🤖 US pursues utility-scale quantum computers with new $125M DARPA validation deal

PsiQuantum has signed a $125 million agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the quantum ​computing startup's largest U.S. government award to date. The deal falls ‌under DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which aims to determine whether it is possible to build an industrially useful quantum computer by 2033.

PsiQuantum ⁠Chief Executive Victor Peng said the DARPA vetting will help ​the industry work out "what's real and what's not." He said PsiQuantum's ​first commercial-scale machine should be running around 2030.

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🤑 Ripple Selects BNY to Custody Ripple USD Reserves

Ripple has selected The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY), a global financial services company, for the primary custody of RLUSD reserves. Ripple and BNY are jointly committed to paving the way for digital asset adoption at institutional scale and together are bridging the gap between the traditional finance and crypto ecosystems. 🤝

🟠BNY will serve as the primary reserve custodian of RLUSD, leveraging its deep technology stack and expertise enabling the digital assets ecosystem.

🟠In addition, BNY will provide its leading transaction banking services to underpin RLUSD’s operations and deliver integrated solutions. This builds upon BNY’s proven track record of providing end-to-end services across stablecoin infrastructure and furthers BNY’s efforts for future interoperability between stablecoins and traditional assets.

“As primary custodian, we are thrilled to support the growth and adoption of RLUSD by facilitating the seamless movement of reserve assets and cash to support conversions and are proud to be working closely with Ripple to continue propelling the future of the financial system,” — said Emily Portney, Global Head of Asset Servicing at BNY.

The partnership was originally published on July 9, 2026.

#Stellar

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🤑 Leading Financial Institutions & Bitcoin Companies Launch the Bitcoin Security Consortium

A group of leading financial institutions and Bitcoin companies today announced the formation of the Bitcoin Security Consortium, an initiative dedicated to supporting the long-term security and resilience of the Bitcoin network, backed by an aggregate $15 million in member pledges over the next 3 years.

📌 Founding members are Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, and Strategy, a cross-section of the institutional Bitcoin ecosystem that includes holders, custodians, exchanges, infrastructure providers, payments providers, and asset managers, united by a shared interest in Bitcoin's continued security.

🔜 The Consortium's day-to-day work is coordinated by Mike Schmidt, Executive Director of Brink, a 501c3 non-profit that funds and supports Bitcoin open-source developers. The Consortium will help fund and support the developers and researchers already working on Bitcoin's security, including the long-term work of preparing Bitcoin for a potential era of quantum computing.

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🇺🇸 Trump Administration Announces More Than $5 Billion for the Genesis Mission, a National Mission on AI for Science

Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios unveiled more than $5 billion in Federal commitments expanding the Genesis Mission alongside new mission-driven National Science and Technology Challenges.

🔜 Launched by President Trump’s Executive Order in November 2025 and led by the White House, the Genesis Mission is a national effort to harness AI for science. What began at the Department of Energy (DOE) is now a whole-of-government initiative: More than 15 Federal agencies will contribute research awards, funding opportunities, specialized scientific datasets, and research facilities to the National Science and Technology Challenges.

These agencies will leverage the DOE-built American Science and Security Platform, which provides shared infrastructure that connects researchers with data, compute, and AI tools to accelerate scientific discovery.

“America’s greatest scientific achievements have been born of national mobilizations paired with the construction of new institutions. The Genesis Mission is the next chapter in that tradition, as we work together to harness AI for scientific discovery at a scale no one else on the planet can match,” said Director Kratsios.

❗️The Genesis Mission’s National Science and Technology Challenges announced span health care, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and affordability.

These challenges include:

→ Helping Americans Live Longer, Healthier Lives
→ Delivering Reliable Infrastructure and Energy Affordability
→ Building American Industrial Strength
→ Extending the Frontiers of American Discovery
→ Protecting the Nation from Emerging Threats

The Genesis Mission sets out a new operating model for American science, aiming to double America’s R&D output and translate scientific breakthroughs into practical benefits for the American people. 🚀

@QSIMedia

July 23: 🇰🇿Kazakhstan to Use Digital Tenge Across Government Spending This August

Kazakhstan to begin using the digital tenge in public procurement from August after completing the integration of the digital currency platform with the Finance Ministry’s information systems, reported the Prime Minister’s press service on July 22.

