Nvidia's board approved an $80 billion stock repurchase program on May 21 and raised the quarterly dividend 25-fold to $0.25 per share from $0.01. With $39 billion remaining under a prior authorization, Nvidia commands roughly $119 billion in total buyback capacity — one of the largest capital-return commitments in technology sector history. The announcement followed Q1 FY2027 results that beat analyst consensus on AI data-center GPU demand.
Linus Torvalds has warned that AI-powered vulnerability discovery tools are flooding the Linux kernel security mailing list with duplicate reports, creating what he calls 'unnecessary pain and pointless work.' He argues that AI-detected bugs are by definition not secret, and urges researchers to contribute patches rather than bare reports.
A new Goldman Sachs Alternatives report warns that agentic AI systems require 60x to 130x more energy than standard chat models, pointing to a projected 45 GW U.S. power shortfall by 2028 and a 600,000-worker skilled-trades labor gap as the real bottlenecks to AI scaling.
Cisco announced layoffs of nearly 4,000 employees on the same day it reported record quarterly revenue of $15.8 billion. The company cited a strategic shift toward AI infrastructure, with $5.3 billion in AI orders this fiscal year and a raised annual forecast of $9 billion.
Google's Threat Intelligence Group detected the first confirmed AI-authored zero-day exploit in the wild—a Python script bypassing two-factor authentication in a popular open-source web admin tool, intercepted before criminals could launch a mass exploitation campaign.
AI chip startup Cerebras Systems jumped nearly 70% on its May 15 market debut, closing with a market cap of roughly $95 billion — one of the largest opening-day valuations in U.S. IPO history. The blockbuster listing reignited investor interest in mega-private-company IPOs including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, while signaling a credible rival to Nvidia's data-center dominance.
Anthropic has raised $30 billion in its latest funding round led by Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter Capital — each contributing at least $2 billion — lifting its valuation to $900 billion and overtaking OpenAI's $852 billion private-market valuation. The company's annualized revenue has reached approximately $45 billion, a fivefold increase from the $9 billion pace at year-end 2025.
Alibaba Group posted an operating loss of CNY 848 million in its FY2026 results announced May 14 — its first operating loss in at least four years. Revenue of CNY 243.4 billion grew 3% YoY but missed the CNY 247.2 billion consensus. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates Alibaba is directing ~90% of e-commerce revenue into its Qwen AI model. $BABA fell 3.22% to $141.12 on the day.
The FDA has launched a first-of-its-kind pilot using cloud-based causal AI to shorten drug and medical device clinical trial timelines by 20–40%. FDA Chief AI Officer Jeremy Walsh says the approach could also accelerate regulatory approval timelines.
Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug discovery company founded by DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, has raised $2.1 billion in Series B funding led by Thrive Capital. The round includes Alphabet, GV, MGX, Temasek, CapitalG, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund.
Defense AI startup Anduril Industries raised $5B in a Series H co-led by Thrive Capital and a16z, doubling its valuation to $61B. The company doubled revenue to $2.2B in 2025 and will fund Arsenal-1 manufacturing expansion and Lattice platform advancement.
South Korea's KOSPI closed at a record 7,981.41 on May 14, its second consecutive all-time high, bringing the 8,000-point threshold within 0.24%. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led the rally as Nvidia's H200 China export authorization spotlighted Korean HBM suppliers as direct beneficiaries; the National Pension Service added roughly ₩50 trillion (~$36 billion) in two weeks.