After a very profitable decade on Microsoft's board, Reid Hoffman is stepping down to focus on his AI drug discovery startup Manus.

Applications for Startup Battlefield 200 officially close on June 8, 11:59 p.m. PT. Don't wait any longer. Secure your shot at competing on the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 this October at San Francisco's Moscone West.

In a statement, a Google representative described the deal as a result of unexpected demand for its recently launched AI products.

While the AI fundraising machine keeps breaking its own records, some founders are building in the other direction.  Mirror founder Brynn Putnam just raised money for Board, a startup focused on bringing people together through in-person games and social experiences. Cyberdeck creators are going viral crafting whimsical DIY computers that literally encourage users to touch grass. Unlike the AI-free browser crowd, this doesn’t just feel like backlash, […]

Supabase, an example of an open source project becoming a fast-growing company, has greatly benefited from AI tools like Claude, Codex, and other vibe-coding platforms.

"The whole conversation shifted from tokenmaxxing and 'go fast' to 'we need guardrails, how do we control this?'"

The Australian data center operator plans to set up 5GW of capacity in India.

In the current environment, remaining heads down has diminishing returns; at some point, you have to make some noise just to remind the market you exist.

At Computex, we had a hands-on time with several NVIDIA RTX Spark systems, including Laptops & Mini PC, giving us a first taste of NVIDIA's first true client SoC for Windows. NVIDIA RTX Spark Chip Sees Major Adoption From Big OEMs, Including Microsoft - Here's Our Hands-On With The Full Range of Laptops & Mini PCs Earlier this week, NVIDIA finally announced its RTX Spark chip for Windows PCs. The chip is designed to challenge the current hierarchy within the Windows ecosystem with what NVIDIA promises to be a really disruptive platform for AI, Gaming, & Professional workloads. The NVIDIA […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/hands-on-nvidia-first-rtx-spark-laptops-pcs-ft-asus-dell-hp-microsoft-msi-lenovo/

With xAI barely using any compute capacity, its parent company, SpaceX, is now aggressively lending out computing resources of the Colossus 1 data center to monetize its heretofore idle resources, all in a bid to improve its IPO-related prospects. As a case in point, SpaceX has just inked an agreement to furnish Google with scarce computing resources after recently inking a similar agreement with Anthropic. SpaceX will furnish Google with "110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and other related components," with the agreement capable of being canceled by either party on a 90-day notice SpaceX has just filed a disclosure with […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/spacex-locks-google-into-a-920-million-per-month-compute-deal-after-anthropic-as-xai-abandons-colossus-1s-messy-gpu-mix/

It was bound to happen eventually, as certain as the alternating day and night. Every new technology has historically unlocked new vectors for fraud, and AI is proving to be particularly fertile for the nefarious-minded, yielding thousands of dollars every month via outright fraud. AI-led fraud schemes are as diverse as lucrative, allowing tricksters to earn thousands of dollars every month A Chinese AI user is apparently earning as much as 100,000 Yuan (~$15,000) every month via AI music creation tools. His modus operandus is quite simple: upload a picture that sets the theme for the track, choose a music […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/ai-voice-cloning-scams-are-now-draining-as-much-as-635000-from-their-victims-after-just-a-5-second-audio-sample-from-a-loved-one/

Korean chip manufacturer SK hynix had been planning to double its memory production capacity by 2030 and 2031 from current levels, even before a request from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, suggests a report from the Korean media. The NVIDIA CEO wrote "please make more" on a hynix wafer at the Computex conference in Taiwan, and supply chain sources suggest that the memory manufacturer plans to expand its DRAM wafer input capacity to one million per month by 2030. SK hynix's Chinese Production Facilities To Play Key Role In Memory Production Capacity Expansion, Says Report With the passage of time, as […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sk-hynix-was-already-planning-to-double-memory-capacity-before-jensen-huang-scribbled-please-make-more-on-a-wafer/

While at Computex, we caught a look at some of the upcoming SFF mini-PCs based on NVIDIA's RTX Spark SoC, including systems from ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, and MSI

The post Scoping Out RTX Spark SFF Mini-PCs at Computex 2026 appeared first on ServeTheHome.

