Ex-Sequoia China firm HSG said to lead bidding for Leica Camera stake
Ex-Sequoia China firm HSG said to lead bidding for Leica Camera stake

Leica makes cameras that cost more than most people’s cars and are bought, in large part, for the red dot on the front. So there is a certain logic to a brand built on scarcity and prestige now being courted by a buyer with a taste for both. HSG, the A…

Apollo and Blackstone shop a $36bn debt deal to buy Anthropic its chips
Apollo and Blackstone shop a $36bn debt deal to buy Anthropic its chips

The way to read the latest Anthropic financing is to notice who is not borrowing the money. Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are arranging roughly $36 billion of debt, but the loan does not sit on Anthropic’s balance sheet. It buys chips, and th…

Meta sells AI subscriptions while OpenAI and xAI walk into the ad business
Meta sells AI subscriptions while OpenAI and xAI walk into the ad business

Meta’s $7.99-and-$19.99 chatbot tiers and OpenAI’s push into advertising mark the moment the AI revenue-model question becomes a cross-cutting collision. Meta’s decision to begin selling consumer subscriptions to its Meta AI chatbot at $7.99 and $19.99…

Mistral’s Arthur Mensch directly rebuts Pope Leo on AI in warfare
Mistral’s Arthur Mensch directly rebuts Pope Leo on AI in warfare

Three days after the Vatican called for AI to be ‘disarmed’, the Mistral CEO defended his company’s defence-AI work, arguing Europe cannot afford unilateral restraint. Arthur Mensch, the chief executive of French AI startup Mistral, pushed back directl…

Mistral launches Industrial Engineering AI with Airbus, BMW and EDF as headline customers
Mistral launches Industrial Engineering AI with Airbus, BMW and EDF as headline customers

At its first annual conference in Paris, Mistral formally rolled out the physics-aware AI stack it built around the Emmi acquisition, with Airbus, BMW and EDF as launch customers. Mistral AI used its first annual conference in Paris on Thursday to form…

JD.com’s founder vows to protect 900,000 jobs from AI. His warehouse strategy says otherwise.
JD.com’s founder vows to protect 900,000 jobs from AI. His warehouse strategy says otherwise.

Liu Qiangdong’s pledge to safeguard JD.com’s workforce from automation sits uncomfortably with his own ‘unmanned era’ vision and a flagship warehouse already running on four employees. Liu Qiangdong, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, vowe…

Jensen Huang joins the Tsinghua University advisory board chaired by Tim Cook
Jensen Huang joins the Tsinghua University advisory board chaired by Tim Cook

The Nvidia CEO accepts a seat on Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management board alongside Musk, Dell, Nadella, Zuckerberg, Dimon and Fink, days after travelling to China with Trump. Jensen Huang has accepted an invitation to join the advisory boar…

Vincent Bolloré rejects Ackman’s $64bn Universal Music bid
Vincent Bolloré rejects Ackman’s $64bn Universal Music bid

Vincent Bolloré has formally turned down Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square offer for Universal Music Group, ending the largest take-private attempt in music-industry history. Vincent Bolloré has formally rejected Bill Ackman’s $64bn offer for Universal Mus…

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang calls Taiwan the ‘epicentre’ of the AI revolution as spending hits $150bn a year
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang calls Taiwan the ‘epicentre’ of the AI revolution as spending hits $150bn a year

NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang told a Taipei audience at Computex 2026 on Wednesday that Taiwan is the “epicentre” of the AI revolution, and that the company’s annual spending on the island will reach roughly $150bn a year. The number, the highest…

Dropbox founder Drew Houston steps down as CEO after 19 years as the company he built gets squeezed by Google and Apple
Dropbox founder Drew Houston steps down as CEO after 19 years as the company he built gets squeezed by Google and Apple

  Drew Houston, the co-founder who built Dropbox from a Y Combinator demo into a company with more than 700 million registered users, is stepping down as chief executive. Ashraf Alkarmi, Dropbox’s current head of product, has been named co-CEO effectiv…