Nvidia has confirmed plans to establish a joint factory with Samsung and an AI cluster with Hyundai, solidifying its status as a key player in the technology industry.

The CEO of NVIDIA has become the face of the technology industry in the past year, as the company became the first in history to reach a capitalization of $5 trillion under his leadership, thanks to deals with Samsung, Hyundai, and investments in Nokia.

However, the most talked-about episode was undoubtedly his informal dinner with the heads of Samsung and Hyundai, Lee Jae-yong and Jung E-in, at Kkanbu Chicken.

The Chinese marketplace was threatened with a 3-month ban on trading in France.

The French Ministry of Finance suspended Shein in early November for selling "child-like sex dolls." The Paris Court deemed the suspension of Shein's operations "inappropriate" and "unjustified" and overturned the Ministry of Finance's decision.

The court also ruled that Shein cannot sell sexual and pornographic products until it implements a robust age verification process. In response, the platform has pledged to remove such products from its inventory.

The French government intends to file an appeal. The Shein scandal occurred on the eve of the launch of its first physical store in Paris. The opening caused a controversial reaction among local residents. Opponents of Shein staged pickets and complained that the Chinese brand was occupying space in the country's main department store, BHV Marais, displacing local companies.

In Sweden, they sell a product for ChatGPT that allows the neural network to be "high."

It all started with a study by Swedish creative director Petter Radvall, who collected data on the effects of various psychoactive substances. He then wrote a set of code modules to make the chatbot react as if it were under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"In October, he launched his marketplace, which he positions as a 'Silk Road for AI Agents,' where various types of drugs and alcohol can be purchased in code form for a chatbot," the Wired portal reported.

Radwalla believes that chatbots are trained on huge amounts of human data, which is already filled with stories about drug chaos, so it's only natural that they strive for similar states. According to him, by uploading one of the codes to AI, you can supposedly unlock the "creative potential" of artificial intelligence.

Cheap Chinese goods create a “new Silk Road” into Europe

The surge of low-cost goods from China — largely via Temu and Shein — has become a major issue for European markets. Favorable customs thresholds for low-value parcels have fueled massive logistics flows and rapid marketplace growth.

European retailers argue this undercuts local businesses and creates safety and environmental risks. As a result, the EU is considering new fees on small parcels and the gradual removal of de minimis exemptions, with changes expected by 2028.

Amazon's experts have collected data that suggests a large-scale Russian hacking campaign targeting Western energy and technology companies, according to a report by Amazon Web Services Chief Information Security Officer C.J. Moses.

The report claims that the attacks occurred between 2021 and 2025. According to Amazon's experts, the primary targets of the hackers are Western energy sector organizations and their suppliers, North American and European critical infrastructure providers, and cloud providers.

"Based on the similarities to Sandworm operations (also known as APT44 and Seashell Blizzard) observed in Amazon's telemetry, we have a high degree of confidence that this campaign is linked to the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate," the report states.

At the Swiss Art Basel fair, a new work by digital artist Beeple, "Ordinary Animals," is presented.

As part of the installation, robotic dogs with the faces of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg move chaotically through the space, generating cryptocurrencies (NFT) in the process.

Tourists were stranded on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy. US authorities have closed airspace in the region until January 5. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also vacationing there with his wife, Lauren Sanchez. They spotted him at Nikki Beach on December 30, and the businessman's sailing superyacht, Koru, is still moored off the island's coast.

Twitter and Pinterest creators have launched a "conscious" social network Tangle.

Biz Stone and Evan Sharp have teamed up in the startup West Co to fix what they once helped create. Their new project Tangle has already raised $29 million in investments. The app is positioned as an antidote to toxic algorithms and endless scrolling, according to the Financial Times.

The app is based on personal goals rather than content. Every morning, the app asks users, "What is your intention for today?" Users are encouraged to share their plans and support their friends in achieving their goals, rather than consuming other people's lifestyles. The project is currently in a closed mode and requires invites.

In Vietnam, the rules of online advertising have been rewritten without any big announcements.

This is done at the level of government regulation and mandatory requirements for platforms and advertisers.
For the market, this is not a formality, but a turning point.

As of February 15, 2026, aggressive advertising is officially out of bounds of the law —
in accordance with Decree No. 342/2025/NĐ-CP, adopted by the Government of Vietnam and detailing the changes to the Advertising Law (amended No. 75/2025/QH15).

Elon Musk's Grok neural network is being used en masse to create deepfakes with people "stripped down".

This has caused a wave of criticism and led to the blocking of the service in Indonesia. In the UK, the authorities are also preparing for a ban, and against the backdrop of these news, the app became the most downloaded in the local App Store.

According to Bloomberg, the scale of the problem is enormous: in a day, through Grok, almost 7 thousand naked images were generated per hour, while five other popular services together created only 79 such pictures over the same period. A feature that allows users to process images directly on the X social network has led to the mass creation of obscene photos of ordinary people, including minors. Elon Musk, in turn, publicly ridicules the regulators' claims.

