💊 OpenAI may invest in drug companies using its AI technology

Speaking at Cisco Systems Inc.’s AI conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company might invest in or subsidize pharmaceutical firms that use its AI technology for drug discovery, potentially taking royalties from successful discoveries.

"This is not something we’re doing now, but I think the frontier of scientific discovery with AI will require so much capital that maybe we think of ourselves as an investor in some of those cases," Altman said.

OpenAI and competitors like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Anthropic have been increasingly focusing on scientific and healthcare applications for their AI technologies. These applications range from guiding research on new drugs to reviewing personal medical data.

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🇺🇸 Donald Trump: "If we don't do crypto, China will."

Donald Trump says he’s been one of crypto’s biggest supporters- not just for markets, but for U.S. competitiveness. His argument is simple: if the U.S. doesn’t lead in crypto, China will — just like AI. 🧐

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📝HBAR, Stellar & XRP Ledger are seen as key infrastructure for tokenizing RWAs & modernizing financial-market plumbing.

Analyst All In Crypto walks through a 2025 report from OMFIF — an independent think tank focused on central banking, sovereign funds and public investing — that spotlights Hedera Hashgraph, Stellar and the XRP Ledger as potential infrastructure for the future financial system. OMFIF’s $43 Trillion Network Looks At These Public Chains.

Stellar is open and decentralized but offers many of the practical benefits of private chains, and should be assessed instead on features like settlement finality, governance and interoperability, according to the director from the Stellar Development Foundation.

Ripple’s section highlights the XRP Ledger’s 13-year operational history “without any major outages or security failures” and its public-permissionless design. A Ripple representative pushes back on regulatory worries about public chains, pointing to curated validator sets, deterministic settlement (no probabilistic rollbacks) and the benefits of open participation for liquidity and developer ecosystems.

“Ripple + Stellar aren’t here to replace the system. They’re here to upgrade it from the inside. And once you see that… you can’t unsee it 🔥,” - Stern Drew posted in X.

#Stellar

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🎉🇺🇸Trump signs bill to end government shutdown and fund DHS for two weeks

The House passed, and President Trump signed into law, a bill funding almost all of government. It puts DHS on stopgap funding.

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🧑‍💻 Western Digital unveils massive 40TB HDD with energy-assisted recording tech — plans 100TB HAMR hard drives by 2029

Western Digital on Tuesday announced plans to extend its energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) technology to 60TB, thus producing ePMR-based hard drives along with its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for several years down the road to guarantee steady availability of high-capacity drives.

The company intends to release its 40TB UltraSMR hard drive in the second half of this year, with its HAMR-based counterpart following in 2027. By 2029, Western Digital plans to offer 100TB HAMR-based HDDs. 🤩

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🇪🇺🇺🇸 EU to propose critical minerals partnership with US

The EU is ready to sign a memorandum of understanding with the US to develop a "Strategic Partnership Roadmap" within three months. This partnership would focus on finding alternative sources for critical minerals, which are essential components in modern technologies, without depending on China.

The proposal outlines several strategies to decrease this dependence, including exploring joint critical-mineral projects and price support mechanisms. It also suggests methods to protect both markets from external mineral oversupply and other forms of market manipulation, while building secure supply chains between the US and EU.

The EU’s proposal comes as the Trump administration is pushing to establish global agreements on critical minerals this week.

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✍️ Adobe reverses decision to discontinue Animate.

Less than 24 hours after announcing the move, Adobe Creative Cloud Senior Director for Design Marketing & Community Mike Chambers admitted in a Reddit post that the company failed to "meet standards" and "caused a lot of confusion and angst within the community." Animate will continue to be available for both new and existing users.

That was a close one 😅🙏

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🇺🇸🇮🇷US - Iran nuclear talks reportedly canceled over location and agenda disagreements

The United States has canceled nuclear talks with Iran that were scheduled for Friday after Tehran refused to accept Washington’s conditions on the location and format of the meeting, two senior U.S. officials told on Wednesday.

A senior official described the standoff bluntly: "We told them it is this or nothing, and they said, "Ok, then nothing."
"If they are willing to go back to the agreed format, we are ready to meet this week or next week," the official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made clear that Washington will only consider negotiations meaningful if they include both Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic missile development, which the U.S. views as a critical regional threat. Rubio also signaled a willingness to engage quickly if Iran agrees to the original format and scope, emphasizing that the U.S. wants to reach a substantive deal without delay.

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🤑 Elon Musk just became the first person ever worth $800 billion after spaceX acquired xAI

Elon Musk just became the first person ever worth $800 billion or more after his rocket maker SpaceX acquired his artificial intelligence and social media company xAI. Forbes estimates that the deal, which values the combined company at $1.25 trillion, boosted Musk’s fortune by $84 billion, to a record $852 billion.

That makes SpaceX Musk’s most valuable asset by far. He also owns a 12% stake in Tesla worth $178 billion and Tesla stock options worth another $124 billion.

Our congratulations! ☕️

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🇺🇸 War Department announces vendors invited to compete in Phase I of the Drone Dominance Program

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth commissioned an acquisition strategy to swiftly outfit our combat units with lethal drones. The War Department today announced the 25 vendors invited to compete in Phase I of the Drone Dominance Program (DDP), an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low cost, unmanned one way attack drones at scale as part of strengthening America's Arsenal of Freedom.

The Phase I evaluation—the Gauntlet—will begin 18 February at Fort Benning, where military operators will fly and evaluate vendor systems. The Gauntlet will conclude in early March, when approximately $150 million in prototype delivery orders will be placed, with deliveries beginning shortly thereafter and continuing over the following five months. By 2027, the Department will be fielding hundreds of thousands of weaponized, one way attack drones ready for combat.

