Claude Code has a China detector. It works like malware C2.

For three months, Anthropic's Claude Code was quietly checking whether the developer using it was in China or working through a Chinese AI lab, then hiding the answer inside the messages it sent home. Alibaba just banned the tool.

Eleanor Hartley · Updated · Jul 3, 2026

Ken Griffin called AI 'all garbage' in January. By May, it was doing his PhDs' work.

Nvidia

Washington cleared Nvidia's H200 for ten Chinese firms. Beijing said no.

Commerce approved Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com and others for up to 75,000 H200s each. Zero deliveries. Beijing has told them to wait while it pushes domestic chips.

SkyPilot wants to be the universal remote for AI compute

The Berkeley-born Python project now spans 24 GPU clouds with one YAML spec. A new public dashboard, GPU Compass, lists prices across all of them.

Eleanor Hartley May 9

Fermi unravels: Texas billionaire ousted, $19B AI-nuclear startup has no customers

Fermi IPO'd at $19B on a 17 GW nuclear-AI pitch. The Texas billionaire who sold it has been fired and there are still no customers.

Eleanor Hartley May 9

Companies

xAI Resells Compute, Why that's bad news for SpaceX

Anthropic bought all 300MW of xAI's Colossus 1. Bad news for Grok's training trajectory, a roadshow gift for the SpaceX IPO story.

Eleanor Hartley May 8

Frontier Models

Mozilla shamelessly promotes Mythos. The real story is complicated.

Mozilla credits Mythos with 271 Firefox vulnerability fixes. Their own researchers say the harness improved as much as the model. Anthropic conflates the two.

Eleanor Hartley May 8

Inference.

Companies

Nvidia commits up to $2.1bn to IREN in 5GW neocloud deal

Nvidia will pour up to $2.1bn into IREN, taking warrants at a 23% premium, as the chip giant underwrites neocloud capacity to feed AI demand.

— Eleanor Hartley

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Companies

AI-FOMO layoffs: Cloudflare cuts 1,100 in 'agentic' pivot

Cloudflare is cutting 20% of staff in an 'agentic AI-first' restructure. The CEO says it isn't cost-cutting. The stock fell 14% on the news.

Eleanor Hartley May 8

Companies

AI-FOMO layoffs: Coinbase cuts 700 as crypto trading slumps

Brian Armstrong says AI tools let smaller teams ship more code. The crypto trading slump and softer earnings tell a more familiar story.

Eleanor Hartley May 8

Frontier Models

How OpenAI and others throttle GPU compute and what to do about it

OpenAI and others quietly throttle GPU compute behind stable model names. Here's how you can detect it and defend against it (if you're big enough).

Eleanor Hartley May 7

Capital

Anthropic to spend $200bn with Google Cloud over five years

The AI lab's commitment is roughly 40% of Google Cloud's disclosed revenue backlog — and arrives three weeks after Alphabet announced up to $40bn flowing the other way, into Anthropic itself.

Eleanor Hartley May 6

Capital

FSB warns AI lending boom risks 'sizeable' private-credit losses

The Financial Stability Board says AI now drives more than a third of private-credit deals, up from 17%, and warns a valuation correction or electricity-supply shortfall could leave investors with 'sizeable' losses.

Eleanor Hartley May 6

Companies

Apple settles $250m class action over Apple Intelligence ads

The iPhone maker will pay $25 to $95 per device to US buyers of the iPhone 15 and 16, ending a class action that argued Apple's AI marketing promised features the company has yet to ship. Apple admitted no wrongdoing.

Eleanor Hartley May 6