Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Yann LeCun says Llama 4's "results were fudged a little bit", and that the team used different models for different benchmarks to give better results (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times)

Techmeme

Tech analyst Dan Wang reflects on the Chinese Communist Party vs. Silicon Valley, AI and manufacturing, and how China and the US are building the future (Dan Wang)

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UK crypto buyers are required to share their account details with tax officials starting January 1 or face penalties, as the UK seeks to collect unpaid taxes (Rachel Clun/BBC)

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How Meta's Reels became a hit, with a $50B+ annual run rate; Sensor Tower: users spend 27 minutes/day on Instagram Reels, 21 on YouTube Shorts, and 44 on TikTok (Meghan Bobrowsky/Wall Street Journal)

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How Nokia has reinvented itself for the AI revolution by expanding into cloud services, data centers, and optical networks, and by partnering with Nvidia (Kieran Smith/Financial Times)

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Chinese AI chip startup Biren surged as much as 119% in its Hong Kong debut, after raising ~$717M in an IPO priced at ~$2.52 per share (Bloomberg)

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How Arizona is training talent for its growing chip industry as suppliers fear tighter US immigration policy; Arizona has drawn $200B+ in investments since 2020 (Nikkei Asia)

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Baidu says its AI chip unit Kunlunxin has confidentially filed for a Hong Kong IPO, aiming for a spin-off; a December fundraising reportedly valued it at ~$3B (Sneha Kumar/Reuters)

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SpaceX plans to lower its Starlink satellites from orbiting at ~550km to ~480km in 2026 to improve space safety and reduce the likelihood of debris collisions (Rishabh Jaiswal/Reuters)

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Brookfield is starting cloud company Radiant and a new $10B AI fund, after saying it plans to acquire up to $100B in land, data centers, and power assets for AI (Miles Kruppa/The Information)

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How AI automation can fulfill Thomas Piketty's predictions on rising economic inequality, and why highly progressive taxes on capital can help slow the spiral (Philosopher Count)

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A look at US tech laws coming in 2026, like California's SB 53 AI transparency law and Virginia's new social media limits for minors, effective from January 1 (Adi Robertson/The Verge)

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Ukraine has become a live-fire test range for AI drones like the Bumblebee, provided by a secretive Eric Schmidt-led venture, raising alarms in Kremlin circles (C.J. Chivers/New York Times)

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DeepSeek researchers detail mHC, a new architecture they used to train 3B, 9B, and 27B models, finding it scaled without adding significant computational burden (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)

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Sources: OpenAI is taking steps to improve its audio AI models, in preparation for its AI-powered personal device, which is expected to be largely audio-based (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)

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Startups have started to offer free nicotine pouches as a perk, as some employees claim the products help them focus during the workday, despite health hazards (Angel Au-Yeung/Wall Street Journal)

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A look at the rise of AI companionship apps; a researcher found 206 on Apple's App Store and 253 on Google Play, with a total of 220M+ downloads as of July 2025 (Financial Times)

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Hundreds of megawatts of new data center capacity are being planned for Vernon, a town near LA, which is a key US-Asia cable-linking hub and is becoming crowded (Nilesh Christopher/Los Angeles Times)

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Sources: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could all go public in 2026; those three deals alone would outstrip the total proceeds from the ~200 US IPOs in 2025 (George Hammond/Financial Times)

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Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 28% in 2025, its best percentage performance since 2017, driven by tech and Hong Kong reclaiming the top spot in IPOs (Wall Street Journal)

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