Tech, in brief

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, released Claude Opus 5.5 on Tuesday. [1][2]

Anthropic says a typical job costs about 40% less to run on Opus 5.5 than on Opus 5. Each piece of text is cheaper, and the model uses fewer of them. [1][2]

AI companies charge by the token, a small chunk of text that is the basic unit of AI work. [4] Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million tokens read and $20 per million written, 20% less than Opus 5. [1]

OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, its mid-sized and small models, the same day. It says they cost half as much as the models they replace. [1]

Luna costs $0.10 per million tokens read and $0.50 per million written. Sol costs $2 and $10. [1]

Neither release is mainly about new abilities. Both labs are chasing business customers who send routine work to cheaper models, including free-to-download ones from Alibaba, Moonshot AI and DeepSeek in China. [1][2]

They are the first releases since Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, called on the industry to slow down. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk backed that call. [2]

Reuters reported last week that Anthropic was weighing a new model to answer OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, released on 3 September. [3]

Astra takes about 13% of the business AI spending tracked by Ramp, a company-card firm, against 8% for Anthropic's top model, Claude Fable, Reuters said. [3]

Tests run by Anthropic and its partners show Opus 5.5 beating Astra at some coding and office work, by small margins. [1]

Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is strong in risky areas like cybersecurity and biology. Some requests on those topics may be quietly passed to an older model. [1]

Apple is pitching its new Macs to businesses as a way to run AI at the desk without paying OpenAI or Anthropic per token. Macs hold about 4.6% of business desktops against 91.3% for Windows, by IDC's count. [4]

Why it matters. Watch whether business customers bring routine work back to Anthropic and OpenAI at the new prices. [1] The next test of the slowdown is whether either lab's next release is a stronger top model. [3]

Four people who pay for ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini filed a class action in a California federal court on 18 September. [5][6] They say Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google broke US competition law by agreeing to slow how fast they improve their products. [5] The case is built only from public statements, starting with Amodei's essay and Altman's reply. [5] It asks for triple damages and a jury. [5]

Why it matters. Amodei's essay had itself said such talks might need a legal waiver, and none exists. [5] Mistral, France's main AI company, said last week that big firms were using the moment to protect their market position. [7]

Universal and Sony, two of the three biggest record companies, sued Suno again on 18 September, this time over 60,202 recordings. [8] Suno makes AI that writes songs from a typed request. [8] The labels say a forensic check of Suno's training data found the songs. [8] A judge told them to file a new case rather than add them to the first one, from June 2024. [8] They ask up to $150,000 per recording, a ceiling past $9bn in all. [8]

Why it matters. The complaint lists three licence deals Suno signed since November 2025, with Warner, BMG and Believe, as proof that a market for training music exists. [8] If a court accepts that, Suno's own deals become evidence against it. [8]

Anthropic and OpenAI have asked Australia's parliament to soften rules that stop AI firms training on Australian creative work without permission, Reuters reported on Tuesday. [9] In October 2025 Australia's government ruled out a copyright exception for this kind of data mining. [9] Anthropic suggested a narrow, conditional approval and offered support for Australian creators, and OpenAI asked for a balanced framework. [9] Both tied the request to data centres they plan in Sydney and Queensland. [9]

Why it matters. Papers released under Freedom of Information show Amodei raised copyright with Treasurer Jim Chalmers in April. [9] Officials noted that Anthropic would say its investment depended on clear copyright rules. [9]

The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver proposed on 18 September that lawyers certify a human has checked any filing written with AI help. [10] The checker must confirm that every cited case exists and every quotation is accurate. [10] The rule would start on 1 January 2027 in six states, including Colorado and Utah, and cover people who represent themselves too. [10] It would be the first such rule among the 13 US federal appeals courts. [10]

Why it matters. Courts keep receiving filings with case citations that AI made up, and the court's clerk says existing rules are not being followed. [10] The 5th Circuit dropped a similar plan in 2024 after lawyers objected. [10]

Waymo, the driverless-taxi company owned by Google's parent Alphabet, now lets 13- to 17-year-olds ride without an adult in Nashville, Tennessee. [11] A parent or guardian must link the account, and a teen may bring up to three friends of the same age. [11] Phoenix was first, last year, and Waymo says more cities will follow where local rules allow. [11] Paid Waymo trips grew from 50,000 a week in May 2024 to more than half a million earlier this year. [11]

