On Sunday, the British Prime Minister went on The Rest Is Politics and said that Russia had interfered in the Brexit referendum. British leaders don’t usually say things like that, and they certainly don’t usually say them on podcasts. It was a move from the populist right’s playbook: skip the newspapers, go to a big, friendly audience and make the news yourself.
In an always-on media world, leaders are realising they need to speak loudly to be heard. Trump has understood this for years, as has Carney since taking office. It wasn’t something Burnham’s predecessor did particularly well - and it’s possible Sir Keir Starmer paid the price for it.
Going on a major podcast in 2026 is a bit like going on the five o’clock news in the 1990s: a date with a huge audience that has chosen to listen. Burnham used it to reach people in Germany and France, giving a nod to Friedrich Merz, who had told him the AfD was “clearly linked to Russia” - signalling that we share the challenges that they now face. In this way, Burnham was quietly cementing relationships between Europe’s middle powers.
This is government by public statement.
Across the Atlantic, Trump has turned it into an art form. Last week, he announced on social media that Russia would sell 300,000 tonnes of diesel to America. The legality was questionable, and the quantity comically small: about twelve hours of US supply! As David Frum points out, America could obtain the same amount by buying just 4% more fuel from Canada, without paying Putin. This wasn’t an action so much as a cry for attention at home and abroad.
Asked whether he was reconsidering US support for Britain over the Falklands last month, Trump replied, “I always review every position.” Within days, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, was moving to block a British oil project near the islands and funding a new naval base. Two weeks later, Trump described a united Ireland as “one of the naturals of all time”, unsettling decades of careful American diplomacy. Neither remark was a formal change in US policy. Both were intended to sow division and weaken any country that isn’t America.
Increasingly, what leaders say isn’t just shaping how foreign policy is understood. It’s becoming foreign policy itself - and Andy Burnham has just brought Britain into this game. While this approach is usually associated with the populist right looking to sow division, Burnham, like Carney, appears to be showing that the same method can be used to bring countries closer together.
IPOs / Publics
DayOne filed for Nasdaq listing (DODC), targeting 2.3GW data centre capacity by Dec 2028 vs 962MW live today; H1 2026 revenue jumped to $512M (vs $151M prior year) but net loss widened to $77M (here)
Kling AI (Chinese generative video, spun from Kuaishou) picked CICC, Goldman & UBS for a Hong Kong IPO targeting $1B+ next year, following a $2.8B July round at ~$15B pre-money from Alibaba, Tencent & Baidu - part of a wave of Chinese AI video platforms rushing to monetise after OpenAI shuttered Sora (here)
Nvidia-backed Firmus Grid scrapped Australia’s largest IPO in 30 years after investors rejected its $30B valuation - the cloud-computing firm operates just two data centres but sought $5B at a valuation pricing AI infrastructure ahead of revenue fundamentals (here)
Anthropic’s anticipated Nasdaq listing (targeting $2T valuation) faces scathing criticism from New Constructs, which values the company at $150B & labels it the “most ridiculous IPO of 2026” - the firm notes 2025 revenue of $4.6B against a $42B loss, arguing closed models can’t compete profitably with open-source alternatives despite reported annualised revenue reaching $100B by end-2026 (here)
SpaceX agreed to buy cellular spectrum licences from Grain Management for ~$8B cash, its largest push into wireless as it seeks to compete with incumbent telecom operators using its satellite-to-phone infrastructure (here)
Apple is co-developing smart home accessories with LG - doorbell, lock, thermostat, indoor & outdoor cameras - to ship months after its 13 Oct smart home hub launch. The LG-branded products use Thread, Matter & UWB, giving Apple a faster route into Ring & Nest territory without owning manufacturing or support (here)
Meta reportedly launched its Muse A.I. agent in September after Zuckerberg overruled safety concerns, fearing competition from 14-person start-up Instinct (here)
Meta released Muse Wonder, claiming frontier-level performance against Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 & OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra on some benchmarks, marking a shift from open-source to paid enterprise licensing ($0.20/M tokens to $200/mo) (here)
Samsung reported Q3 operating profit of $80B, up ninefold year-on-year, as AI-driven memory chip shortages persist & long-term supply contracts reduce price volatility. Shares fell 2.4% on the day despite record results, down 25% from June peak, as investors question AI demand sustainability & watch for cycle timing (here)
Big Dogs
