The EU has fined Google €890m (£759m) under the Digital Markets Act for allegedly abusing its power by favoring its own flight/hotel booking services and Play Store offers over rivals. Google criticized the decision, arguing it could harm European customer services.
Alphabet and Tesla shares fell due to high AI spending plans, while Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple prepare to release results. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are driving oil prices up, and the ECB is expected to hold interest rates steady amid a volatile outlook.
Alphabet reported double-digit revenue growth and beat Wall Street's Q2 expectations, marking its 12th consecutive quarter of gains. The tech giant increased its capital expenditure forecast to $200bn, driven by massive AI investments, while facing intense competition from rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Alphabet's latest earnings report reveals Google Cloud revenue surged 82% to $24.8B, largely due to enterprise AI adoption, surpassing analyst expectations. Overall revenue grew 24% to $119.8B, with profit at $112.1B, alleviating investor concerns about significant AI spending.
Samsung unveiled detailed features of its upcoming premium smart glasses, including gesture controls via smartwatches/Galaxy Ring, a built-in camera, and message summarization. Launching this Fall, the device aims to challenge Meta's dominance in the smart glasses market.
Meta launches smart glasses with subscription features and AI image generation using public Instagram photos, while Apple enhances Siri, Google updates AI usage and data training, and Nvidia expands AI chip dominance, collectively reshaping consumer tech with new capabilities and privacy considerations.
Google faces delays with its Gemini 3.5 AI model, impacting its market position, while Chinese startup Moonshot releases a free, open-weight model, intensifying US-China AI competition. Simultaneously, Silicon Valley workers are taking collective action, including lawsuits and petitions, to protect their jobs from AI automation amidst the industry boom.
Ant International, an affiliate of Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, has raised approximately US$1.2 billion in a Series A funding round. The Singapore-based company, backed by Ant Group and Alibaba, plans to use the capital to accelerate global expansion and drive innovation in merchant payments and financial services.
Chinese tech giants like ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent are increasingly using AI tokens as an internal corporate currency to measure and bill AI service usage among employees. This trend is fueled by a brutal price war in China's AI industry, driving down costs and accelerating AI integration into daily workflows.
Google workers, led by the Alphabet Workers Union, delivered a petition with over 4,500 signatures to CEO Sundar Pichai's office, demanding layoff protections, guaranteed severance, and an end to quota-based performance ratings. This action comes as tech giants continue workforce reductions while heavily investing in AI.
Ant Digital Technologies, Alibaba's fintech affiliate, launched "Agentar 2.0," an upgraded AI agent platform featuring 200 digital expert templates. CEO Cyril Han Xinyi stated the platform aims to restructure enterprise workflows for collective productivity, moving beyond individual task acceleration.
Alibaba has previewed its Qwen3.8 AI model, claiming it's "second only" to Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 with 2.4 trillion parameters. This launch, coinciding with China's top AI summit, highlights the country's push to match US AI leaders.
A landmark lawsuit held Meta and Google accountable for designing addictive social media platforms that harm children. Plaintiff Kaley was awarded $6m after a jury found the companies liable for malice, oppression, or fraud. Lawyer Mark Lanier utilized AI in his "righteous case" against the tech giants.
Xiaomi is intensifying its electric vehicle (EV) research and development, announcing a new SUV line called Sky Nomad to counter slowing domestic sales and compete with rivals like Li Auto and Xpeng. Analysts anticipate the new models will feature extended-range battery technology.
Saudi tech firm Elm, backed by the Public Investment Fund, visited Hong Kong for the first time to explore co-developing a smart city and establishing a regional market gateway. The visit coincided with the LEAP East 2026 tech conference.
Meta's new AI tool, Muse Image, allows users to generate images using others' profile pictures without consent, drawing criticism from privacy advocates and raising concerns about potential misuse and exploitation of personal data.
Microsoft is reportedly replacing AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic with its own internally developed "MAI" models in products like Excel and Outlook to cut costs. This move aligns with AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's stated goal to reduce financial dependence on external AI labs.
Tech giants like Google and Amazon are seeing increased carbon emissions due to AI investments, jeopardizing net-zero goals. Meanwhile, Meta is exploring new revenue streams like cloud computing and prediction markets amid stock decline and legal challenges.
Robbyant's new LingBot-Vision AI model excels at precise object edge recognition, enabling robots to better understand 3D spaces. It outperforms existing models like DINOv3 with fewer parameters and less training data.
Richard White resigns as WiseTech's executive chair, denying allegations of exploiting a worker's status for sex. He remains chief innovation officer as Raelene Murphy takes over as chair, boosting the company's share price.
Tencent Holdings reduced its stake in Kuaishou Technology to 9.37% from 15.68%, causing Kuaishou's shares to drop over 6%. The divestment follows Tencent's lead in a $3 billion financing round for Kuaishou's AI unit, Kling AI.
A California judge has temporarily blocked the Department of Defense from enforcing a lobbying ban on Alibaba, allowing the company to communicate with the Pentagon while its constitutional challenge to the restriction is considered.
A study by CUHK Business School reveals that AI investment enhances business resilience, particularly for firms with limited budgets, by helping them recover faster from natural disasters. AI's effectiveness is greatest in optimizing supply chains and production inputs during crises.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas argues that America's unique risk-seeking culture allows new ideas to flourish, making the "American Dream" alive and well. He shared his perspective on "The Joe Rogan Experience."