Why it matters. Teenagers who cannot drive rely on parents or buses, so this opens a new group of riders. [11] Waymo did not say how it checks the ages of the friends. [11]

Hyundai will build tens of thousands of Ioniq 5 robotaxis for Waymo at its plant in Georgia, chief executive Jose Munoz said. [12] He said the robotaxi business is already profitable. [12] US electric-car demand slowed after the tax credit ended, and Hyundai is filling its plant with robotaxis instead. [12] Waymo runs about 4,000 cars in US cities today. [12]

Why it matters. Europe cannot take numbers like these yet: the only approval that works across the whole EU for a fully driverless car allows 1,500 a year per model. [12] Waymo's plan in Germany covers one city, Munich, from late 2027. [12]

Waymo will launch its first Southeast Asian robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028. [13] Its electric Jaguar cars arrive in the coming months and will be driven by hand until 2027, while the system learns local roads and monsoon rain. [13] It is working with Singapore's transport ministry and Land Transport Authority. [13] Waymo did not give a fleet size, fares, hours or service area. [13]

Why it matters. Cyclists and scooter riders matter more on Singapore's roads than on most US streets Waymo drives. [13] Waymo says its US cars are in 94% fewer injury crashes than human drivers, a figure it publishes itself. [13]

Waymo restarted paid rides in San Antonio, Texas, five months after floods in April. [14] Several of its cars slowed but did not stop at flooded streets and got stuck, which led to a recall in May. [14] Waymo says it changed its software to spot and avoid standing water. [14] Dozens of cars now cover a 60-mile area that includes downtown and the airport. [14]

Why it matters. Waymo now offers paid rides in 15 US cities. [14] A flood stopped the service in one city for five months, a limit that no permit set. [14]

A Nevada permit that held Amazon's Zoox to 100 robotaxis expires on 25 September, a state official and Zoox confirmed. [15] Zoox builds box-shaped robotaxis with no steering wheel or pedals. [15] It began charging for rides in Las Vegas last month under a federal exemption that allows up to 2,500 such cars a year for two years. [15] A tracker estimates that just over 30 Zoox cars run in the city. [15]

Why it matters. Waymo, Tesla and Uber all now hold driverless ride permits in Las Vegas, so Zoox gets room to grow as rivals arrive. [15] Zoox would not say how many cars it will add. [15]

Joby Aviation says an aircraft flew itself 3,199 miles across the United States, from California to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. [16] It used a converted Cessna Caravan fitted with Joby's self-flying system, which taxied, took off, cruised and landed. [16][17] A pilot sat on board to meet the rules but gave no control input, Joby says, and staff watched remotely. [16][17] The plane is now flying back west with stops. [16]

Why it matters. Joby is best known for electric air taxis it plans to open to the public this year. [16] It says the same self-flying kit can be fitted to existing planes and used for freight, rescue and the military. [16][17]

Qualcomm, which designs the main chips for many high-end Android phones, launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 on Tuesday, with a faster Extreme version. [18][19] TSMC makes both on its 2-nanometre process, a first for Qualcomm. [18][19] Qualcomm says the Extreme chip can run AI models with 30 billion parameters on the phone itself. [19] Motorola, Xiaomi, ZTE and others will use them. [18][19]

Why it matters. Counterpoint Research expects phone shipments to fall 14% this year, because memory costs have pushed prices up. [19] Phone makers are leaning on expensive models, and AI that runs without the cloud is their pitch. [19]

CXMT, China's biggest maker of DRAM, the short-term memory a phone or computer works in, says its fifth-generation process is now in mass production. [20] It says each silicon disc now has room for at least 50% more chips than before. [20] It got there without the advanced machines US export rules have kept from China since 2022, by repeating coarser printing steps four times. [20] The first products are memory chips for mid-range and high-end phones. [20]

Why it matters. A new supplier matters while memory shortages push up the price of phones and PCs. [20] Nobody outside CXMT has tested its claim to match Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, and it has published no figure for how many chips pass testing. [20]

Microsoft said on Tuesday it will give DARPA, the US military's research agency, hands-on access to its quantum computer at a new centre in Maryland. [21] Until now DARPA tested Microsoft's machines remotely, in Washington state and in Europe. [21] The system uses Microsoft's Majorana 2 chip and can take newer chips later. [21] DARPA is judging whether any quantum design can be worth its cost by 2033. [21]

Why it matters. Quantum computers might one day break the codes that protect messages today, which is why defence agencies care. [21] Microsoft says it will have commercial systems by 2029. [21]