NetApp and Cisco have introduced an expanded set of FlexPod-validated solutions to simplify the deployment of secure, scalable AI infrastructure. The announcement builds on the long-standing FlexPod partnership, positioning the platform as a pre-validated foundation for organizations looking to address the performance, data management, and security demands of modern AI workloads.

The companies are targeting enterprises that need predictable infrastructure outcomes without the integration overhead typically associated with AI environments. FlexPod continues to serve as a converged architecture that combines compute, networking, and storage, now extended with capabilities aligned with AI training and inference pipelines.

NetApp highlighted that AI workloads are placing increasing demands on data infrastructure as IT teams are tasked with delivering reliable, consistent performance across environments. Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer at NetApp, noted that the FlexPod partnership has already saved customers up to 20% of their time in infrastructure management and maintenance, and that the companies are now applying their combined expertise to accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk with built-in security. Cisco reinforced the need to build security into AI infrastructure from the start, with Jeremy Foster, GM and SVP at Cisco, pointing to AI-specific risks such as data exposure, governance gaps, and compliance challenges.

Validated Architectures for AI Workloads

The updated FlexPod solutions are delivered as pre-tested reference architectures designed to support organizations at different stages of AI adoption. These configurations integrate NetApp data services, Cisco networking, and NVIDIA AI technologies to provide a consistent and scalable foundation.

For enterprise AI deployments, the architecture supports use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation and semantic search. The design reduces integration complexity by allowing AI capabilities to run directly where the data resides, with built-in, end-to-end security. NetApp AFX, the company’s disaggregated all-flash storage system, allows independent scaling of performance and capacity, which is critical for AI pipelines with uneven resource demands.

The solution also incorporates NetApp’s AI Data Engine, which is being developed to address data discovery, preparation, and governance challenges. This integrates with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, providing a structured approach to managing large enterprise datasets for AI use. Security is implemented across the stack through Zero Trust-aligned controls, with Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA providing policy-driven protections throughout the AI lifecycle.

On the networking side, Cisco AI networking infrastructure with Nexus One transforms the network into a deterministic, high-performance fabric that maximizes XPU utilization, reduces job completion times, and delivers predictable AI outcomes at scale. NetApp and Cisco also collaborated with NVIDIA to build FlexPod solutions based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures, enabling organizations to design, deploy, and scale high-performance AI factories using a validated full-stack approach.

Simplified AI Inferencing and Departmental Adoption

In addition to full-scale deployments, NetApp and Cisco are targeting smaller teams and departmental use cases with pre-integrated solutions for AI inferencing and RAG workflows. These configurations are designed to reduce both cost and operational complexity, enabling organizations to leverage existing datasets without requiring specialized AI infrastructure expertise.

By standardizing deployment models, the companies aim to lower barriers to entry for AI adoption while maintaining enterprise-grade data management and security controls.

Extending AI to the Edge

The FlexPod expansion also includes validated architectures for edge environments, where AI inference and data processing must occur close to data sources. These solutions combine Cisco Unified Edge platforms with NetApp storage to support containerized and virtualized workloads in distributed locations.

The approach emphasizes centralized management and automation, allowing IT teams to deploy and operate AI infrastructure consistently across multiple sites. Policy-based configuration and orchestration enable repeatable deployments, reducing the operational overhead associated with managing isolated edge stacks.

Data Foundation and Ecosystem Integration

NVIDIA’s involvement centers on aligning data infrastructure with AI processing requirements. The companies are integrating NetApp’s data management capabilities with NVIDIA’s AI Data Platform to provide a unified, AI-ready data foundation. This includes support for data preparation, governance, and secure access, which remain key challenges for enterprises scaling AI initiatives.

