Michael Pooler / Financial Times: A profile of Brazilian neobank Nubank, which aims to enter the US market within 18 months, growing its 120M+ users; analysts expect $2.9B in 2025 net income — Michael Pooler in São Paulo — In the race to become the west's most valuable digital bank, Revolut has competition.
Financial Times: A look at China's “genius class” system that selects ~100K gifted teens annually for elite science-focused schooling; its alumni include many top tech founders — A network of ultra-competitive high-school talent streams has been turning out the leading lights of science and tech
Financial Times: France blocks Eutelsat's ~€550M sale of its ground antenna business to EQT, calling it Europe's only Starlink competitor; France has a 29.6% stake in Eutelsat — Satellite operator says €550mn sale of ground-antenna business to private equity firm is off
Financial Times: Tesla plans to scrap its premium S and X models and convert its California factory into an Optimus manufacturing hub, as Elon Musk refocuses on robotics and AI — Elon Musk's electric-car maker invests $2bn in the billionaire's xAI — Tesla plans to scrap two models and invest $2bn in Elon Musk's xAI …
Financial Times: A profile of White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan, who wrote an EO against “Woke” AI, aims to “fight China”, and rallies executives around Trump's policies — White House adviser Sriram Krishnan has been instrumental to the US administration's light touch on AI
Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times: Digital Realty, QTS, and NTT Data warn the data center industry is doing a poor job of combating local opposition; 24+ US projects were blocked in January alone — Companies set to increase advertising spending this year to defuse growing public opposition to vast projects
Financial Times: Sources: Revolut scrapped plans to buy a US lender and will instead apply for a US banking license, betting Trump's lighter touch on approvals will be faster — UK-headquartered fintech had hoped to secure a banking charter through buying an American lender — Stephen Morris in Davos and Laith Al-Khalaf in London
Financial Times: Sources: China's review of Meta's Manus deal was spurred by what officials called “selling young crops”, a concern over cross-border transfer of emerging tech — Senior leadership ordered assessment of whether purchase risks losing cutting-edge technology
Financial Times: Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters expects Netflix to win WBD, says Paramount's bid “doesn't pass the sniff test” and a “very small” number of WBD holders backed it — Co-chief Greg Peters says Netflix is winning Warner Bros shareholder support for a deal that would upend Hollywood
Financial Times: The IMF says the “surprisingly resilient” global economy is at risk of a sharp AI boom reversal, but the “levels of market frothiness” are below the dotcom bust — Fund's chief economist says there are reasons to be concerned about a potential AI correction
Laith Al-Khalaf / Financial Times: Sources: following investor backlash, Monzo to give outgoing CEO TS Anil an expanded role after he steps down in February; he is likely to retain a board seat — UK digital bank due to give current chief executive broader than expected remit when he steps down next month
Barbara Moens / Financial Times: Sources: the EU's cybersecurity proposal, to be presented on Jan. 20, is expected to phase out vendors such as Huawei from the bloc's critical infrastructure — Proposed Cybersecurity Act would phase out groups such as Huawei and ZTE from telecom networks and solar energy systems
Financial Times: Sources: suppliers of parts for Nvidia's H200 chips have paused production after Chinese customs officials blocked shipments of the AI processors — Parts makers concerned about whether Beijing will allow imports of AI processors — Suppliers of parts for Nvidia's H200 chips …
Darren Loucaides / Financial Times: A profile of Wikipedia as it faces challenges, including attacks from Elon Musk and the far right, reduced traffic due to AI, and legal challenges in India — As the website turns 25, it faces myriad challenges from regulators, AI, the far right and Elon Musk
Financial Times: Anthropic researchers say rich countries' higher AI use risks deepening economic disparities and widening living standard gaps, driven by productivity gains — Research by AI start-up suggests productivity gains from the technology unevenly spread around world
Delphine Strauss / Financial Times: Ahead of WEF 2026, the IMF urges governments to step up support for young workers displaced by AI, arguing candidates could use AI “rather than compete with it” — Analysis finds evidence of the technology hitting wages and employment in certain areas
