☕️ SpaceX posts record-breaking IPO

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In today's Techpresso:

🚀 SpaceX posts record-breaking IPO

🤖 Coinbase launches AI agent that trade for you

🇨🇳 China bans Western AI as US embraces DeepSeek

🎮 Pokémon Go players unknowingly trained military drones

🔌 Google courts Samsung for next-gen AI chip

Plus: 🎁 11 other news you might like, 🧰 6 tools, and 📚 4 papers.

🚀 SpaceX posts record-breaking IPO LINK

SpaceX is set to raise $75 billion in its IPO on Friday, selling about 555.6 million shares at $135 each, a price that could value the company at a record $1.77 trillion.

The offering has pulled in roughly $250 billion in demand, nearly four times the planned size, with retail investors ordering more than $100 billion in shares and BlackRock placing an order for at least $5 billion.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked the SEC to delay the IPO, citing the valuation, mandatory arbitration, and Musk's control over 85% of shareholder voting power, which she said leaves investors with significantly fewer rights.

🤖 Coinbase launches AI agent that trade for you LINK

Coinbase has released an AI agent that can carry out crypto trades and pay for premium research data for users, working through their main Coinbase account or a separate sandbox.

The agent can rebalance a portfolio, follow an investment thesis, or give one-time trade advice, and it reaches Coinbase Advanced for analysis while custom limits on trade size and spending arrive soon.

It pays for research APIs and compute using x402, an open payment protocol with no login needed, and works inside ChatGPT and Claude through Coinbase's MCP server.

🇨🇳 China bans Western AI as US embraces DeepSeek LINK

China is moving to push foreign AI models out of its ecosystem over security and privacy concerns, while many US firms keep adopting cheaper Chinese alternatives like DeepSeek for their AI needs.

The Ministry of State Security warns that people using third-party tools and marketplaces to reach US-based models such as Anthropic's Claude risk weak encryption, bait-and-switch models, data retention, and backdoors for cyber espionage.

US consumers keep choosing Alibaba's Qwen 3.6, DeepSeek V4 Pro, and GLM 5.1 because these open-source models run locally without licensing fees and offer cheaper hosted inference than OpenAI and Anthropic charge.

🎮 Pokémon Go players unknowingly trained military drones LINK

Location scans gathered from people playing the 2016 game Pokémon Go were used to train an AI model that may help military drones find their position in war zones where GPS is unavailable.

Niantic collected the scans through an opt-in feature added in 2021, then trained its foundation models on them before its spin-off, Niantic Spatial, partnered with drone software firm Vantor in December.

Both companies said the ground scans themselves were not given to Vantor and that the partnership is still early, while critics noted most players never read the terms allowing this use.

🔌 Google courts Samsung for next-gen AI chip LINK

Google is in talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture part of a future generation of its AI processors, as the company works to diversify its semiconductor supply chain amid rising demand for AI hardware, per The Information.

While TSMC would keep making the main computing component of the next-generation Tensor Processing Unit codenamed "Icefish," Samsung could build the part connecting the chip to memory using its 2-nanometer process technology.

The chip is being developed with Taiwanese designer MediaTek and stays in the design phase, with mass production starting as early as 2028, though neither Google nor Samsung confirmed the discussions.

Other news you might like

• OpenAI acquires AI agent orchestration startup OnaLINK

• Whistleblower Sues Elon Musk's xAI, Claiming He Was Fired After Raising Grok Safety ConcernsLINK

• Google sues suspected Chinese cybercrime ring that used Gemini to build scam websitesLINK

• Amazon: Our Data Centers Used 2.5 Billion Gallons of Water Last YearLINK

• Bitcoin Must Prepare for Quantum Threat Now, Coinbase SaysLINK

• Nvidia’s Vera CPU is its side door back into ChinaLINK

• After nearly breaking, NASA's Deep Space Network "worked well" on Artemis IILINK

• The AI industry's platform trap is starting to look a lot like Microsoft'sLINK

🧰 Trending tools

ShellMate: an SSH client with zero-knowledge encrypted vault and cross-device sync, simplifying secure server access for individuals and teams.LINK

Firma.dev: a developer-focused e-signature API charging $0.03 per envelope, letting you embed document signing workflows directly into your app without enterprise pricing.LINK

Qursor: a browser extension that captures element selectors, styles, and annotations so AI agents can edit specific UI components without ambiguity.LINK

KOSH Money: a USD account letting Asian freelancers receive, hold, and spend international payments without needing a US business entity.LINK

Bob's CLI: a locally-installed terminal AI coding assistant that keeps your code private, auto-detects models, and works without leaving your development environment.LINK

Meet Warren 3.0: a free AI agent that answers personal finance questions around retirement, home-buying, and debt repayment in under 10 minutes.LINK

📚 Trending papers & reports

Chatbot decision-making follows hidden patterns that the chatbot itself cannot fully explain, meaning you cannot trust its stated reasons for choosing one option over another.LINK

Math proof software now scores above the human gold-medal threshold on two elite olympiad competitions, hitting 35/42 on IMO 2025 and 36/42 on USAMO 2026, by generating, checking, and repairing its own proofs repeatedly until the best one wins.LINK

Memory compression for long documents now works more efficiently by breaking each document into small, focused chunks so only the relevant pieces are loaded per question, cutting memory use and improving accuracy.LINK

Compiler trust attacks can be neutralized by building a fresh, simple version of a programming language from scratch, avoiding hidden malicious code lurking in opaque pre-built binary files.LINK

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