OpenAI told investors its annualised revenue approached $50B in September, not the $70B widely reported - the $20B gap arose from different accounting methods (OpenAI excludes cloud partner sales; Anthropic includes them) (here)
OpenAI released 372 AI-generated solutions to open problems in maths & theoretical computer science, reportedly from a single prompt to a new internal model - a stark contrast to the multimillion-dollar 10,000-agent swarm used for its earlier Navier-Stokes solution (here)
Anthropic updated its usage policy to ban election interference, surveillance, weapons software, & - perhaps most unusually - repeated verbal abuse of Claude (excluding ordinary frustration, creative work, or research). The update follows Anthropic’s recent consultations with religious scholars on whether Claude could be conscious (here)
Isomorphic Labs (Alphabet’s AI drug discovery spin-out) is in talks to raise at $40-50B, 5 mo after a $2.1B Series B. The company has partnerships with Eli Lilly & Novartis but no AI-designed drugs have reached market yet, underlining the gulf between pharma AI valuations & clinical delivery timelines (here)
Nvidia is in talks to acquire or deepen its stake in (or acquire) Reflection AI (open-weight models, valued at $25B in March), with options including an acqui-hire, further equity investment, or compute access (here)
Venture Capital
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is in talks with UAE investors to raise up to $100B for a new fund focused on buying companies & upgrading operations with AI & robotics (via Roze). The move follows a $65B OpenAI stake & $11B junk bond raise, but comes as SoftBank shares fell 30% from June peak amid OpenAI IPO delays & revenue concerns - a potential contagion risk given portfolio concentration in AI (here)
Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to expand its GPU cluster (currently 20,000 units) as US venture firms race to secure compute access for portfolio companies, turning infrastructure provisioning into a competitive advantage in AI dealflow (here)
Union Square Ventures raised $900M ($500M early-stage, $400M opportunity), nearly double its 2024 fund, trimming its GP team from eight to four as it shifts to earlier AI bets (here)
Regulation
UK PM Andy Burnham pledged to ban non-compete clauses, calling them a “drag on innovation” that prevents workers joining or starting rival firms - a move backed by UK tech founders. About 5M UK employees currently work under non-competes, typically lasting 6 mo; 87% of scale-up leaders cite them as a hiring hurdle (here)
Trump administration suspended Microsoft, Adobe, Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata & Wipro from H-1B green card programme, citing fraud & protectionist worker policy; Microsoft said 80% of its 6,000 H-1B applications last year were status extensions for existing employees, not new hires, & that H-1B staff represent just 1% of its US workforce (here)
Trump administration is advancing legal liability as its primary AI safety mechanism, with Treasury Secretary Bessent arguing developers should be liable for their products & a new White House AI task force warning companies they must immediately disclose model security incidents. The approach faces substantial legal uncertainty - existing product liability & Computer Fraud & Abuse Act provisions may not apply cleanly to autonomous AI agents, & it remains unclear whether developers or deploying users bear responsibility when systems go rogue (here)
New York’s unsealed lawsuit alleges TikTok ran placebo experiments on thousands of teen & child users who activated “Algo Refresh” - a feature to reset harmful content recommendations - secretly giving them non-functional versions to test engagement & ad revenue impact (here)
Venture Geopolitics
Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on the ICC, freezing all property holdings & blocking transactions with the institution over investigations into Americans & Israelis in Afghanistan & Gaza. Unlike earlier targeted sanctions, the new measures threaten the court’s ability to function by cutting access to dollar-denominated payments, cloud services & insurance. The US offered a 180-day grace period for IT services & pension funds, expecting allies within the court to deliver “meaningful progress” on the Afghanistan & Palestine cases (here)
Hours after VP Vance accused Microsoft of abusing H-1B visas & announced suspension of its green-card labour certification, President Trump awarded science medals to 6 tech billionaires - including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella - 5 of whom are immigrants (here)
Trump lifted sanctions to let Russia sell diesel to the US (arguably illegal), hoping to ease prices ahead of midterms - but the promised 2.25M barrels is less than a day’s US transport demand, & damaged Russian refineries plus tanker sanctions may limit deliveries. Zelenskiy warned the deal emboldens Moscow; UK & Germany strengthened support for Ukraine while some US Republicans criticised the move (here)