Josh Gabert-Doyon / Financial Times: UK satellite company Open Cosmos wins a highly contested Ka-band spectrum license, used for high-speed internet, beating companies backed by Peter Thiel — British company wins highly contested Liechtenstein low-Earth orbit contract — A UK satellite company has won a highly contested …
Philip Stafford / Financial Times: Warhammer maker Games Workshop says it banned its staff from using AI in its content or designs and it is taking a “very cautious” approach to protect its IP — Group behind Warhammer taking ‘very cautious’ approach and says it will ‘respect our human creators’
Financial Times: Ofcom opens an investigation under the OSA into Grok over the sexualized deepfakes of women and kids being generated on X and threatens X with a ban or a fine — Media regulator threatens chatbot with ban or multimillion-pound fine — Ofcom, Britain's media regulator …
Richard Waters / Financial Times: A look at claims from Google and others about quantum computing breakthroughs over the past few months that helped boost quantum computing stocks in 2025 — Amid some scepticism, many say the machines can now achieve results beyond the capability of traditional computers
Song Jung-a / Financial Times: Naver, the largest South Korean buyer of Nvidia chips, is pitching its AI cloud services as an alternative for countries reluctant to use US or Chinese services — Naver targets countries reluctant to use American and Chinese cloud systems out of security concerns
Toby Nangle / Financial Times: Analysis: the AI investment boom represents ~1% of US GDP, roughly half the GDP share during the '90s dot-com boom and comparable to the mid-2010s US shale boom — US economist Jason Furman caused a bit of a kerfuffle in 2025 when he estimated that investment in information processing equipment & software …
Financial Times: Newly listed Chinese AI chipmakers Moore Threads, Biren, and MetaX had strong stock market debuts, but none has sales worth more than a tenth of rival Cambricon — The three newly listed makers of semiconductors are lossmaking, and none has sales worth more than a tenth of their bigger rival
Financial Times: London-based data center company GTR raised $1.5B from KKR and ~$400M from Oak Hill to develop its facilities in England, Barcelona, Zurich, and Tel Aviv — US private capital group's investment into Global Technical Realty comes alongside $400mn from Oak Hill Capital
Michael Acton / Financial Times: Jensen Huang says Nvidia has “fired up” H200 production in the expectation of resumed China sales and it is working on the “last details” with the US government — Company confident ‘last details’ of deal with White House to resume AI chip exports will be finalised soon
Financial Times: Polymarket is disputing that the US mission to capture Nicolás Maduro constituted an “invasion”, refusing to pay out bets on a contract with $10.5M in wagers — Prediction market disputes US raid amounted to an invasion in fight over more than $10.5mn in wagers
Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times: An interview with Google DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu on his new role as Google's chief AI architect, Gemini 3, progress toward the goal of AGI, and more — The tech giant's chief AI architect and CTO of DeepMind discusses the Gemini 3 LLM and progress towards the goal of artificial general intelligence
Barbara Moens / Financial Times: EU officials and policymakers say the EC will intensify its enforcement of the DMA and DSA in 2026, a move expected to renew clashes with US Big Tech and Trump — Challenges to Google, Meta, Apple and X will test Brussels' willingness to stick with digital rule book
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: Filing: West Co, founded by Biz Stone and Evan Sharp, raised $29M; it launched the invite-only social app Tangle, “designed for intentional living”, in November — Biz Stone and Evan Sharp raise new funds for ‘Tangle’ as they assess the ‘devastation’ caused by online excess
Financial Times: Dating apps are pivoting to Asia as swipe-right fatigue hits the West; India, China, and Indonesia ranked among the top five markets by downloads in 2025 — Rising numbers of ‘goal-orientated’ women are using the apps as stigma over online dating fades — Online dating companies are pivoting …
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: London is set to become the first city where both US and Chinese robotaxis operate, as Waymo and Baidu prepare to launch their robotaxis in the city in 2026 — Waymo and Baidu prepare to launch autonomous ride-hailing vehicles in UK capital as soon as 2026
Kieran Smith / Financial Times: How Nokia has reinvented itself for the AI revolution by expanding into cloud services, data centers, and optical networks, and by partnering with Nvidia — Finnish company that brought the world the 3310 has reinvented itself for the AI revolution — Few digital sounds have burrowed into the human brain like the Nokia ringtone.
