xAI has successfully closed a $20B funding round. The capital will be
used to accelerate the development of the company's compute infrastructure
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TLDR
TLDR 2026-01-07
📱
BIG TECH & STARTUPS
XAI RAISES $20 BILLION TO EXPAND GROK AI MODELS AND ENTERPRISE TOOLS
(1 MINUTE READ) [4]
xAI has successfully closed a $20 billion Series E funding round. The
capital will be used to accelerate the development of the company's
compute infrastructure. xAI has introduced several business-oriented
offerings, including Grok Business, a team plan priced at $30 per seat
per month, and Grok Enterprise, which includes Custom SSO and SCIM
features. It has also released a Collections API that features
built-in RAG, OCR, layout-aware parsing, and more.
HOW GOOGLE GOT ITS GROOVE BACK AND EDGED AHEAD OF OPENAI (13 MINUTE
READ) [5]
Google was behind in the AI race in August, but by September, its
Gemini AI app had become the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store.
The company launched its most powerful Gemini model yet two months
later, leapfrogging over OpenAI to the front of the AI pack. Google's
deep roots in science and research, willingness to invest in custom
hardware, and leadership changes in recent years cleared the way for
faster experimentation. The company's AI work has begun generating
substantial revenue through search ads, paid versions of Gemini, and
sales of new computer chips developed in-house.
🚀
SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY
COMMONWEALTH FUSION SYSTEMS INSTALLS REACTOR MAGNET, LANDS DEAL WITH
NVIDIA (3 MINUTE READ) [6]
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has installed the first magnet in
its Sparc fusion reactor, a demonstration device scheduled to turn on
next year. The reactor will have 18 magnets in total in a donut-like
shape. These magnets will create a powerful magnetic field for
confining and compressing superheated plasma. If successful, the
plasma will release more energy than it takes to heat and compress it.
CFS is working with Nvidia and Siemens to develop a digital version of
the reactor.
DUDE, WHERE'S MY SUPERSONIC JET? (16 MINUTE READ) [7]
Aviation innovation has been stuck in a rut in the 56 years since
Concorde debuted due to noise, regulation, and cost. All three of
these issues are at various stages of being solved. Regulatory walls
are cracking, and the technology is better than ever. This article
looks at the work being done by Boom Supersonic, Astro Mechanica, and
Hermeus toward Supersonic 2.0, where anyone can catch a quick,
affordable flight almost anywhere on Earth.
💻
PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE
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OPENAI IS ROLLING OUT GPT-5.2 “CODEX-MAX” FOR SOME USERS (2
MINUTE READ) [9]
OpenAI's GPT-5.2 Codex-Max is now rolling out to subscribers. There
is little public information about the model available, but OpenAI may
share more details in the coming days. The standard GPT-5.2 Codex can
stay on track for long tasks, make large contexts useful through
compaction, and handle heavy changes like refactors and migrations. It
can understand screenshots, UI bugs, and diagrams.
DYNAMIC CONTEXT DISCOVERY (6 MINUTE READ) [10]
Dynamic Context Discovery is a pattern that allows agents to pull
relevant context on their own with fewer details provided up front. It optimizes token usage while still allowing agents to gather enough
context for tasks. Data is stored in files, which can then be accessed
as necessary. Cursor will release dynamic context discovery for all
users in the coming weeks.
🎁
MISCELLANEOUS
CES 2026 LIVE: ALL THE NEW AI DEVICES, HOME TECH, ROBOTS, AUDIO,
CARS, AND COMPUTING (WEBSITE) [11]
CES 2026 has already revealed several unexpected surprises, such as
devices that detect gluten and dairy in food, a robot vacuum that
climbs stairs, and a lollipop that plays music via bone-conduction
technology. This page wraps up some of the biggest highlights of the
event. CNET's Best of CES 2026 awards will be announced today.
OPENAI'S COUNTDOWN: MONETIZATION, ADS, AND A GOOGLE-SHAPED THREAT (9
MINUTE READ) [12]
OpenAI executives are debating whether to attend the Cannes Lions
festival, a festival where the ad industry celebrates its ability to
turn creativity into influence. The company has yet to find an ads
boss, and it still needs to figure out how to best handle data privacy
and ensure its commerce proposition proves successful. Competition is
heating up, with Google now building the infrastructure needed to
monetize its AI services. OpenAI isn't actively talking to advertisers
about advertising yet.
⚡
QUICK LINKS
CHAT PLATFORM DISCORD FILES CONFIDENTIALLY FOR IPO (3 MINUTE READ)
[13]
Discord is working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase on an
initial public offering.
MANTIC (GITHUB REPO) [14]
Mantic is a structural code search engine for AI agents that provides sub-500ms file ranking across massive code bases without embeddings,
vector databases, or external dependencies.
DON'T OUTSOURCE YOUR THINKING (17 MINUTE READ) [15]
Models may or may not be aligned with what you want to do.
A FIELD GUIDE TO SANDBOXES FOR AI (45 MINUTE READ) [16]
This post provides readers with a simple mental model for evaluating
sandboxes and then walks through the boundaries that show up in real
AI execution systems: containers, gVisor, microVMs, and runtime
sandboxes.
WEB ROT RISING (3 MINUTE READ) [17]
Traffic to top websites has fallen by more than 11% in the past five
years.
APPLE DESIGNER BEHIND IPHONE AIR IS JOINING THE AI STARTUP HARK (2
MINUTE READ) [18]
Apple veteran Abidur Chowdhury will become head of design at Hark, a
company working on AI models.
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