The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

According to Reuters, Intel has opened up partial Atom processor technology to chip startup Rosaic Labs, in a rare move for the company to license core x86 architecture-related technology to external parties. The report states that Intel plans to provide Rosaic with the register transfer level (RTL) code for its Atom processor, enabling the firm to develop custom chip designs based on Intel’s intellectual property. Sources familiar with the matter noted that this is a relatively uncommon step in Intel’s history, as the company has rarely licensed x86 architecture or Atom technology in the past. Founded in May this year, Rosaic is led by CEO Amarjit Gill, with its core team including multiple former Rivos employees. Gill has long-standing investment partnerships with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan; the two previously co-invested in chip startup Nuvia and co-founded Rivos. According to public filings, Rosaic is positioned to launch a $10 million seed round financing.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed during the company’s earnings call that Microsoft will launch a Copilot "Super App" this year, integrating Copilot chat, GitHub Copilot programming assistant, and AI agent (agentic) capabilities to cover both consumer and enterprise user scenarios. Nadella noted that Copilot is evolving from a chat assistant toward a collaboration platform (Cowork) and autopilots. “This quarter, we will integrate Copilot experiences—including coding capabilities—into a single super app, a major milestone, and we will share more details in the future,” he said. Earlier reports had indicated Microsoft is developing an AI super app that combines the Copilot chatbot, GitHub Copilot, Copilot Cowork, and Autopilot system. Separately, OpenAI recently launched ChatGPT Work, an app integrating ChatGPT and AI coding tool Codex, further intensifying competition in the AI assistant platform space.

Microsoft stated during its earnings call that demand for Azure continues to outstrip its current capacity supply; newly deployed AI infrastructure can quickly generate economic returns in the same quarter it is launched, and the company expects free cash flow to return to positive growth in fiscal 2027 as capital expenditure growth slows. Additionally, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood revealed that the company’s fiscal 2026 cloud business revenue hit $214.4 billion, with Azure’s annual revenue crossing the $100 billion threshold for the first time. Notably, nearly 90% of this cloud revenue came from customers outside leading large language model (LLM) firms like OpenAI and Anthropic, signaling that enterprise AI demand has expanded broadly to a wider range of industry clients, rather than relying primarily on top AI model developers. As of press time, Microsoft’s U.S. stock gained 8.83% in after-hours trading.

So far in July, the equal-weighted Nasdaq 100 index has underperformed the equal-weighted S&P 500 index by 6.8 percentage points, marking what could be its worst monthly relative performance on record. Prior to this, equal-weighted tech stocks had outperformed the broader market for four consecutive months. Over the past 20 years, there has never been a case where the average performance of tech stocks lagged the S&P 500 average by more than 5 percentage points. Meanwhile, the equal-weighted S&P 500 index has risen 2.2% so far this month, standing at a historical high. By contrast, the equal-weighted Nasdaq 100 index has fallen 4.6%, approaching its lowest level since mid-May. Investors are taking profits from tech stocks at a record pace. (Jinshi)

U.S. Central Command: U.S. military forces launched strikes against Iran starting at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) today (8 a.m. Beijing time this morning). The strikes are a powerful response to Iran’s attempted attack on U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East yesterday.

Samsung Electronics has announced its second-quarter financial results: revenue reached 171 trillion won, operating profit stood at 89.4 trillion won, basically in line with market expectations; net profit was 71.3 trillion won, exceeding the market forecast of 68.5 trillion won. Among them, the chip division’s second-quarter operating profit hit 89.2 trillion won. Looking ahead, Samsung Electronics stated that server chip demand will remain strong in the second half of the year, and the chip supply shortage is expected to persist, while demand for mobile and PC chips may slow down. The company expects that driven by continuous capital expenditure on AI infrastructure and broader autonomous AI applications, memory business demand will continue to stay strong, and it forecasts that profit will keep growing in the second half of the year. Additionally, the depreciation of the won brought a positive impact of approximately 3.1 trillion won on the company’s second-quarter results.