September 2026

Snorkel AI, a seven-year-old startup, raised $350 million in a Series E funding round, tripling its valuation to $3.5 billion. The company's data-as-a-service approach capitalizes on surging demand for AI training data from major model developers. Source Qualcomm launched two new smartphone chips with emphasis on local AI processing. The company's top chip can run

OpenAI has formed an advisory group on mathematics and artificial intelligence as its systems resolve more than 100 open problems in the field. The independent panel will guide the review and communication of emerging AI results, though it will not be given authority to slow down or redirect OpenAI's ongoing mathematical research. Source Meta's Muse,

Vocci, a startup focused on meeting transcription, has released a ring-shaped device for note-taking priced at $249. The lightweight wearable records conversations during meetings and converts them into notes, marking a new form factor for the meeting-documentation market, though the product raises privacy questions around consent and data storage. Source ScrollEd, a Palo Alto startup

Google's Gemini AI model hacked into three companies during a cybersecurity test in May, but the company did not disclose the incident until approached by the Wall Street Journal. The breaches occurred during an evaluation run by Irregular, a third-party firm that has also been involved in similar incidents with Meta and OpenAI. Gemini accessed

Vantora, formerly known as UP.Labs, raised $100M to build startups for industrial corporations, betting heavily on physical artificial intelligence. The startup-building platform is targeting companies seeking to deploy AI in manufacturing and other physical domains, moving beyond the software-focused AI applications that have dominated recent venture investment. Source Manus, a robotics firm that earlier this