Yearly Archives: 2026 - Page 104

Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar, that nuclear startup Atlas Atomics has raised about $400 million in a Series A at around a $1.9 billion valuation, led by General Catalyst with Andreessen Horowitz. The company has not confirmed it. Who Atlas is, what its own letter says, and what is not known.

Three security items from 8–9 October 2026: a security firm reports attack attempts against a patched, maximum-severity SonicWall SMA1000 flaw (success unconfirmed); Pwn2Own Ireland pays $1,262,000 for 98 zero-days; and Microsoft says Windows Update certificates expire on 17 May and 19 June 2027.

The NRC has published a draft environmental impact statement for Fermi America's four proposed AP1000 reactors in Carson County, Texas, with comments due 23 November 2026. It is a draft, not a licence. Separately, Wood Mackenzie estimates four-hour battery storage is "65% to 75% cheaper" than new gas peakers in the US.

Four chip-supply items from 8–9 October 2026: GlobalFoundries tops out a €1.1 billion Dresden expansion and plans an "FDX Fusion" platform that still needs German approval; Lumentum's CEO tells Bloomberg its optical parts are "completely sold out" through early 2029, even after a 12-fold capacity increase in Japan; Unisem proposes a RM396 million packaging expansion in Malaysia; and AI chip-design start-up Phinity raises a $5.2 million seed. What is confirmed and what is a claim.

Reuters sources say OpenAI is racing to raise about $30bn before Anthropic's mid-November IPO, at a valuation that could top $1.4tn. Nothing is agreed.

An attacker returned 15,000 BNB to the 79thVault project on BNB Chain, a Manhattan jury convicted Uranium Finance hacker Jonathan Spalletta on all counts, and a London court jailed a SIM-swap fraudster for two and a half years. Plus two small DeFi exploits flagged by SlowMist.

TypeSafe AI, the company behind the Jev model, announced a funding round of $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz, on 9 October 2026. Who TypeSafe is, what Jev does, which figures are the company's own claims, and what is still unknown.

Axios reports, citing unnamed sources, that executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies are privately planning for a political backlash after a catastrophic AI event. OpenAI says its scenarios "are not treated as inevitable"; Anthropic declined to comment. What is reported, and what is not.

Volkswagen has unveiled the ID. Tiguan, the electric successor to the ID.4 and ID.5. It is not on sale yet: pre-sales open in Germany and other European countries on 13 October from 42,695 euros, with launch "as early as the beginning of 2027". The figures VW gives, and what its traffic-light feature is and isn't.

SpaceX agrees to buy up to 14 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum from Grain Management, pending FCC approval; no price was disclosed. NASA and the Department of Energy sign a space nuclear power pact, with a reactor spacecraft planned for 2028 and a lunar reactor a 2030 goal. Amazon Leo passes 1,000 satellites built, Blue Origin plans a $554.78 million factory in Texas, and Crew-12 is home.