Financial Times: A look at the rise of AI companion apps; a researcher counts 206 such apps on the App Store and 253 on Google Play, with 220M+ total downloads as of July 2025 — The technology is changing the way many people meet and form relationships but some experts believe it may do more harm than good
George Hammond / Financial Times: Sources: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could IPO in 2026; those three deals alone would exceed the total proceeds from roughly 200 US IPOs in 2025 — Three biggest US private tech groups plan listings as early as this year, raising hopes of windfall for banks, lawyers and investors
Song Jung-a / Financial Times: Analysts and manufacturers expect smartphone, PC, and consumer electronics prices to rise by as much as 20% in 2026, as AI demand drives up memory chip costs — Manufacturers and analysts warn AI data centre build-out is crowding out market for semiconductors
Michael Acton / Financial Times: IDC expects Apple to ship just 45,000 units of the Vision Pro in Q4 2025; Sensor Tower says Apple cut digital ad spend for the headset by 95% in 2025 — High prices, limited apps and comfort issues expose difficulty of turning futuristic hardware into a mass-market product
Michael Acton / Financial Times: Trump Mobile delays plan to launch its gold-coloured smartphone, initially promised for August 2025, saying the recent US government shutdown delayed deliveries — Move marks latest setback for project that originally promised to sell a US-made device — Trump Mobile, the phone company launched …
Financial Times: UK-based Octopus Energy reaches a deal to sell about $1B of equity in Kraken Technologies, its tech spin-off, at an $8.65B valuation to a syndicate of investors — Investors including D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to purchase $1bn in equity
Ellesheva Kissin / Financial Times: ACCA, the world's largest accounting body, says it is ending remote exams to combat a rise in students cheating by using AI tools when taking tests — Decision follows scandals at Big Four and comes as AI tools make it easier to circumvent invigilators — The world's largest accounting body …
George Hammond / Financial Times: PitchBook: the biggest US private startups raised $150B in 2025, surpassing the previous high of $92B in 2021, boosted by large funding rounds by AI startups — Mega funding rounds create ‘fortress balance sheets’ as investors advise top groups to brace for tougher markets
Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times: Global hotel groups are intensifying efforts to get customers to book directly, as they seek to save on online platform commissions and prepare for AI agents — Companies including Marriott and Hilton push to improve perks and get more direct bookings — Major hotel groups are intensifying efforts …
Martha Muir / Financial Times: US data center developers, facing grid access wait times of up to seven years, are turning to aeroderivative turbines and diesel generators to power the AI boom — Supply chain shortages drive developers to use smaller and less efficient power sources to fuel AI power demand
Nikou Asgari / Financial Times: PitchBook: crypto M&A hit $8.6B across 267 deals in 2025 vs. $2.17B in 2024; 11 crypto IPOs raised $14.6B worldwide, up from $310M from four IPOs in 2024 — Dealmaking has been driven by Trump administration's crypto-friendly policymaking — A record $8.6bn worth of crypto deals were struck in 2025 …
Tabby Kinder / Financial Times: Analysis: Oracle has moved $66B of debt for building AI data centers off its balance sheet using SPVs; Meta has moved $30B, xAI moved $20B, and CoreWeave $2.6B — Creative financing helps insulate Big Tech while binding Wall Street to a future boom or bust
Aime Williams / Financial Times: The Trump administration plans to replace the lottery system for H-1B visas with a “weighted” system prioritizing higher-paid individuals, starting February 27 — ‘Weighted’ selection process that prioritises higher-paid and more skilled applicants will begin in February
Kate Duguid / Financial Times: US companies sold $1.7T of investment-grade bonds in 2025, nearing the $1.8T 2020 record, driven by AI infrastructure borrowing; Goldman says AI makes up ~30% — Investment-grade borrowers have issued $1.7tn of bonds this year, closing in on 2020s Covid debt rush
Financial Times: Despite concerns, Labour MPs and other left-wing UK politicians stay active on X; the UK government says it stopped paid ads in 2024, after spending £9M in 2021 — Despite concerns, politicians continue to use Elon Musk's platform in search of a ‘civilised debate’ with constituents
Financial Times: Sources: ByteDance has made preliminary plans to spend ~$23B in AI capex in 2026, up from ~$20B in 2025, and has budgeted ~$12B for AI processors — ByteDance set to increase capital expenditure next year in effort to further build AI infrastructure — TikTok owner ByteDance is set …
Financial Times: A look at Tokyo-based neocloud provider Datasection, which sources say has a $1.2B+ contract giving Tencent access to a large share of its 15K Blackwell chips — Contracts with Chinese tech giant have rapidly turned Datasection into one of Asia's biggest ‘neoclouds’
Nikou Asgari / Financial Times: Filings: Tether-owned Northern Data sold its bitcoin mining unit, Peak Mining, for up to $200M to a group including companies controlled by Tether executives — Stablecoin giant's Devasini is director of groups that bought Peak Mining from Northern Data — Companies run by Tether's …