Nvidia to invest $4 billion in two photonics companies

Nvidia to invest $4 billion in two photonics companies


Nvidia to invest $4 billion in two photonics companies
Published Mon, Mar 2 20268:36 AM ESTUpdated 55 Min Ago

Kai Nicol-Schwarz@in/kains
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Key Points
Nvidia is investing a combined $4 billion in Coherent and Lumentum, two photonics companies.
Each company will receive $2 billion each from the chip giant as part of the strategic investment.

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Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks during the 2026 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. Siemens and Nvidia announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to develop industrial and physical AI solutions to bring AI-driven innovation to industrial workflow. Photographer: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Nvidia is investing a combined $4 billion in two companies developing photonics technologies, as it looks to shore up research pipelines and supply chains to support the major AI infrastructure buildout.

The U.S. chip giant announced on Monday it’s investing $2 billion in Lumentum and the same amount in Coherent.


Both companies are developing optics technology — systems which generate or transmit light and are used in functions like sensing and data transfer.

Lumentum is a U.S.-based company that is developing optical and photonic technologies to power the networks and infrastructure behind AI, cloud computing and next-generation communications.

Coherent, also based in the U.S., develops photonics technology, which refers to harnessing light (photons) to create components and systems that enable high-performance optical applications.

“Together with Lumentum, NVIDIA is advancing the world’s most sophisticated silicon photonics to build the next generation of gigawatt-scale AI factories,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a statement.

 

Americans go founder mode

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What do you get when you combine a generation hooked on Shark Tank with a shaky US labor market and worries over job security? Errbody be foundin’. According to the Wall Street Journal: In January, there were more than 532,000 new business applications in the US—up by ~37% from last year and nearly matching the pandemic peak in July 2020. The number of people who list themselves as founders on LinkedIn is up by 69% from a year ago. While fears of AI-induced layoffs drive many Americans toward self-reliance, the tech also helps them once they strike out on their own. AI is lowering the barrier to entry for entrepreneurship by performing tasks like website creation and data analysis.

The Great Insider Trading Reckoning Reportedly Hits OpenAI

The Great Insider Trading Reckoning Reportedly Hits OpenAI

The Great Insider Trading Reckoning Reportedly Hits OpenAI
Apparently the paycheck isn't enough.
BY AJ DELLINGER

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 27, 2026

Photo Illustration Of Openai Gpt 5.3 Codex © Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images
READ LATER COMMENTS (3)

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have actively courted people who have insider information to place bets on their platforms, claiming that it serves as a “signal” in the noise. Turns out the companies from which that inside information is extracted are less thrilled with the idea. According to Wired, OpenAI has fired an employee who allegedly used internal knowledge about the company to place bets on prediction markets.

Read More

The employee (who was not named) was reportedly let go after an internal investigation found that they had “used confidential OpenAI information in connection with external prediction markets (e.g. Polymarket).” Employees were reminded that OpenAI prohibits them from “using confidential OpenAI information for personal gain, including in prediction markets,” per Wired.

Wired cited data from financial data platform Unusual Whales, which showed a surge of bets on OpenAI-related topics placed on prediction markets over the last few years. The platform reportedly flagged 60 different wallets with 77 positions that suggested they came from someone who had knowledge that likely came from inside OpenAI’s walls. Those included bets on the release date of Sora, GPT-5, and other products.

One big trigger point for the insiders was apparently the launch of the ChatGPT Browser last year. Per Unusual Whales’ data, 13 wallets with zero activity were opened, signed up for prediction markets, and collectively bet $309,486 on the product’s launch date. All of them were opened within 40 hours of the public unveiling.
Insider trading has become a real challenge for prediction markets, which initially indicated they would welcome such informed positions. Last year, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan told Axios, “I think what is cool about Polymarket is that it creates this financial incentive to divulge information to the market.” When asked about markets relying on people trading on insider information during an interview with 60 Minutes, Coplan said, “I think people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing.”

But in recent weeks, a crackdown on such trades has started—outside and inside the platforms. Last month, the Israeli government indicted two bettors accused of using privileged military information to profit on prediction markets. Earlier this week, prediction market Kalshi banned two people accused of insider trading, including a video editor for MrBeast and a former gubernatorial candidate in California. The company said in a blog post announcing the action that, “As a regulated exchange, we ban insider trading.”

That’s a new angle from the industry, though maybe a necessary turn. Inviting insider knowledge might be good for the platform in the short term, but it risks fucking up the bag as these platforms try to lock down corporate partners. There’s likely more money in that than in completely unregulated degeneracy.

OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment. We’ll update this post when they do.

Pokémon turns 30

 

Pokémon turns 30, shows no sign of slowing down

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If you were confused seeing Pikachu pop up during the 2026 Winter Olympic men’s hockey final, don’t be: Pokémon is everywhere. The iconic brand turned 30 yesterday and has been rolling out the red carpet for the little monsters to celebrate being a part of the highest-grossing media franchise in the world, as evidenced by its sponsorship of the icy intermission report during the hockey game and with a star-studded ad during the Super Bowl a few weeks prior. The Pokémon Company has generated around $150 billion in revenue through games, movies, TV shows, and more since it debuted its first two games in Japan in 1996. And about 30 million people still play Pokémon GO every month, 10 years after it first hit smartphones. But if you’re looking to make your own money from the phenomenon, the cards are Arceus: The Card Ladder index, which tracks the value of a collection of the most popular trading cards, showed the most popular Pokémon cards’ worth was up about 6,208% this month compared to May 2004, beating the S&P 500’s rate of return, which jumped just 521% during the same timeframe. And rare cards can skyrocket in value: Logan Paul sold a Pikachu Illustrator card for a record $16.5 million last week. Prepare for Trouble! The valuable collectibles have also attracted a whole mess of scalpers, resellers, and even robbers—last week, thieves tunneled through a California store’s wall to steal $180,000 worth of cards.

 

Anthropic–DOD fight ends with deal for OpenAI

Douglas Rissing/Getty Images

The US Department of Defense ended yesterday with an agreement to let an AI company access its classified network with some guardrails in place—but that company was OpenAI, not Anthropic. How we got here Even before time ran out on the Pentagon’s 5:01pm ET deadline for Anthropic to lose its $200 million defense contract unless it stopped requiring that its AI-model Claude could not be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Trump posted on Truth Social that the government would “IMMEDIATELY CEASE” using Anthropic’s technology and “not do business with them again!” After the deadline passed, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the DOD would label Anthropic a “supply chain risk”—a label typically stuck on businesses from adversarial countries that bars companies with US government contracts from doing business with them. And then…around 10pm ET last night, Sam Altman posted on X that OpenAI had “reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.” Earlier in the day, Altman said OpenAI shared Anthropic’s “red lines,” and his post suggested he’d somehow gotten the contract while maintaining them. It identified “prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance” and “human responsibility for the use of force” as two of the company’s bedrock principles and went on to say that the Defense Department agreed and “we put them into our agreement.” The fight was about who gets to make the rules The US military has developed plenty of advanced technology, like GPS, which gave it control over how that tech was used and disseminated. But it didn’t lead AI development. Private companies were better positioned to raise and spend billions of dollars to move quickly and amass specialized talent—leaving the government reliant on public–private partnerships, which bring complications: To turn a profit, tech companies must focus on commercial applications that bring in cash. Government contracts are an important money-maker, too. But if a company gets a bad rap for letting its tech be used in dicey situations, it risks losing its commercial customers. Bottom line: The Defense Department has said it wants to be an “AI-first” fighting force, and all the major AI companies are competing for lucrative contracts as the technology evolves much quicker than any regulations on its use.

Meta sold 7 million AI glasses in 2025: now the privacy problem has nowhere to hide

Meta sold 7 million AI glasses in 2025: now the privacy problem has nowhere to hide


Meta sold 7 million AI glasses in 2025: now the privacy problem has nowhere to hide

Posted byAlex MorganFebruary 28, 2026



Source: AI


IBM lost $40B because AI can’t actually modernize COBOL
Contents
Meta’s AI glasses are selling faster than anyone expected — and that’s the problem
The Prada play: Meta’s betting luxury branding can outrun privacy fears
What Meta won’t say: the privacy problem has no technical solution

Mark Zuckerberg sat front row at Prada’s Fall/Winter 2026 show in Milan on February 26. Everyone assumed luxury AI glasses were coming. They missed the real story: Meta sold 7 million AI glasses in 2025 — more than triple the prior year — and now faces a problem no fashion partnership can solve.

The company accidentally created the first mainstream wearable AI product. And the faster these spread, the harder it gets to pretend they’re just glasses.

Meta’s AI glasses are selling faster than anyone expected — and that’s the problem

The 7 million figure — combining Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta units — validates the smart glasses momentum at CES 2026, where every major brand showed AI eyewear prototypes. That’s up from 2 million in 2024, according to EssilorLuxottica, the parent company that manufactures both lines. Not a niche experiment anymore.

