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13 May 2026

Alibaba's AI and cloud revenue surges 38% as company sacrifices profits for AI growth

Alibaba reported a 38% jump in AI and cloud revenue to $6.1 billion in Q1, driven by surging business demand for AI. However, the Chinese tech giant posted an operational loss of $125 million as it prioritizes investments in AI and cloud infrastructure over short-term profitability. CEO Eddie Wu says AI-related product revenue now accounts for 30% of its Cloud Intelligence Group's revenue.

5 Sources

Walmart cuts 1,000 corporate jobs as AI push reshapes retail giant's technology operations

Walmart is eliminating or relocating roughly 1,000 corporate positions as part of a major restructuring of its technology and product teams. The move comes as the retail giant consolidates operations around AI acceleration and automation, with affected employees being asked to relocate to Bentonville, Arkansas, or Northern California. The changes highlight how even America's largest private employer is reshaping its workforce for an AI-driven digital economy.

3 Sources

SoftBank posts $46 billion Vision Fund gain as OpenAI stake drives profit to $32 billion

SoftBank's annual net profit quadrupled to $32 billion, powered by a $46 billion gain at its Vision Fund from its massive OpenAI investment. The Japanese tech giant has invested over $30 billion in the ChatGPT maker, with plans to commit $60 billion total for 13% ownership. However, the concentration of OpenAI in its portfolio has prompted S&P Global Ratings to revise its outlook to negative.

2 Sources

Anduril raises $5 billion, doubles valuation to $61 billion as defense tech spending surges

Anduril Industries closed a $5 billion Series H funding round, doubling its valuation to $61 billion from $30.5 billion just ten months ago. The defense tech company, founded by Palmer Luckey, develops AI-backed weapons and autonomous systems for the U.S. military. Revenue doubled to $2.2 billion in 2025 as the firm expands manufacturing operations in Ohio and Seattle.

3 Sources

Major exchanges launch futures markets for AI computing power as GPU costs become tradable asset

CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange are launching the first futures markets for AI computing power, allowing investors and tech firms to hedge against volatile GPU rental costs. CME partners with Silicon Data while ICE teams with Ornn to create cash-settled contracts based on GPU pricing indices. The move signals that compute has evolved into a major tradable asset class.

4 Sources

12 May 2026

Iran War and AI Spending Push Inflation to 3.8%, Highest Level in Three Years

U.S. inflation surged to 3.8% in April, marking the sharpest increase since 2023. The Iran war disrupted oil supplies, sending gasoline prices up 28.4% year-over-year, while AI data centers drove electricity costs higher. Supply chain disruptions and memory chip shortages tied to AI buildout are intensifying price pressures across multiple sectors.

2 Sources

MARA Reports $1.26 Billion Q1 Loss as Bitcoin Miner Pivots to Artificial Intelligence

MARA Holdings reported a $1.26 billion Q1 loss, more than doubling its year-ago deficit, as the Bitcoin miner sold $1.5 billion worth of BTC. The company is executing a strategic shift away from large-scale mining toward AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, acquiring a $1.5 billion power plant while cutting 15% of its workforce.

2 Sources

GM lays off 600 IT workers in deliberate AI skills swap as automaker rebuilds tech workforce

General Motors cut more than 10% of its IT department—about 600 employees—not to reduce costs, but to execute a skills swap. The automaker is clearing out workers whose expertise no longer fits and hiring AI-native developers, data engineers, and prompt specialists. The move signals what enterprise AI adoption looks like in practice: rebuilding the workforce from the ground up rather than adding AI tools on top of existing teams.

7 Sources

SAP unveils Autonomous Enterprise with 200+ AI agents, but pricing concerns and risks emerge

SAP launched its most ambitious AI transformation at Sapphire 2026, unveiling the Autonomous Enterprise with over 200 AI agents powered by Anthropic's Claude. The company reversed its cloud-only stance to bring AI features to on-premise systems, but analysts warn of concentration risk and unpredictable costs under the new action-based pricing model that could spiral upward.

9 Sources

Vedanta targets $300M value creation with AI-driven solutions across industrial operations

Vedanta Group is scaling AI-driven solutions across its mining and manufacturing operations, aiming to unlock $300-400 million in value over three years through V-Spark DeepTech Ventures. Subsidiary Hindustan Zinc Ltd alone targets Rs 2,000 crore through AI deployment. The initiative has already delivered 4x return on investment since inception.

3 Sources

OpenAI employees cash out $6.6 billion in shares as AI boom drives surging valuation

More than 600 current and former employees at OpenAI sold $6.6 billion worth of shares in a major secondary stock sale, with some earning as much as $30 million. The transaction valued the company at nearly $500 billion, making it one of the world's most valuable private tech firms while helping retain top AI talent.

2 Sources

Nscale Secures $790M Debt Financing to Expand Narvik AI Data Centre in Norway

Nvidia-backed Nscale has secured $790 million in debt financing from major Nordic banks to expand its AI data centre in Narvik, Norway. The AI infrastructure company plans to deploy over 30,000 Nvidia Rubin processing units as part of a 115MW expansion at the Stargate Norway project site, building on its $2 billion Series C funding round from March 2025.

2 Sources

GitLab announces layoffs and restructuring to accelerate AI agents strategy in agentic era

GitLab is cutting an unspecified number of jobs as it restructures around AI agents and automation. CEO Bill Staples insists the move differs from typical tech layoffs, with most savings reinvested into the business rather than returned to shareholders. The company plans to flatten its eight-layer management structure, reduce its country footprint by 30%, and reorganize R&D teams into smaller autonomous units.

3 Sources

Byron Allen Takes Over BuzzFeed as CEO After $120M Acquisition of Struggling Media Pioneer

Media entrepreneur Byron Allen has purchased a 52% controlling stake in BuzzFeed for $120 million, replacing founder Jonah Peretti as CEO. The deal represents a steep decline for the digital media company once valued at $1.7 billion. Allen plans to expand into free-streaming video and use AI to compete with YouTube, while significant cost cuts loom ahead.

3 Sources

AI costs surge as companies shift to usage-based pricing, forcing researchers and enterprises to rethink strategies

Major AI providers including GitHub, OpenAI, and Anthropic are abandoning flat subscription models for usage-based pricing, driving AI costs higher than human capital in some cases. Researchers face financial burdens while enterprises burn through annual budgets in months, prompting some to hire people instead of deploying AI tools.

3 Sources

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