Microsoft shares closed above $500 for the first time Wednesday — a symbolic milestone for the tech giant as Wall Street increasingly bets on its role in the AI boom. Is a $4 trillion valuation next? Read more.
Anduril is doubling its Seattle-area footprint with a new Bellevue office, part of a rapid growth push fueled by $2.5 billion in recent funding as it builds AI-powered gear for the military. Read more.
Dieter Fox, the former head of Nvidia’s robotics research lab in Seattle, is leaving the semiconductor giant to lead a new initiative at the nonprofit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2). Read more.
- Related: Ai2 this week introduced FlexOlmo, a framework that enables data owners to securely contribute to language model training without sharing raw data. (Ai2; Wired)
Coding is dead, says Magdalena Balazinska, director of the University of Washington’s computer science school, which is rethinking its curriculum to help graduates thrive in an AI-driven job market. Read more.
T-Mobile has ended its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs amid pending FCC approval for two major deals.
- FCC Chairman Brendan Carr praised the decision as “another good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest.”
- FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez struck a different tone, calling the move “cowardly corporate capitulation.” Read more.
Seattle solar startup Omnidian aims to pay $7 million to acquire a portion of the bankrupt solar company Sunnova Energy International’s business. Read more.
- Omnidian, ranked No. 37 on the GeekWire 200, raised $87 million in April and said its revenue more than tripled from 2022 to 2024.
Hot Links:
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Microsoft’s Outlook email service was down for several hours. (CNBC)
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AI helped Microsoft save $500 million in its call centers last year, according to an internal presentation. (Bloomberg)
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Amazon is considering another multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic. (Financial Times; Reuters)
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Condé Nast and Hearst inked a licensing agreement with Amazon for content within its Rufus shopping assistant. (Digiday)
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Seattle health startup Mpathic joined Google’s AI Academy: American Infrastructure. (Google)
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Transit agencies in Washington state are testing hydrogen-powered buses. (KNKX)
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Amazon added longtime announcer Kevin Harlan to its NBA broadcast team. (Amazon MGM Studios)
Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great day. — GeekWire editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; and GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop, todd@geekwire.com.
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