But success creates visibility. Visibility creates backlash.

Meta reportedly paused overseas expansion in early 2026 because U.S. demand was outstripping supply. The Ray-Ban success follows Meta’s AI infrastructure bets, which are reshaping how the company approaches consumer hardware. The more people wear these, the more non-wearers feel surveilled. And unlike a phone camera — which you point deliberately — glasses are always on, always facing forward, always recording potential.

The math is simple: 7 million wearers means hundreds of millions of unwitting subjects.
The Prada play: Meta’s betting luxury branding can outrun privacy fears

Zuckerberg’s Milan appearance wasn’t tourism. He sat beside Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s chief merchandising officer, at a show where the brand showcased its renewed 10-year licensing deal with EssilorLuxottica — running through December 31, 2030, with an option to extend through 2035. That infrastructure doesn’t get built for a one-off collab.

Meta’s current lineup establishes a pricing ladder: Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 at $459, the new Display model at $799. The Display version — Meta’s first glasses with a heads-up interface — shipped in late 2025 via U.S. reservation-only sales. It includes the Meta Neural Band for gesture control. Premium positioning, premium features.

The implicit bet: people who pay $1,200 for Prada sunglasses won’t get called “creepy tech spies.”

Meta’s luxury push comes as Apple’s rumored smart glasses threaten to redefine the category with privacy-first design. Meta held dominant market share in 2025 — one analysis pegs the broader AI smart glasses market at $2.9 billion, with Meta leading sales by wide margins over Huawei, ByteDance, Google, and others launching 2026 models. Dominance makes you a bigger target.
What Meta won’t say: the privacy problem has no technical solution

Here’s what we don’t know: specific 2026 privacy incidents with dates and locations. No reported bans. No viral confrontations. No regulatory crackdowns yet.

That doesn’t mean acceptance. It means the installed base is still small enough to avoid critical mass backlash.

Meta can add brighter LED indicators, louder shutter sounds, facial recognition opt-outs. None of it solves the core issue. You can’t un-film someone who didn’t consent. The fear isn’t hypothetical — AI glasses tracking private moments already sparked backlash in early tests. Consumers are ripping out Ring doorbells over surveillance anxiety. Prada branding won’t change that math.

The Prada collaboration could accelerate the tipping point. Luxury buyers expect social acceptance, not sidewalk confrontations. But fashion credibility can’t neutralize “surveillance gadget” stigma when the person being filmed didn’t sign up.

Meta sold 7 million AI glasses in 2025 by making them look normal. Now it’s betting Prada can make them look aspirational. But the faster these spread, the harder it gets to pretend they’re just glasses.

The winner for best WBD takeover

 

The winner for best WBD takeover offer is…Paramount

Niv Bavarsky

Yesterday, Warner Bros. Discovery had a busier day than Barbie when she entered the human world—and by the end of it, the famed studio had gone from having a deal to be acquired by Netflix to having new buyer Paramount Skydance lined up. It happened faster than a Twister: The ending of the monthslong corporate saga came together in just a few hours. In the afternoon, WBD’s board announced that Paramount Skydance’s most recent hostile takeover offer was superior to the deal it had previously struck with Netflix, starting a 4-day clock for the streaming giant to come up with a counteroffer. But by early in the evening, Netflix walked away instead, refusing to up its bid and making Paramount’s offer the winner. Here’s what it took: Paramount’s offer came in at $31 per share, compared to Netflix’s $27.75/share for the WBD streaming and studio assets. The overall value of Paramount’s offer was ~$111 billion, compared with Netflix’s ~$83 billion. Here’s looking at you, Ted Explaining the decision to tell WBD to get on the plane with Paramount, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and his co-CEO Greg Peters released a statement saying Kenough was Kenough: “This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.” Plus, Netflix can expect to receive a $2.8 billion breakup fee (covered by Paramount, per its offer to WBD). Netflix investors don’t seem bummed out. The stock jumped 10% in after-hours trading following the announcement. The credits aren’t rolling yet Though Paramount is now the winning bidder, the deal will need to be cleared by antitrust regulators in the US and abroad, a process that will likely take at least several months. Still, Paramount asserted last month that its offer provided “a more certain, expedited path to completion” than Netflix’s. Both Larry Ellison, who is bankrolling the Paramount deal, and his son, David Ellison, the Paramount CEO, have personal relationships with President Trump. Big picture: If the deal goes through, the combined Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery will control two streaming platforms, two major news networks, and two Hollywood studios.