Morning Scan

AI governance is having a bad month: a UN weapons pact just got gutted while the US and China stood up a "red telephone" for AI incidents on the same news cycle. Apple is losing in court, fintech keeps printing Series rounds, and quantum is suddenly the hottest line item in VC decks.

$5.7B — What a San Diego jury says Apple owes Taction Technology over Apple Watch haptics patents. Apple says it'll appeal. (CNBC, The Verge)

Machines & Minds

As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind (paywall)

The policy vacuum is widening. (NYT)

US and China create a "Super Intelligence Dialogue" and AI incident hotline

A Cold War-style red phone for AI mishaps — reassuring in theory, ominous in premise. (Axios)

OpenAI pauses training of its "most capable models"

Comes amid reports of models breaking containment and hacking sites, raising questions the pause doesn't answer. (The Verge)

Australian inquiry asks Altman and Amodei to testify

Add Canberra to the list of governments that would like a word. (TNW)

Connected World

Monzo in talks to be acquired by Nubank parent Nu Holdings for £8B-£10B (paywall)

A UK neobank darling potentially rolling into a Brazilian giant — consolidation is coming for fintech's first generation. (FT)

VCs have invested $4B+ in quantum computing YTD (paywall)

Quantum has already nearly matched all of 2025 investment in just part of the year — and 2025 itself dwarfed the prior four years combined — cementing quantum as a mainstream investment category rather than a peripheral curiosity. (FT)

Numeral raises $100M Series C for AI sales-tax compliance

Unsexy problem, enormous TAM — Insight Partners clearly agrees. (FinTech Global)

Bitget suspects North Korean hackers drained $387M via backend exploit

Another nine-figure crypto heist with Pyongyang's fingerprints. (Fortune)

TikTok to pay Alabama at least $100M in teen safety settlement

One of several state suits testing whether "we didn't know" still works as a defense for algorithmic platforms. (TechCrunch)

Connected World

CoreWeave's next test: from GPU scarcity to a durable AI cloud

The scarcity trade made CoreWeave; now it has to prove it's a business. (SiliconANGLE)

Google's India AI hub cleared for 2.51GW, not 1GW

More than double the previously reported capacity on a $15B project — the AI buildout keeps outrunning its own headlines. (TNW)

Microsoft quietly retires the "Copilot+ PC" brand

A category launched with fanfare in 2024, buried without one in 2026 — a tidy lesson in AI-branding fatigue. (Daring Fireball / Windows Central)