Author: GT

Among the myriad details stuffed within U.S. President Donald Trump’s bumper “big beautiful bill,” European investors have been keeping an eye on one in particular — renewable energy policy. Shares of the region’s wind power firms gained on Wednesday after Senate lawmarkers narrowly approved a heavily amended version of the package . The move higher continued Thursday as the U.S. House began a final debate on the megabill — after a dramatic night of voting that was nearly derailed by Republican defections. Turbine manufacturer Vestas was 3.4% higher in early trade Thursday after gaining more than 10% in the previous…

OpenAI wants to make clear that Robinhood’s sale of “OpenAI tokens” will not give everyday consumers equity — or stock — in OpenAI, the company said in a post from its official newsroom account on X. OpenAI says it does not endorse Robinhood’s effort, nor was it involved in facilitating the token sale. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” said OpenAI’s newsroom account on Wednesday. “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval—we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful.” These “OpenAI tokens”…

“Is Qonto a real bank?” is one of the top suggested questions in Google searches about the French fintech startup. The answer is no, but it could change: Qonto has filed for a banking license in France, CEO Alexandre Prot revealed. Qonto, which targets European freelancers and SMBs, currently operates with a payment institution license it obtained in 2018, and which already enabled it to introduce a form of buy now, pay later (BNPL). But a credit institution license would let it offer broader lending, savings, and investment options to its target customers. Since its current license is valid across…

In late May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei appeared to kick open the door on a sensitive topic, warning that half of entry-level jobs could vanish within five years because of AI and push U.S. unemployment up to 20%. But Amodei is far from alone in sharing aloud that he foresees a workforce bloodbath. A new WSJ story highlights how other CEOs are also issuing dire predictions about AI’s job impact, turning employment doom into something of a competitive sport. Several of these predictions came before Amodei’s comments. For example, at JPMorgan’s annual investor day earlier in May, its consumer banking…

NEW YORK (AP) — A controversial bid to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade seemed on its way to passing as the Republican tax cut and spending bill championed by President Donald Trump worked its way through the U.S. Senate.But as the bill neared a final vote, a relentless campaign against it by a constellation of conservatives — including Republican governors, lawmakers, think tanks and social groups — had been eroding support. One, conservative activist Mike Davis, appeared on the show of right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon, urging viewers to call their senators to reject this “AI amnesty”…

No wonder Google is desperate for more power: The company’s data centers more than doubled their electricity use in just four years. The eye-popping stat comes from Google’s most recent sustainability report, which it released late last week. In 2024, Google data centers used 30.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s up from 14.4 million megawatt-hours in 2020, the earliest year Google broke out data center consumption. Google has pledged to use only carbon-free sources of electricity to power its operations, a task made more challenging by its breakneck pace of data center growth. And the company’s electricity woes are almost…

Venture capital firm Catalio Capital Management announced today the closing of its more than $400 million Fund IV, as first reported by Bloomberg. The fund will continue the firm’s thesis of backing healthcare and biotechnology companies.  The firm was founded in 2020 and has made more than 100 investments, according to PitchBook. Catalio’s Fund IV, in particular, has backed 16 companies already, including the diagnostics company PinkDx and the drug discovery company Superluminal Medicines. The fund seeks to make at least 30 investments, with the average check size being $15 million, the firm told TechCrunch. The firm previously raised a $381…

The social platform X will pilot a feature that allows AI chatbots to generate Community Notes. Community Notes is a Twitter-era feature that Elon Musk has expanded under his ownership of the service, now called X. Users who are part of this fact-checking program can contribute comments that add context to certain posts, which are then checked by other users before they appear attached to a post. A Community Note may appear, for example, on a post of an AI-generated video that is not clear about its synthetic origins, or as an addendum to a misleading post from a politician.…

Historic regional competition launches to showcase Central Eurasia’s rising startup ecosystem on Silicon Valley’s biggest stage. For the first time in its history, Central Eurasia will have a direct pathway to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield through the launch of “Road to Battlefield,” a groundbreaking regional competition that promises to put the underrepresented region firmly on the global innovation map. The competition, organized by Silkroad Innovation Hub in partnership with TechCrunch and Freedom Holding, will span nine countries across Central Eurasia: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. National competitions will lead to a regional final where the top…

Figma publicly shared its financials Tuesday, inching the design software company closer to an IPO. And while this initial S-1 is missing details such as number of shares to be offered and what price, the regulatory filing provides the clearest view yet of its financial health — and potential. IPO experts Renaissance Capital estimate that Figma could raise up to $1.5 billion in this offering. If it does meet or exceed that, Figma’s IPO will match or beat CoreWeave’s, which raised $1.5 billion and has been the biggest tech IPO of 2025 so far. There are some reasons to believe…