliance checks and retrieval pipelines, while offering European customers a sovereign alternative to U.S. cloud services.Read more

OpenAI announced Wednesday that it has created its first custom‑designed inference processor, named Jalapeño, in partnership with Broadcom. The chip, optimized for running pre‑trained AI models, promises markedly better performance‑per‑watt than existing solutions and could lower the cost of real‑time AI services. While still in testing, the move signals OpenAI’s intent to lessen reliance on Nvidia GPUs and to control more of the hardware stack that powers its products.Read more

Google has integrated its standalone computer-use model into Gemini 3.5 Flash, the AI agent launched at I/O 2026. The new built‑in capability lets agents see, click, type and scroll across browsers, mobile devices and desktops without a separate model. Google pairs the feature with optional enterprise safeguards that require user confirmation for sensitive actions and automatically halt execution on suspected prompt‑injection attacks. The move aims to simplify multi‑step automation for developers while emphasizing security in regulated environments.Read more

Amazon MGM announced it will no longer distribute Luca Guadagnino’s biographical drama “Artificial,” which chronicles OpenAI co‑founder Sam Altman’s 2023 ouster and reinstatement. The decision follows weeks of studio rejections, with Netflix, A24, Focus Features and Warner Bros. Clockwork all declining to pick up the film. Amazon cited a belief the project would be “better served” elsewhere, a statement that comes as the tech giant deepens its AI investments. With the film’s release plans for early 2027 and SXSW now in limbo, the future of the high‑profile biopic remains uncertain.Read more

ByteDance announced Seedance 2.5 at its Volcano Engine FORCE conference in Beijing, introducing a 30‑second native 4K video generator that accepts up to 50 multimodal reference inputs. The upgrade skips four intermediate versions, positioning the model as a production‑grade tool rather than a novelty. An enterprise beta is already live, with a public launch slated for early July. The rollout follows a pause after Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount and Netflix demanded watermarking and IP safeguards for the earlier Seedance 2.0, and it arrives amid a shifting AI video market.Read more

Indian customer‑engagement platform MoEngage has bought San Francisco‑based AI startup Aampe in an all‑cash transaction worth several tens of millions of dollars. The acquisition gives MoEngage a dedicated AI‑agent technology that tailors messages to individual shoppers, a move the company says will help it win business from rivals like Salesforce and Adobe. Around 20 Aampe staff will join MoEngage, boosting its headcount to roughly 820 employees.Read more

Superhuman announced Tuesday that it has bought GPTZero, the Princeton‑origin AI‑detection platform that grew to more than 19 million users and $30 million in annual recurring revenue. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition adds GPTZero’s technology to Superhuman’s existing AI‑detector, a move the company says gives users “two AI detectors are better than one.” GPTZero’s founders, Edward Tian and Alex Cui, previously raised $13.5 million from investors including Uncork Capital and Footwork.Read more