Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
📉 ‘Big Short’ investor accuses AI hyperscalers of artificially boosting earnings
🛡️ Google unveils Private AI Compute, its own version of Apple’s private AI cloud compute
💥 Google sues group running massive SMS scam operation
🔮 IBM targets useful quantum computers by 2029
💰 Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan
🛣️ Waymo becomes the first robotaxi provider to offer driverless rides on freeways
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 2 handpicked research papers and tools
📉 ‘Big Short’ investor accuses AI hyperscalers of artificially boosting earnings LINK
Investor Michael Burry alleges that AI hyperscalers are boosting earnings by understating depreciation expenses on massive capex for new servers and Nvidia chips, a maneuver he calls a fraud.
Burry claims companies are extending the useful life of compute equipment to lower their yearly depreciation expense, despite the rapid 2-3 year product cycle of new Nvidia chips.
He estimates this accounting maneuver could understate depreciation by $176 billion through 2028, which would overstate profits at firms like Oracle and Meta by over 20 percent.
🛡️ Google unveils Private AI Compute, its own version of Apple’s private AI cloud compute LINK
Google unveiled Private AI Compute, a cloud platform virtually identical to Apple's Private Cloud Compute, to process difficult AI requests that need more computational power than devices can supply.
Google describes the system as a secure, fortified space offering the same security as on-device processing, ensuring sensitive data is available only to you and not even to Google.
This added processing power will help AI features give more tailored suggestions on the Pixel 10, improving Magic Cue and expanding the range of languages for Recorder transcriptions.
💥 Google sues group running massive SMS scam operation LINK
Google is suing a global operation named "Lighthouse," which provides a Phishing-as-a-Service kit for criminals to launch widespread "smishing" attacks that steal people's banking and email information.
The company is using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and other statutes to dismantle the scam network's core infrastructure and shut down its fraudulent branding operations.
In addition to legal action, Google is endorsing three bipartisan bills in Congress designed to stop foreign robocalls, investigate fraud against retirees, and create a national strategy for scam compounds.
🔮 IBM targets useful quantum computers by 2029 LINK
IBM's new experimental chip, called Loon, shows progress toward its 2029 goal by physically putting a proposed error correction algorithm directly into the hardware for the first time.
The design makes chips harder to build because it requires both basic qubits and new quantum connections between them to run the company's specific error correction method.
IBM is also releasing its Nighthawk chip this year, inviting researchers to openly test its claims of beating classical computers on certain tasks by the end of next year.
💰 Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan LINK
Anthropic is committing $50 billion through a partnership with neocloud provider Fluidstack to construct custom data centers in Texas and New York to support its growing compute needs.
These new facilities are custom built for Anthropic’s workloads and will come online throughout 2026, representing the company’s first major effort to build its own dedicated infrastructure.
While a massive investment, the $50 billion outlay is significantly smaller than infrastructure projects from competitors like Meta and the Stargate partnership involving OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle.
🛣️ Waymo becomes the first robotaxi provider to offer driverless rides on freeways LINK
Waymo is now offering driverless robotaxi rides on freeways in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, a move the company says will reduce ride times by as much as 50 percent.
This expansion creates a unified 260-mile service area to San Jose, though riders must first note a preference for freeway trips inside the Waymo app to be matched with one.
Mastering freeway driving took years because critical events are less common, requiring extensive closed course and simulation testing to prove the system’s safety and reliability for rare scenarios.
Other news you might like
- Apple releases $230 ‘pocket’ for the iPhoneLINK
- AMD's Lisa Su sees 35% annual sales growth driven by 'insatiable' AI demandLINK
- ElevenLabs’ new AI marketplace lets brands use famous voices for adsLINK
- AMD reveals new roadmap for its Ryzen CPUs, teasing Zen 7 as the true "next-generation" leap with 2nm — Lineup confirms 2026 release for Zen 6, coming with expanded AI featuresLINK
- $650 billion in annual revenue required to deliver 10% return on AI buildout investment, J.P. Morgan claims — equivalent to $35 payment from every iPhone user, or $180 from every Netflix subscriber 'in perpetuity'LINK
- The Mac calculator’s original design came from letting Steve Jobs play with menus for ten minutesLINK
- Humans can no longer distinguish AI music from real music, study findsLINK
- OpenAI reportedly burning $15M a day to power Sora video appLINK
- Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial productLINK
Latest research and tools
yt-dlp: a tool for downloading videos that now requires an external JavaScript runtime for full YouTube support.LINK
adk-go: a toolkit for the Go language that helps developers build, evaluate, and deploy artificial intelligence agents using a code-first approach.LINK
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