The announcement followed a government meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin, where officials reviewed progress on pilot projects testing the central bank digital currency and discussed challenges to its wider implementation.

According to the ministry, the legal status of the digital tenge platform and its operating procedures have now been established. A total of 340 billion digital tenge (US$626 million) has been issued, with 20 pilot projects completed, 10 underway, and 50 more in preparation.

📆🔜Beginning in August, the digital tenge will be used for public procurement of goods, including medicines, fuel and lubricants, and other material supplies. Pilot projects cover infrastructure construction, budget lending and subsidies, grant financing, government support measures, public procurement, tax administration, as well as procurement by the National Bank and quasi-state entities.

https://astanatimes.com/2026/07/kazakhstan-to-use-digital-tenge-across-government-spending-this-august/

🤑 The DTCC is the model for institutional tokenization, established with regulatory clarity leading the way.

Raja Chakravorti explains why The DTCC going onchain with the Stellar network is a tremendous development for the industry. 🚀

#Stellar

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🤑 Notabene Announces Strategic Investment from Ripple

Notabene, the operator of the world’s largest open network for regulated on-chain transactions, today announced a strategic investment from Ripple. 🤝

🔜 Alongside the investment, Notabene and Ripple will collaborate to expand enterprise stablecoin payments by integrating RLUSD into Notabene Flow and exploring how trusted payment authorization can complement Ripple Payments.

🔹 Notabene Flow is Notabene’s B2B stablecoin payments platform that enables payment coordination and authorization capabilities, which leverage and are built on top of Notabene’s scaled transaction authorization network.

By combining Ripple’s global enterprise ecosystem and RLUSD stablecoin with Notabene’s trusted institutional network, which today facilitates over $2 trillion in annualized transaction volume, the partnership is set to accelerate adoption of compliant stablecoin payments while creating a pathway for RLUSD to be integrated across one of the world’s largest institutional payment networks for digital assets. 🌎

Together, the companies aim to make compliant stablecoin transactions easier for financial institutions to adopt at scale. 🚀

#Stellar

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⚔️ AMD takes on Nvidia with its Helios AI rack scale system

Chipmaker AMD is taking aim at competitor Nvidia with its latest hardware release: a rack-scale system designed to power computing needs of the world’s largest AI labs. At the company’s sold-out Advancing AI conference in San Francisco on Thursday, AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su promoted the new AI rack system known as Helios — as the company prepares to ship it later this year.

Su called Helios the tech industry’s “highest performance AI rack,” adding that it was “built to train and run the most demanding frontier models in the world at massive scale.” The system will be deployed by leading AI companies at gigawatt-scale.

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⚡️🇺🇸US hits 60 countries with new duties as Donald Trump rebuilds tariff wall

The Trump administration on Thursday finalized new double-digit tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners as it seeks to reconstitute sweeping duties struck down by the Supreme Court in February.

The new duties, which range from 10 to 12.5%, follow a five-month investigation into trading partners’ efforts to root out products made with forced labor from their supply chains and are set to take effect just as a temporary global 10 percent tariff expires.

“It encourages stronger labor rights enforcement abroad, it will restore fairness in the global market for American workers, and it incentivizes our trading partners to join the United States in eliminating forced labor from global supply chains.” said a senior administration official.

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🤑 Ripple Unveils Ripple Mint. Available to existing RLUSD users today.

🔹 Ripple Mint is a unified platform for institutions to access, mint, redeem, and manage RLUSD.

Built for scale with both UI and API access, Ripple Mint gives institutions the flexibility to automate stablecoin operations, integrate RLUSD into existing systems, and manage digital dollar liquidity across chains.

⬇️ Why Ripple Mint?