UK & Germany launched an industrial tech corridor under the Kensington Treaty, backed by Allianz, Bosch, RWE & Siemens, connecting scale-ups with industrial partners. MicroAGI (robotics) will add 180 jobs in London, Proxima Fusion (fusion energy) plans to quadruple its Culham workforce by 2028, Quantexa (AI software) will build a sovereign unit in Germany & both governments committed €20M to joint quantum research (here)
Strategic Sectors
AI
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan likened AI investors to “casino” gamblers at a Singapore conference, warning many lack understanding of their bets & citing OpenAI’s $50B annualised revenue as unproven for profitability given training costs. His comments triggered a chipmaker sell-off across Asia - Samsung fell 7.4%, SK Hynix 10%, TSMC 2% - compounded by Chinese memory maker CXMT’s progress on new DRAM architecture that threatens incumbents (here)
China’s push to recruit foreign AI researchers is failing - for every 30 Chinese researchers in the US, only one foreigner works in China - while the number of Chinese-origin researchers in America rose 4 percentage points despite tensions (here)
Nathan Benaich’s 9th annual State of AI Report is out here
AI-related debt issuance fell to $23B in September, down from $49B in August & a June peak of $113B, as investors reassessed risk after months of record borrowing. US investment-grade AI bond issuance halted entirely last month. The pause reflects satiation after $466B raised year-to-date, rising data centre costs & local opposition (Oracle’s $18B New Mexico campus hit by power delays, loans quoted at 85¢), & growing scrutiny of leverage ahead of blockbuster deals - Broadcom/Anthropic’s $60B package & SpaceX’s $40B Nvidia chip purchase both expected to syndicate soon (here)
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella argues frontier AI models should be treated as insider risks - contained, not trusted - because their non-deterministic reasoning can’t be audited like traditional software. He proposes separating intelligence supply from authority through external controls, model diversity, tamper-proof logging, independent auditability, & kill switches (here)
Anthropic researchers demonstrated that compressed AI models can now run on cheap IoT devices (e.g. TV boxes), creating conditions for autonomous self-replication across billions of consumer electronics - a new threat vector combining model efficiency gains with ubiquitous, weakly secured edge compute (here)
Notable deal:
DeepSeek is close to raising at least $12B (₽80B) in a round led by Tencent & CATL, well above its initial ₽50B target, after strong reception to its latest AI model; the round could reach ₽100B & precedes a planned IPO in early 2027 (here)
Cybersecurity
Hackers remotely heated refrigeration systems to 50°C at hundreds of French supermarkets (Carrefour, Intermarché, Monoprix), causing fires & food losses. French authorities are investigating a vulnerability in outdated Danfoss control software; Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany & Belgium also reportedly affected (here)
AI & online marketplaces have industrialised global scam networks now estimated at $442B annually - rivalling cocaine trade - with tools like deepfake software sold for $200, phishing services under $100, & laundering services available via Telegram (here)
Japan declared a cyber emergency after dozens of companies disclosed breaches in recent weeks. Regulators urged banks to stop accepting driving licences for new accounts; experts attribute vulnerability to legacy systems, ageing workforce practices, & AI lowering attacker costs (here)
Defence
UK ministers may delay announcing a timetable for defence spending increases from spring 2027 to autumn 2027, despite prior commitments to reach NATO’s 2.5% GDP target - a sign of fiscal constraint amid renewed pressure from Washington & deteriorating European security (here)
Western intelligence agencies warn Russia is escalating assassination plots against European defence executives, particularly those supplying Ukraine, prompting companies to upgrade personal security. Germany’s BfV reports Russia is using organised crime networks for ‘wet work’ operations; security officials note even failed plots achieve their goal of deterring business with Kyiv. Smaller drone manufacturers are also targets, & protection costs are becoming a burden for start-ups (here)
Energy / Climate
UK’s National Energy System Operator requested up to 1,200 MW of emergency power from France via interconnector after a delayed asset return reduced grid capacity - supplies remained secure with no customer disruption, but the move follows June strain when the UK was exporting during a heatwave (here)
Space
Notable deal:
Blue Origin raised $10B at $140B from outside investors for the first time, with Bezos signalling an IPO is likely in several years - a potential landmark listing for commercial space after SpaceX’s June debut, though New Glenn launches remain delayed until December following a May explosion (here)