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AMD just unveiled its new Helios AI rack system, designed to train and run large-scale AI models at gigawatt scale. This is a big deal because it challenges Nvidia's long-standing dominance in the market. Leading companies like Meta, Oracle, Anthropic, and even Microsoft are already on board with plans for expansion using Helios. The system will be available later this year and comes equipped to handle the growing demand for AI compute power. With several high-profile customers and strategic partnerships, AMD is positioning itself as a serious contender in the $1.4 trillion AI accelerator market by 2030.
Patreon has announced layoffs affecting 93 employees, representing 20% of the company's staff. This move is a response to broader market shifts and an effort to stabilize costs. Despite these cuts, Patreon emphasizes that its core business remains strong and that human creativity and connection are at the heart of their strategy. The company offers generous severance packages, including healthcare coverage through the end of the year and stipends for equipment replacement. Let's dive deeper…
In today's ContentBuffer update:
Corgi Raising Another $108M in Series B Extension
NHTSA Launches Rulemaking on Car Exit Safety After Tesla Incidents
Meta Exits RE100, Invests Heavily in Natural Gas Power Plants
Claude's Voice Mode Now Supports Opus, Sonnet, Haiku with Multi-Language Options
5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs
More tech news
Latest Development
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: AMD unveils Helios AI rack system, challenging Nvidia's grip on the market with major wins from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Key Points:
Helios is AMD’s new high-performance rack system for massive-scale AI training, set to launch later this year.
The system outperforms Nvidia's Vera Rubin in key performance metrics, making it attractive for large-scale deployments.
Leading tech companies like Microsoft and OpenAI are already integrating Helios into their infrastructure plans.
AMD’s strategic partnership with Anthropic includes up to two gigawatts of GPUs via the new rack system.
Venice-X CPU is AMD's upcoming data center chip, designed for high-computing workloads, expected in 2027.
Why it matters: If you're working on large-scale AI projects at companies like Microsoft or OpenAI, Helios could significantly impact your compute strategy. The system’s performance and scale capabilities make it a game-changer for training demanding models efficiently.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Patreon slashes 20% of staff to adjust costs amid market changes, emphasizing human connection over AI automation. #technews
Key Points:
93 employees are being laid off as part of Patreon's workforce reduction efforts.
The layoffs represent a 20% cut in the company’s overall workforce, the largest since 2022.
Patreon is offering at least 16 weeks of severance pay to affected workers.
Additional week of severance for each year worked by laid-off employees.
Healthcare coverage extended through the end of the year for those impacted.
Why it matters: If you're a Patreon user or creator, this restructuring impacts how the platform supports its community. For example, creators relying on Patreon's direct support may see changes in communication and service delivery as the company adjusts its staffing levels.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Corgi just closed another $108M in Series B funding at a $2.6B valuation. Rapid growth in AI-powered insurance means more competition for traditional carriers.
Key Points:
Corgi's latest raise of $108 million extends its Series B round, bringing total raised to over $300 million.
The company has a revenue run rate of $450 million by the end of the year, indicating strong growth.
Corgi offers various types of liability insurance including general liability and tech-related incidents coverage.
As an RRG, Corgi is not subject to traditional state regulations, giving it flexibility in operations.
The startup plans to open five more 24-hour coffee shops by the end of this year.
Why it matters: Corgi's rapid fundraising and expansion into tech-related insurance means startups will face less friction when securing coverage. However, traditional insurers may need to adapt or risk losing market share.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: NHTSA is developing new exit safety standards for cars following incidents with electronic door handles. This impacts all automakers and could change how manual release mechanisms are designed.
Key Points:
U.S. regulators begin rulemaking process after receiving nine reports of owners unable to access their Tesla vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied taking action requested by petitioners, opting for a broader rule-making approach instead.
Tesla was working on redesigning its door handles before the NHTSA announcement, indicating potential changes in vehicle design.
Rivian is changing the interior door handle design on its R2 SUV to put manual release closer to electrically powered door handles.
The new requirements aim to ensure drivers and passengers can safely exit vehicles during emergencies.
Why it matters: If you're an automaker or a car owner, this impacts your vehicle's safety features. The rule-making process could lead to changes in how manual release mechanisms are designed and located within cars, potentially affecting millions of vehicles currently on the road.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Meta exits RE100, funds natural gas power plants for its data centers. Why it matters: Big bet on fossil fuels despite earlier renewable commitments.
Key Points:
Meta has funded at least 12 natural gas power plants to supply electricity to its data centers.
One project will generate enough electricity to match South Dakota's entire state usage.
Meta is no longer a member of the RE100 corporate renewable energy initiative, according to a spokesperson.
The company's Hyperion data center will be powered by 7.5 gigawatts of electricity from 10 natural gas plants.
A single 1-gigawatt data center running on natural gas emits significant pollutants linked to various diseases.
Why it matters: If you're a developer relying on Meta's infrastructure, the shift towards fossil fuels means more pollution and less commitment to renewable energy goals. This impacts not just environmental standards but also public health, as data centers powered by natural gas contribute significantly to air pollutants linked to asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia.
Image source: techcrunch.com
Summary: Claude's voice mode now lets you pick between Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku for longer chats and supports ten languages. Free users: stick with Haiku and one app. Worth trying if you need multilingual support in your workflow.