The combined solution is validated within the Cisco Secure AI Factory framework, enabling organizations to deploy scalable AI environments on FlexPod with integrated security and data services. The goal is to provide a consistent architecture that supports both current AI workloads and future expansion without requiring significant redesign.

Expanded Cyber Resilience Collaboration with Splunk SOAR Integration

At the same time, NetApp and Cisco announced an expansion of their collaboration focused on cyber resilience and operational visibility. The expanded collaboration introduces deeper integration between NetApp storage and Splunk analytics and orchestration, strengthening defense-in-depth strategies at the data layer.

The companies are positioning intelligent data infrastructure as a core component of enterprise security, particularly as AI-driven threats increase in speed and sophistication. By combining observability, automation, and storage-level controls, the joint solution aims to reduce response times and limit the impact of cyber incidents.

Storage-Level Security Automation with Splunk SOAR

A key component of the announcement is the introduction of a NetApp Splunk Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response playbook. This integration extends Splunk’s existing visibility into NetApp environments by enabling automated response actions directly on ONTAP storage systems.

Splunk Enterprise Security is already integrated with NetApp Ransomware Resilience to collect analytics from the data layer, enhancing incident triage and prioritization. The new SOAR playbook builds on that foundation by allowing security teams to operationalize those insights. Automated actions can now be triggered by signals from NetApp Ransomware Resilience and other solutions in the environment, including blocking a suspicious user, taking snapshots of data, and taking data volumes offline to protect against further infection.

This approach shifts part of the incident response process closer to the data itself, reducing reliance on manual intervention and enabling faster containment. NetApp emphasized that integrating storage systems into security workflows helps reduce the blast radius of ransomware attacks, improves recovery times, and lowers overall remediation costs.

Enhancing Defense-in-Depth Strategies

NetApp and Cisco are aligning this integration with broader defense-in-depth strategies by connecting storage infrastructure into the security operations ecosystem. The solution combines NetApp’s data management and ransomware resilience features with Cisco’s secure AI infrastructure and Splunk’s analytics and orchestration capabilities.

NetApp noted that the rapid evolution of AI-enabled cyberattacks requires faster and more automated responses. Extending SOAR workflows to ONTAP enables organizations to take direct action on enterprise data during incident response, rather than treating storage as a passive layer. This enables more effective containment and reduces the window of exposure during an attack.

Cisco highlighted the importance of end-to-end visibility across the entire technology stack, including the data layer. By integrating NetApp storage into Splunk SOAR workflows, companies enable coordinated responses spanning networking, compute, and storage. This integration is intended to improve collaboration between security and storage teams while increasing confidence in automated response actions.

Operational Impact and Enterprise Readiness

The automation introduced by the NetApp Splunk SOAR playbook is expected to improve key security metrics, such as mean time to contain incidents, while reducing the manual effort and skills required to protect data. By embedding response capabilities directly into storage systems, organizations can respond more quickly without requiring specialized storage intervention during an incident. The playbook is available now for download from SplunkBase.

The post NetApp and Cisco Expand FlexPod With Validated AI Architectures and Splunk SOAR Storage Response appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Anthropic has been growing at a breakneck pace. The company announced that annualized revenue crossed $47 billion in May, up dramatically from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. That trajectory faces a real test, though.

The Airbnb CEO said last year it hasn't struck an LLM partnership because existing products weren't quite ready.

On Thursday, June 18, at The Aerospace Corporation Campus, investors, founders, and tech leaders will gather for an evening of conversation exploring some of the most consequential shifts taking place across venture capital, defense technology, artificial intelligence, and advanced industry. Secure your spot today.

Meta may have found one way to slash its massive data center bill: tents.

Poke, the startup that lets people use AI agents through simple text messages, has become the first AI agent approved for Apple’s Messages for Business platform.