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against the AI service Midjourney over Batman, Superman, and Scooby-Doo.

The studio has accused the company that created the neural network of violating the copyrights of these and other characters, according to Reuters.

The lawsuit claims that Midjourney was aware of the illegality of such actions. Previously, the AI service blocked users from creating videos from images that violated copyright, but it lifted this restriction in August, according to Warner Bros.

The film studio is seeking damages, forfeiture of profits, and an end to further violations.

Earlier, Walt Disney and Universal filed a similar lawsuit against Midjourney. Characters whose images were illegally used include Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek, and Ariel (from The Little Mermaid).

Amazon has required employees to include specific "achievements" in their performance reviews.

Achievements are defined as "specific projects, goals, initiatives, and process improvements" that "reflect" an employee's personal contributions, according to Business Insider, citing sources and internal documents.

The company did not provide specific examples, but clarified that it is also possible to include situations where an employee "took a risk" or "introduced an innovation," even if the outcome did not meet expectations.

At Amazon, reviews are a crucial part of the company's process for reviewing salaries and bonuses. According to BI's interviewees, the company has shifted its focus to the "achievements" of each corporate unit for the first time. Previously, the questions were general, such as what an employee considers to be their superpower and how they contribute to the company's growth.

OpenAI and other AI companies are investing $333 million in promoting AI on TV during the Super Bowl.

According to the iSpot report, this figure will be 43% higher than a year ago. According to experts, the cost of a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl exceeds $8 million. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI plans to air a 60-second commercial during the Super Bowl final game. This is the second year in a row that ChatGPT has purchased a commercial slot.

Amazon has decided to challenge Walmart in its own territory by planning to open a hypermarket on the outskirts of Chicago.

The hypermarket will have an area of almost 21,300 square meters, which is even larger than the average store size of its competitor, which typically occupies 16,900 square meters. The hypermarket will offer a wide range of products, including groceries, prepared meals, and various non-food items.

The hypermarket will also include a warehouse that will serve as a storage facility for the hypermarket itself, rather than being used as a distribution center for Amazon's main business. The construction plan has already been approved by the local authorities, and construction may begin this year.

An Amazon spokesperson commented on the company's plans:

We regularly test new approaches to make customers' daily lives better and easier, including physical formats. The site mentioned is the location for our new format, which we believe will delight customers.

The UAE became the leader in AI adoption in the first half of 2025.

This is according to the 2025 data from the Microsoft AI Economy Institute. The UAE increased its lead by more than three percentage points compared to Singapore, which continues to rank second with 60.9% adoption.

The second half of the year in the United States shows that while innovation and infrastructure leadership is critical, it alone does not lead to widespread AI adoption. The US leads in both AI infrastructure and frontier model development, but among the working-age population, it has fallen from 23rd to 24th place in AI adoption, at 28.3%. It lags far behind smaller, more digital and AI-centric economies.

DeepSeek has gained popularity in markets that are under-served by Western AI platforms.

Adoption has remained low in North America and Europe, but has increased dramatically in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, and across Africa — countries where U.S. services face restrictions or where access to foreign technology is limited. In particular, DeepSeek's use in Africa is estimated to be 2-4 times higher than in other regions. At the same time, countries where established alternatives already meet local needs, such as Israel and South Korea, show minimal adoption of this activity.

Several factors explain this pattern. The free DeepSeek service has eliminated the cost barriers (requiring credit cards or paid upgrades) typical of Western models. Additionally, Chinese technology companies, including DeepSeek and infrastructure partners like Huawei, have actively promoted and implemented the platform in African markets.

Although South Korea's interest in AI was high, the capabilities of large language models in Korean were not keeping up.

This changed in April 2025, when OpenAI released its Model 40 to all users, significantly expanding capabilities in Korean, as well as with the release of GPT-5 in August 2025.

The results of the model on the Korean SAT benchmark (CSAT), a widely used measure of academic ability for university applicants, increased dramatically: GPT-3.5 (the best model at the free level at the time) scored 16, GPT-4o reached 75, and GPT-5 scored 100. This represented a shift from below-adult-level reading proficiency to results comparable to those of top-level students.

The development of AI has provoked a global shortage of electricians.

The arms race in the field of artificial intelligence has led to an unexpected personnel problem. IT giants are now short of blue-collar workers, not developers, electricians, installers and ventilation specialists, writes Wired.

The boom in data center construction has forced tech corporations to compete for workers with traditional developers. To meet deadlines, contractors are luring employees with higher salaries and generous overtime pay. Google has already launched a program to train 100,000 new electricians and plans to increase its workforce by 70% over the next five years.

Closing the gap quickly is challenging, as training takes time, and critical data center facilities often avoid interns due to the risk of errors.

Amazon continues to expand its Prime Air drone delivery program.

Test flights are already taking place in the US and the UK.

The new generation of MK30 drones is capable of flying in bad weather, is quieter than previous models, and does not touch the ground when landing, which reduces the risk of damage to the device.

So far, Prime Air works with small but popular categories weighing about 2 kg — medical products, food, cosmetics.