Nexstrom, a start-up in Singapore, raised $12m to build machines that grow ultra-thin chip materials directly on standard 12-inch silicon discs. [22] The materials are a few atoms thick and could let chips keep shrinking where ordinary silicon struggles. [22] Its chief scientist, Lance Li, used to lead research on chips beyond silicon at TSMC. [22] It expects its equipment to be ready for factories between 2030 and 2035. [22]

Why it matters. Nexstrom plans to sell to chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung and Intel rather than compete with them. [22] It says some are already testing its samples, but will not name them. [22]

Accelevation, an Ohio company that makes power, cooling and ready-built units for data centres, wants a value of up to $5.37bn in its US share sale. [23] It and some shareholders aim to raise up to $720m, selling 30 million shares at $20 to $24 each. [23] Most of the money will pay off debt. [23] Olympus Partners, the private-equity firm that bought it in 2025, keeps about 85% of the votes. [23]

Why it matters. It follows Nscale and SB Energy, which filed for share sales this month, as AI builders ask the stock market for money. [23] Goldman Sachs expects data-centre power demand to rise 170% by 2030 from 2025. [23]

Andreessen Horowitz, a large Silicon Valley investment firm, is opening a school for would-be founders just out of high school. [24] The first year is free for about 50 students, chosen on what they have built. [24] It is not accredited, so it gives no degree or college credits. [24] From 2028 a two-year course will charge fees close to an elite private university's. [24]

Why it matters. Its ten founding partners, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Nvidia, hope to hire its graduates. [24] It opens while AI is shrinking entry-level tech jobs, so a direct path to a job has new pull. [24]

Paramount Skydance settled lawsuits from 12 US state attorneys general and the Writers Guild, the union for film and TV writers, Bloomberg reported. [25] That clears the way for its $110bn purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. [25] The settlement includes protections meant to limit the combined company's market power and keep its news independent. [25] The company will control two big Hollywood studios, two streaming services and channels from CBS to HBO. [25]

Why it matters. The writers' union and 12 states had sued over the deal, and settling means they accepted written protections instead of a court fight. [25] CBS and HBO will sit under the same owner, which is why editorial independence was part of the terms. [25]

Apple Pay is expected to launch in India next month, starting with credit cards from Axis Bank, India's fourth-largest card issuer, Reuters reported. [26] Apple has also talked to HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, both bigger, but has not agreed terms. [26] It will not support UPI, India's state-backed instant phone payment system, at launch. [26] UPI carries about 84% of India's digital payments. [26]

Why it matters. Apple is arriving with a card product in a country that mostly pays by phone transfer. [26] The Economic Times reported that Apple asked for 0.15% to 0.20% of each payment, and banks offered about 0.10%. [26]

Meta signed its first deal to pay a plastics recycler, the three-year-old start-up MacroCycle of Cambridge, Massachusetts. [27] Meta pays for the carbon emissions MacroCycle's plastic avoids, and counts them against its own, which are growing with AI. [27] The money helps fund MacroCycle's first plant in the US, sized for 5,000 tonnes of recycled plastic a year. [27] Its process can clean plastic from old clothes, of which only 0.5% is recycled today. [27]

Why it matters. Meta's AI build-out is pushing its emissions up, and it is buying cuts made elsewhere to count against them. [27] It also wants a steady supply of low-carbon plastic for its packaging and hardware. [27]

EnerVenue, a US start-up that makes long-life nickel-hydrogen batteries, opened its factory in Changzhou, China, after dropping a $264m plan in Kentucky. [28] Its chief executive, Henning Rath, said China's depth of skilled engineers and suppliers decided it. [28] The plant is about 95% automated and will employ about 400 people by the end of the year. [28] Graduate engineers there earn about 12,000 yuan, or $1,792, a month. [28]

Why it matters. The Kentucky plan had promised 450 jobs. [28] It is unclear whether batteries made in China will qualify for US clean-energy tax credits. [28]

FintechOS, a London company founded in Romania that sells software to banks and insurers, raised $28m in shares and debt. [29] It says it became profitable in the first half of 2026, later than the 2024 date it had given investors. [29] It says recurring revenue rose 40% in a year and its US business grew 130%, without giving totals. [29] The money goes to US growth and more European clients. [29]

Why it matters. Its software lets banks launch new products on top of their old systems instead of replacing them. [29] Santander's investment bank provided the debt. [29]