{"id":84062,"date":"2025-10-16T09:51:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T09:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/84062\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T09:51:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T09:51:06","slug":"fortune-tech-apples-new-m5-chip-aligned-data-centers-deal-f5-hacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/84062\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortune Tech: Apple\u2019s new M5 chip, Aligned Data Centers deal, F5 hacked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Turns out White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks didn\u2019t much like that Jack Clark essay<\/a> about AI that I linked to in yesterday\u2019s newsletter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,\u201d Sacks wrote in response<\/a> to the essay by Clark, an Anthropic co-founder. \u201cIt is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The responses to Sacks were mixed. Several applauded Clark\u2019s transparency and sincerity. Others pointed out that if Sacks wanted to support responsible AI development, he could help fix a winner-take-all startup funding pipeline or create a set of unified federal AI laws. More still simply repeated Trump\u2019s talking points.<\/p>\n

But it was Keith Rabois, the Khosla Ventures investor and longtime Republican donor, who best captured<\/a> the essence of social media dialogue in 2025: \u201cJust ignore him,\u201d he told Sacks, in full view of Clark. Way to take the high road, dude.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s tech news below. \u2014Andrew Nusca<\/p>\n

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to\u00a0Fortune Tech?\u00a0Drop a line\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apple debuts M5 chip\"An<\/a>An illustration of Apple’s new M5 system on a chip (SoC).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apple<\/p>\n

I love the smell of fresh silicon in the morning.<\/p>\n

Apple on Wednesday took the wraps off<\/a> its M5 system-on-a-chip, which, according to its maker, promises \u201cover 4x the peak GPU compute performance for AI\u201d compared to its predecessor, thanks to a new GPU, a brawnier CPU, and faster Neural Engine components.<\/p>\n

What the hell does it all mean? In short, Apple is\u2014like so many of its peers\u2014reworking its home-grown hardware to optimize it for artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks to the new Arm-based silicon, for example, Apple\u2019s new 14-inch MacBook Pro<\/a> and iPad Pro<\/a> will enjoy \u201cdramatically accelerated processing for AI-driven workflows.\u201d Vision Pro gets an upgrade<\/a>, too. (All three of you who bought one may clap.)<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect to find an M5 in an iPhone, though. Like its predecessor chips, the \u201cM\u201d series is too large, too hot, and too battery-draining for use in smartphones. (Apple\u2019s flagship iPhones and entry-level iPads run on the A19.)<\/p>\n

So: Wanna run a diffusion model in Draw Things<\/a>? Go right ahead. Hope to run an LLM locally, as is all the rage right now? Knock yourself out. Want to actually use Apple Intelligence features?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well\u2026they\u2019ll be a little snappier, too. \u2014AN<\/p>\n

AI consortium to buy Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the biggest data center deals ever.<\/p>\n

An investment group that includes BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia, and xAI agreed on Wednesday<\/a> to acquire Aligned Data Centers\u2014one of the world\u2019s largest data center operators\u2014from Australia\u2019s Macquarie Asset Management in a deal worth $40 billion, including debt.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re thinking, \u201cIt must be AI,\u201d you\u2019re exactly right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Headquartered in Dallas, Aligned is a fast-growing hyperscale operator that provides cloud infrastructure across some 50 facilities. It claims more than 5 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity.<\/p>\n

The transaction is also interesting because it marks the first investment of the so-called Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership, which also includes BlackRock\u2019s Global Infrastructure Partners and the Emirati state-owned investment firm MGX.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Wait, MGX? Aren\u2019t they also funding the OpenAI-SoftBank-Oracle Stargate project? Yep.)<\/p>\n

The partnership hopes to raise as much as $100 billion in equity and debt to build out AI computing and energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year, pending regulatory approval. \u2014AN<\/p>\n

U.S. cybersecurity company F5 hacked by nation-state actors<\/p>\n

Surely we can all agree: If a major cybersecurity company is hacked, that\u2019s very bad, yes?<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s precisely what happened earlier this year when Seattle\u2019s F5\u2014which serves all but two of the Fortune 50\u2014realized that nation-state hackers had breached its systems and stolen undisclosed security vulnerabilities and source code.<\/p>\n

Yikes.<\/p>\n

F5 says it first became aware<\/a> of the breach on August 9. It found that attackers had gained long-term access to its systems, among them a product development environment for its flagship product and its engineering knowledge base.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the exfiltrated files from our knowledge management platform contained configuration or implementation information for a small percentage of customers,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

F5 says it hasn\u2019t observed any suspicious code changes. It also hasn\u2019t suffered any attacks as a result of the stolen information, which has not, to the best of the company\u2019s knowledge, been publicly disclosed.<\/p>\n

Still, the intrusion\u2014possibly linked to China<\/a>\u2014was enough to warrant statements from both the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency<\/a> (CISA) and the U.K.\u2019s National Cyber Security Centre<\/a>. \u2014AN<\/p>\n

More tech<\/p>\n

\u2014Big Tech dines at Trump dinner.<\/a> Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Palantir donated to the White House\u2019s new $250 million ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u2014$300 trillion mistake.<\/a> Why did fintech Paxos accidentally mint, then destroy, PayPal\u2019s PYUSD?<\/p>\n

\u2014Salesforce long-term outlook improves<\/a>. Shares jump after the company says it expects $60 billion in 2030 revenue and rebuffs claims that AI is writing large amounts of software.<\/p>\n

\u2014About that erotica-in-ChatGPT thing<\/a>. OpenAI is \u201cnot the elected moral police of the world,\u201d CEO Sam Altman responds following backlash.<\/p>\n

\u2014Chinese hackers compromise U.K. gov\u2019t servers<\/a>. State actors routinely accessed classified information for at least 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u2014X to display more user account info.<\/a> An attempt to battle bots.<\/p>\n

\u2014Rakuten mulls U.S. IPO of credit card business<\/a> in light of rival SoftBank\u2019s plans to do the same with its PayPay service.<\/p>\n

This is the web version of Fortune Tech, a daily newsletter breaking down the biggest players and stories shaping the future. Sign up<\/a> to get it delivered free to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. Turns out White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks didn\u2019t much like that Jack Clark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3468,936,177,43702,45444,1711,61,16578,60,1226,1071,21692,233,1682,2721,6463,9969,80,606],"class_list":{"0":"post-84062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-apple","10":"tag-blackrock","11":"tag-david-sacks","12":"tag-fortune-tech","13":"tag-google","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ipos","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-meta","18":"tag-microsoft","19":"tag-no-copyright","20":"tag-nvidia","21":"tag-openai","22":"tag-palantir-technologies","23":"tag-salesforce","24":"tag-softbank","25":"tag-technology","26":"tag-x"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}