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🇩🇪 German Finance Minister praises new data center, says it ’strengthens digital sovereignty’

Deutsche Telekom AG and Nvidia Corp. opened a €1 billion ($1.2 billion) data center in Munich on Wednesday, marking a significant step for Germany’s digital infrastructure. Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil attended the opening ceremony for what is considered one of Europe’s largest facilities for technology capable of powering complex AI systems.

German software giant SAP SE is providing platforms and applications for the new facility. The involvement of major corporations and high-level government support demonstrates Germany’s commitment to developing an AI ecosystem that can compete with the US and China.

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🇨🇳🇷🇺 Xi and Putin deepen China-Russia coordination, vow broader global cooperation

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the 4th discussed global affairs, including the expiration of a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia, and affirmed their willingness to cooperate.

Putin noted that trade turnover between Russia and China has exceeded the $200 billion mark for the third consecutive year, while trade in agricultural products grew by more than 20% in 2025. Russia remains among the leading suppliers of energy resources to the PRC. Also both countries are ready to work closely together on global issues not only bilaterally but also within multilateral groups such as the United Nations, BRICS, and the SCO.

#BRICS

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↗️ Apple beats tech stocks by most in a year as it avoids AI panic

Apple Inc. is trading in the opposite direction of technology stocks and the broader market as investors increasingly view it as an oasis of safety amid fears of AI disruption.

The iPhone maker’s shares were up 1.8% at around 12:30 p.m. in New York on Wednesday, compared with a 2.4% decline in the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index. That means Apple is outperforming by its widest degree since early 2025. The gain has resulted in a market capitalization of just over $4 trillion for Apple, allowing it to squeak past Alphabet Inc. for the title for the second-largest company in the world, after Nvidia Corp.

The company is expected to be a beneficiary of AI adoption, as hardware like the iPhone is expected to be a central place where users access AI services. Last month, Alphabet’s Google entered a multiyear deal to power Apple’s AI technology, including the Siri voice assistant.

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🇺🇸🇨🇳Trump holds ‘long and thorough call’ with Xi Jinping

President Trump held a “long and thorough call” on Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This reflects a continued thaw after last year’s trade war.

“The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way,” - Trump posted on Truth Social. 🤝

#BRICS

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🎮 AMD reveals next-gen Xbox could launch in 2027

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su let out a hint about when a next-gen Xbox could launch during the company's Q4 2025 earnings call.

"Development of Microsoft's next-gen Xbox featuring an AMD semi-custom SoC is progressing well to support a launch in 2027," said the top executive.

AMD has been a long-term partner with Microsoft on its Xbox consoles. Both the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles sport semi-custom AMD SoCs. More recently, AMD and Microsoft partnered for the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, and the two companies announced a partnership for the next-gen Xbox console in June 2025.

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🇦🇷🇺🇸 Argentina signs critical minerals deal with US

Argentina and the United States signed an agreement on critical minerals on Wednesday to strengthen and secure supply chains, according to the Argentine ministry. He said in a statement that the initiative is expected to drive significant economic growth for Argentina. The country’s mining exports reached $6.04 billion in 2025.

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💵 Google looks to plow $180B into data centers this year.

Google’s parent Alphabet is doubling down on generative AI in 2026. On Wednesday's earnings call, the search and advertising giant boosted its full-year capital expenditures target to between $175 and $185 billion, roughly twice what it spent last year. The search and ads giant will use that massive pile of cash to build data centers and buy the kit to fill them, to support its own products and the infrastructure needs of partners like Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Speaking during Alphabet’s earnings call, CFO Anat Ashkenazi said roughly 60 percent of the company's 2026 capex spend, or about $105 to $111 billion, will go toward fast-depreciating assets like servers. The remaining 40%, or $70 to $74 billion, will support the construction and networking of new data center facilities.

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⚡️📉Bitcoin price nears $63,000, hitting lowest levels since October 2024, hitting its lowest price in more than a year.

On Thursday, the price of Bitcoin fell sharply as broader financial markets weakened and traders moved money out of riskier investments. The slump pushed the global crypto market down by hundreds of billions from its peak in late 2025. The token is down more than 45% from last year's all-time high, erasing all of the gains made during President Trump's second term.

A mix of reasons is behind the slide. Some large Bitcoin holders and funds are selling their holdings, placing downward pressure on price. Analysts also say that high interest rates and weaker confidence in risky assets like crypto have made people cautious.

A similar dynamic is playing out with ethereum (ETH) ETFs, as investors are down approximately 31% given their average cost basis, according to 10X Research data. Altcoins are also seeing losses as traders shift money toward more traditional assets.

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🇺🇸🛳 US CENTCOM releases footage from onboard USS Abraham Lincoln amid tensions with Iran.

US CENTCOM released incredible footage showing the take-offs and landings on the USS Abraham Lincoln - the carrier has been called into action recently in the Gulf as tensions with Iran have increased.

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 US, China opt out of joint declaration on AI use in military

At a military AI summit, one-third (35) of the 85 attending countries pledged to govern AI in warfare and signed a commitment to 20 principles on AI on Thursday.

The document outlined the ⁠importance of risk assessments, robust testing and training ​and education for personnel operating military AI capabilities, affirming human responsibility over AI-powered weapons, encouraging clear chains of command and control, and sharing information on national oversight arrangements.

Notably, China and the U.S. did not sign. Major signatories on Thursday included ‌Canada, Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, South Korea and Ukraine.

#BRICS

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