Technological Development

Amazon is planning to lay off about 14,000 corporate employees next week as part of a wider plan to cut around 30,000 office jobs. The company says the move aims to reduce bureaucracy and focus more on AI, automation, and strategic growth areas.

After burning $70 billion on virtual worlds, Meta signals a dramatic retreat from the metaverse as artificial intelligence takes over the company’s future.

OpenAI is combining teams to focus on audio AI and plans to launch a screenless device in about a year. The new model will sound more natural, handle conversations like a human, and reflects a wider industry shift toward voice-first technology.

SoftBank has transferred a final $22 billion to OpenAI, completing its $41 billion investment and securing around 11% ownership in the AI company. The funding will support OpenAI’s massive infrastructure plans, including partnerships with Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and the $500 billion Stargate project with Oracle.

Meta is purchasing Singapore-based AI startup company Manus for more than US$2 billion, marking one of the tech giants' most significant AI-focused purchases to date.

Nvidia has announced a $20 billion acquisition of Groq’s core assets, a landmark move that strengthens its already commanding position in the artificial intelligence chip market and reshapes the competitive landscape for AI infrastructure.

Meta is developing two proprietary AI models, Mango for image and video generation and Avocado for text and reasoning, expected to launch in the first half of 2026. The company created Meta Superintelligence Labs, hired over 50 AI specialists, and shifted away from its Llama open-source models to compete with Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s AI tools.

OpenAI is in talks with Amazon over a potential $10 billion investment, which could value the AI company at more than $500 billion. The deal may include using Amazon’s AI chips and cloud services, allowing OpenAI to diversify its technology partners beyond Microsoft and Nvidia.

MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai is set to start trading after raising US$585.8 million in an IPO that was nearly 3,000 times oversubscribed, showing strong demand from investors. The company makes AI graphics chips and is seen as a potential local rival to Nvidia, following the huge gains of Moore Threads Technology.

Taiwan has charged Tokyo Electron’s local subsidiary over the alleged theft of TSMC’s 2nm chip secrets. Three former and current TSMC engineers are also facing jail terms, while the company could be fined NT$120 million.