Morning Scan

Markets are flashing red, AI is eating jobs and keystroke logs, and Qualcomm wants to buy its way into the chip race at a 2.5x markup. Wednesday has that particular flavor of chaos where everything is moving at once — and not all of it upward.

10% — South Korea's Kospi index fell this much overnight, dragged down by SK Hynix and Samsung, with ASML and STMicro dropping ~7% in sympathy. (CNBC)

Connected World

Qualcomm in Advanced Talks to Acquire Modular at ~$4B (paywall)

That's a 2.5x step-up from Modular's $1.6B valuation just nine months ago, showing how fast AI infrastructure M&A is heating up. (Bloomberg)

South Korea's Kospi Falls 10%, Tech Stocks Slide in Pre-Market

The selloff is broad enough to rattle US pre-market trading. (CNBC)

Trump Signs Two Executive Orders to Accelerate Quantum Computing (paywall)

The orders push development timelines and address security risks from quantum-capable adversaries — long overdue federal attention to a slow-burning race. (WSJ)

AlpSemi Raises $19.5M to Build Power Switches for AI Data Centers

The French startup is targeting the power infrastructure layer that every new GPU cluster depends on. (SiliconANGLE)

Machines & Minds

Meta Pauses Employee Keystroke Tracking After Internal Data Exposure

The program was meant to train AI on worker inputs — instead it briefly exposed those inputs to other employees, which is the kind of sentence that ends programs. (Wired)

UN Urges AI Firms to Come Clean on Environmental Costs

The United Nations is pushing for mandatory environmental disclosure, framing voluntary commitments as insufficient cover for an industry burning through water and power at scale. (The Next Web)

The Running List: Major Tech Layoffs in 2026 Citing AI

TechCrunch's tracker is getting longer — this is the document your marketing team's CFO has already bookmarked. (TechCrunch)

Inside ChatGPT's Ads Push

OpenAI is reportedly moving toward advertising at a moment when the industry is debating whether AI search can coexist with ad-supported models. (Alex Heath / Sources)

Connected World

Shareholders Sue Uber's Board Over Sexual Assaults and Safety Failures

A Detroit pension fund is leading the suit, alleging that compliance cuts created systemic exposure — framing rider safety as a governance failure, not just a PR one. (TechCrunch)

UK iCloud Users Could Claim £77 Each as Apple Case Heads to Trial

The £3 billion ($3.9B) class action covering 40 million UK users has been certified — Apple's pricing practices in cloud storage are now a courtroom problem. (MacRumors)

Tesla Autopilot Fatal Texas Crash Now Under Federal Investigation (paywall)

NHTSA is investigating, Tesla is pushing back on the Autopilot framing, and the gap between those two positions is where the story will live for months. (NYT)

Netflix Buys a 'Hot Ones' Spinoff (paywall)

The streaming giant continues its pivot from prestige drama to things people actually watch on a Tuesday night — spicy chicken wings included. (NYT)