Europe has entered the big leagues of supercomputing with Jupiter, which this month became the first European system to achieve the exascale threshold of more than one quintillion (a billion billion) operations per second. Jupiter is Europe’s most powerful compute platform and the fourth fastest worldwide. It is a hybrid platform that uses a combination of SiPearl and Nvidia chips, respectively supporting HPC tasks like simulations and data analysis as well as AI workloads, such as training large language models and providing access to the Jupiter AI Factory (JAIF), a managed interface for developers and academics. Read more

OpenAI is hoping an animated short film called “Critterz” that it got off the ground will have its feature-length debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026. OpenAI is providing the AI technology to produce the film, which is being funded at $30 million by Paris-based Federation Studios, whose UK subsidiary Vertigo Films will produce in conjunction with Culver City’s Native Foreign, a firm known for blending AI with conventional techniques. OpenAI is providing use of its generative models, including the Sora video generator and DALL-E imager, to create what it hopes will be a test case. The idea is to complete in nine months what would normally take years at a fraction of the cost. Read more

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the latest customer to purchase spectrum from EchoStar as that company continues to restructure. The firms have reached a definitive agreement for SpaceX to acquire $17 billion worth of AWS-4 and H-block spectrum, designated for mobile and satellite communications. SpaceX will also fund approximately $2 billion of cash interest payments payable on EchoStar debt through November of 2027. In addition, EchoStar is entering into a long-term commercial agreement that will allow it to access SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink Direct to Cell service for EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers. Read more

During its latest live-streamed event yesterday, Apple debuted new product models, including the iPhone 17 Air, the company’s first ultra-slim smartphone. Made of titanium, it’s priced at $1,000. The entry level of the group, the iPhone 17, costs the same as the iPhone 16, at $800, with an improved display and double the storage (256GB). Fully loaded, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the company’s most expensive phone ever at $2,000 with 2TB of storage and a 6.9-inch OLED screen. All four models come with a 48MP rear camera, while the new A19 Pro chipset powers the 17 Pro, Pro Max and Air. Apple also unveiled a new collection of smartwatches and the AirPods Pro 3. Read more

OpenAI is said to be in talks with Broadcom about developing custom AI inference chips to run its models. On an earnings call last week, Broadcom disclosed that an AI developer had placed a $10 billion order for AI server racks using its chips. That new customer was reported to be OpenAI, which has relied primarily on hotly sought-after Nvidia GPUs for model training and deployment. Broadcom specializes in XPUs — accelerator chips designed for specific uses, like inference for ChatGPT. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly complained that a shortage of chips has impeded the company’s ability to get new models and products to market. Read more