Tech

Disrupt 2025 is just days away, with tickets still available here! And there’s no better time to announce that alongside our flagship event and annual Startup Battlefield 200 competition, we’re launching a brand-new TechCrunch franchise: Build Mode.  Hosted by Startup Battlefield Editor Isabelle Johannessen, Build Mode is a survival guide for early-stage founders navigating the messy, high-stakes chaos of building …

San Francisco is getting a symbolic jolt very soon as newly elected mayor Daniel Lurie steps onto the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27-29 at Moscone West, in a homecoming of sorts for both tech and the city that helped define it. Disrupt has long been a launchpad for founders and investors chasing the next wave. …

Microsoft released a new batch of features for its AI assistant Thursday, including an ambitious project that builds artificial intelligence directly into one of its most central products. More than a simple extension, the Copilot Mode in Microsoft’s Edge browser is Microsoft’s take on the long-hyped AI browser category — an intelligent and flexible AI assistant that follows you as …

Microsoft has a new Clippy, and it’s an AI friend called Mico. At the company’s Copilot fall release press event on Thursday, the company introduced a range of new features and updates for its AI chatbot, but one that telegraphed how the tech giant intends to bring AI to consumers was the official introduction of its AI chatbot’s “face” — …

President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, as first reported by CNBC. Zhao previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while running the cryptocurrency exchange, and served four months in prison last year. “President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on …

Google said today that it will invest in a natural gas power plant in Illinois that intends to capture the majority of its carbon emissions. The 400-megawatt power plant will be built outside of Decatur next to an ethanol plant run by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), which already captures CO2 from its operations. Google will buy most of the electricity to power …

With the AI infrastructure push reaching staggering proportions, there’s more pressure than ever to squeeze as much inference as possible out of the GPUs they have. And for researchers with expertise in a particular technique, it’s a great time to raise funding. That’s part of the driving force behind Tensormesh, launching out of stealth this week with $4.5 million in …

The U.S. government has accused a former executive at defense contractor L3Harris of stealing trade secrets and selling them to a buyer in Russia, according to court documents seen by TechCrunch.  On October 14, the Department of Justice accused Peter Williams of stealing eight trade secrets from two unnamed companies. The DOJ made the allegation in a “criminal information” document, …

What if the next industrial revolution doesn’t happen on Earth? William Bruey, founder and CEO of Varda Space Industries, is on a mission to prove it can — and will — happen in orbit. He’s taking the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, to share how his team is transforming outer space …

Palantir said on Thursday it had struck a partnership with Lumen Technologies that will see the telecommunications company using the data management company’s AI software to build capabilities to support enterprise AI services. The companies are calling the deal “a multi-year, multi-million-dollar strategic partnership,” but Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources, that Lumen is going to spend over $200 million on …