Thinking Machines amps up its bet against one-size-fits-all AI with its first open model, Inkling

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this afternoon

View this email online in your browser  July 15, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Thinking Machines amps up its bet against one-size-fits-all AI with its first open model, Inkling: It's the company's first public proof point after a year and a half spent building AI infrastructure largely out of public view. Read More Microsoft patches bug in video game Age of Empires II: The vulnerability in the decades-old game could have allowed hackers to take over victims’ computers with a malicious game invite. Read More Amid hardware legal battle, OpenAI releases a $230 keyboard for Codex: OpenAI, which is in the middle of a legal battle with Apple over hardware trade theft allegations, just released a light-up keyboard designed to be paired with its agentic coding app. Read More A message from CAST New: Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for tech debt AI agents are not only accelerating software delivery, but the creation of architectural technical debt. Learn how leading organizations are tackling it. Download your full complimentary copy.  Download here Afternoon Must-Reads Microsoft patches record number of security vulnerabilities, citing its use of AI: Microsoft's monthly release of security fixes, dubbed Patch Tuesday, resolved a record 570 security vulnerabilities across the company's product line, thanks to discoveries with AI. Read More Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not just models: Anthropic-backed Ode launches as AI labs bet that embedding forward-deployed engineers inside enterprises is the key to accelerating enterprise AI adoption. Read More Tesla driver in fatal Texas crash pressed accelerator 100%, NTSB confirms: The safety board confirmed Tesla's account of the crash, which the company shared days after it happened last month. Read More India bets billions on breaking China's grip on smartphone manufacturing: New Delhi announced a $6.5 billion smartphone manufacturing program and a $13.3 billion semiconductor push to deepen India's electronics supply chain. Read More US charges Russian 'bulletproof' web hosts over cyberattacks that netted $62M from cybercrime victims: The 2024 indictment, now unsealed, accuses three Russians and two web hosts of aiding hackers and profiting from cybercrime. Read More Last but Not Least A SpaceX vet raised $65M to pull wire harnesses out of the Cold War era: Someone has to bundle all the wires that go into rockets, missiles, and satellites. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not just models

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  July 15, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not just models: Anthropic-backed Ode launches as AI labs bet that embedding forward-deployed engineers inside enterprises is the key to accelerating enterprise AI adoption. Read More India bets billions on breaking China's grip on smartphone manufacturing: New Delhi announced a $6.5 billion smartphone manufacturing program and a $13.3 billion semiconductor push to deepen India's electronics supply chain. Read More US charges Russian 'bulletproof' web hosts over cyberattacks that netted $62M from cybercrime victims: The 2024 indictment, now unsealed, accuses three Russians and two web hosts of aiding hackers and profiting from cybercrime. Read More A message from General Compute General Compute is making a $300m bet against GPUs General Compute raised $15m to build the worlds first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. ASIC silicon is also far more energy efficient, so it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making growth and expansion dramatically easier. Learn more here Morning Must-Reads OpenAI's first hardware device is reportedly a screenless speaker that can move: The device is weirdly described as involving "mechanical elements that can move on their own" and the Bloomberg report includes the detail that the device is designed to "feel like a companion and become a physical manifestation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT." Read More A SpaceX vet raised $65M to pull wire harnesses out of the Cold War era: Someone has to bundle all the wires that go into rockets, missiles, and satellites. Read More Vint Cerf is working on a plan to unleash AI agents on the open internet: The guy behind TCP/IP is working on a standard for identifying AI agents in the wild. Read More Backed by $60M in funding, Oak steps out of stealth to fix the identity mess that AI agents are making worse: Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Shai Morag, Israeli identity management startup Oak is emerging out of stealth with $60 million in seed funding.  Read More Why Realta Fusion is building a fusion reactor at an old hot dog factory: An old Oscar Mayer factory in Wisconsin will become America's latest fusion power research and development hub. Read More Last but Not Least OpenAI researcher Miles Wang in talks to launch AI drug discovery startup valued at $2B: The funding discussions point to investor interest in applying AI to make breakthroughs in life sciences. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107