Key Points:
Three new voice models (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku) available to enhance conversation length
Multilingual support across ten languages including English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish
Free users limited to the Haiku model with only one connected app
Premium users gain access to all voice models and multiple app integrations
Integration with apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Canva, and Notion for enhanced productivity
Why it matters: If you're using Claude's voice mode in a multilingual environment or need longer conversations, this update is crucial. Free users will still benefit from the Haiku model but are limited to one app integration. Premium users get access to all models and multiple integrations, enhancing productivity across various apps.
New Tools & Job
NeatScribe - NeatScribe is designed for anyone who needs to reuse information from recorded speech. It creates timestamped transcripts, supports translation, and exports results as text files, documents, subtitles, captions, or timed lyrics.
Sakana Marlin - Sakana Marlin is Sakana AI's first commercial product: an autonomous 'Ultra Deep Research' agent positioned as a Virtual Chief Strategy Officer. Given a research topic, Marlin works autonomously for up to roughly eight hours, forming hypotheses, gathering and reconciling information from online sources, and synthesizing a detailed strategy report up to ~100 pages plus executive-summary slides. It builds on Sakana AI research including AB-MCTS (NeurIPS 2025 Spotlight) and The AI Scientist (published in Nature). A closed beta ran from April 2026 with ~300 professionals across finance and consulting.
Upsolve AI - Upsolve AI is an Agent Studio for data teams to build, deploy, and evaluate grounded, governed, and trustworthy analytics agents. It layers institutional context (warehouse tables, validated SQL patterns, semantic models, KPI definitions, and business rules from sources like Notion, Slack, and email) on top of 30+ SQL database connectors so end users can ask questions in natural language and get accurate, traceable answers. Every conversation is fully traced end-to-end (tool calls, SQL, agent output), a built-in evaluation agent grades performance, and context monitoring surfaces gaps so accuracy improves with use. Agents deploy to Slack, Teams, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or embed in your own product via MCP/SDK.
Buddy - Buddy is an AI design agent that lives in the Figma canvas. Chat to generate screens, flows, components, and variants using your existing design system; paste a public URL or drop an HTML file to recreate live websites as editable Figma layers; and run batch edits and layer organization across files. Supports multiple LLMs (Opus, Sonnet, GPT, Gemini, Codex). Works on any Figma plan including Free.
Tyto - Tyto by ai-coustics is a monitoring and diagnostics layer for Voice AI. It produces a single real-time risk score that predicts speech-to-text, voice-activity-detection, and turn-taking failures before they occur, scoring six qualities of incoming audio so teams can catch audio issues before they impact voice agents in production.
AI Engineer - FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer) - AI Engineer - FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer) at Databricks — sourced first-party from greenhouse:databricks on 2026-05-26.
Account Executive, AI Sales - Account Executive, AI Sales at Stripe — sourced first-party from gh:stripe on 2026-05-27.
Data Scientist - Data Scientist at Stripe — sourced first-party from greenhouse:stripe on 2026-05-26.
Manager, AI Deployment Engineering - Codex - Manager, AI Deployment Engineering - Codex at OpenAI — sourced first-party from ashby:openai on 2026-05-26.
Anthropic Fellows Program, ML Systems & Performance - Anthropic Fellows Program, ML Systems & Performance at Anthropic — sourced first-party from greenhouse:anthropic on 2026-05-25.
QUICK HITS
AegisAI Secures $36M to Fight AI-Powered Email Attacks - AegisAI raises $36M to fight massive-scale AI attacks on email. The startup uses advanced agents to catch threats missed by traditional systems. Companies need to take notice.
US Warns of Iranian Hackers Targeting Water and Energy Systems - US agencies warn of Iranian hackers targeting water and energy providers' control systems, aiming to disrupt operations. This is serious for anyone relying on these services.
Runway Launches Media Router for Generative Models - Runway launched Media Router through Runway Dev, automating model selection based on developer priorities. This simplifies integration of cutting-edge AI-generated content into workflows.
OpenAI Expands ChatGPT Health to All U.S. Users Over 18 - OpenAI expands ChatGPT Health to all U.S. adults over 18 across plans, but warns against relying on it for medical advice. Users can now integrate health data directly into chat queries, handling 300 million weekly health-related questions.
Tesla's Robotaxi Miles Drop by 36% in Q2 - Tesla's paid Robotaxi miles dropped by 36% from Q1 to Q2 despite expansion efforts. Stock fell over 13%. Investors are questioning the company's autonomy strategy.
Google Adds Selfie Video Login for Account Recovery - Google introduces selfie video login for added security and account recovery options. It's about proving you're human, not just verifying your identity.
THAT'S A WRAP
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Patreon is laying off 93 employees, or 20% of its workforce, due to market changes. The platform remains committed to human creativity and connection, not AI automation.
National Infleqtion has secured three DOE Genesis Mission Projects focused on quantum computing and sensing. The grants aim to advance the field through partnerships with academic institutions, pushing the boundaries of AI learning.
U.S. Treasury doubles down on warnings to Chinese AI firms over model distillation and IP theft risks. Moonshot's K3 release sparks debate on open models' impact.