Designed for institutional use, RLUSD is issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, LLC, a New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) chartered trust company, providing the regulatory oversight and transparency that institutional adoption requires. For institutions operating at scale, that foundation matters. So does what's built on top of it.

❗️Ripple Mint expands how institutions access RLUSD by supporting both:

🟠User interface access for operational control and oversight
🟠Programmatic access for automation and system-level integration

This allows institutions to choose how they interact with RLUSD based on their workflows: whether managing activity manually through a web console or integrating RLUSD directly into their own infrastructure.

⚡️ With Ripple Mint, institutions can:

→ Mint and redeem RLUSD directly from the source
→ Bridge RLUSD across chains
→ Track funds across the full lifecycle of a transaction
→ Integrate RLUSD operations into internal systems or workflows

🧱 Built for Programmatic and Operational Workflows

Ripple Mint is designed to support both operational and programmatic workflows, giving institutions flexibility in how they access and manage RLUSD.

🔜 Through new APIs and webhook notifications, customers can now integrate RLUSD workflows directly into their own systems, enabling automation, operational visibility, and easier reconciliation.

📌 Institutions can now:

⚪️Initiate redemption workflows through the user interface or API, with support for both fiat settlement and movement of RLUSD across supported blockchains
⚪️Query transaction status across the mint and redemption lifecycle
⚪️Access account balance information programmatically
⚪️Receive real-time webhook notifications for key lifecycle events, including fiat receipt, mint processing, onchain settlement, and payout completion.

A Foundation for the Next Phase of Stablecoins 🚀

✅ Ripple Mint delivers what this next phase requires: flexible access, programmatic integration, multichain availability, and trusted, regulated issuance.

Stablecoins are evolving into core financial infrastructure — and the institutions leading that shift need access that's flexible, programmable, multichain, and regulated. Ripple Mint is built for that moment, enabling institutions to operate with digital dollars in a way that fits their systems, workflows, and scale.

#Stellar

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🤖 IBM to Acquire HRL Laboratories to Power the Future of Quantum

IBM has signed a definitive agreement to acquire HRL Laboratories, LLC (HRL), a flagship research and development institution. HRL is a private company jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors. Both Boeing and GM will continue to partner with IBM on quantum applications and advanced technology development following the transaction.

📌 HRL's advanced expertise in silicon-spin qubit engineering will complement and extend IBM’s long-term mission to scale increasingly powerful quantum computers and accelerate its quantum vision. Superconducting qubits and spin qubits both leverage state-of-the art silicon fabrication.

“The HRL team will help IBM push even farther forward toward the frontiers of quantum innovation,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM’s Director of Research and IBM Fellow.

🔜 HRL will also enable IBM to innovate in and industrialize promising technologies such as quantum sensing and drive new research into quantum materials. This includes ultra precise quantum sensors capable of detecting subtle physical phenomena and capturing finely tuned measurements for life sciences, navigation, defense, and scientific applications.

Combined with additional capabilities in cryogenics, control electronics, qubit interconnects, and packaging, IBM anticipates that HRL’s technical breakthroughs will help fuel its quantum program for decades to come. 🚀

@QSIMedia

🤖 NVIDIA commits $1.5 billion to expand US capacity for next-gen advanced chip packaging

NVIDIA is partnering with semiconductor packaging company Amkor Technology to develop advanced packaging and testing technologies for next-generation AI and accelerated computing systems, while helping expand Amkor’s US capacity in Arizona.

The multi-year partnership will align the companies’ technology roadmaps around advanced packaging methods, including high-density interconnects and heterogeneous integration. NVIDIA will also provide a prepayment to support the expansion of Amkor’s US advanced packaging capacity.

@QSIMedia

🤖 OpenAI’s new voice mode makes it to the ChatGPT desktop app

OpenAI has updated its ChatGPT desktop app to add support for ChatGPT Voice, allowing users to talk to the app to control AI agents and perform tasks on their computer. ChatGPT Voice works with both ChatGPT Work and Codex, and can also tap computer use skills to look up websites and apps. On macOS, with Appshots, users can let the app access what’s on their screen, including alt-text.

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