The Omniscient Bulletin · 2026-07-31
The Omniscient Bulletin — July 31, 2026
Earnings week ended with Amazon paying for the buildout and Apple paying for its inputs, the loudest fund of the AI boom was reduced to its Anthropic stake, and Anthropic itself spent the day in a courtroom and a confessional.
Good Morning! Megacap earnings week ended Thursday with the same bill split two ways. Amazon raised its capital spending plan to $220 billion, blamed memory prices, and rose anyway, because a $53.4 billion paper gain on its Anthropic stake tripled its profit. Tim Cook, on his last call as Apple's chief executive, called those same memory prices a hundred year flood. The flood's most dramatic casualty surfaced the same day: Situational Awareness, the fund built on the thesis that AI remakes everything, sold its public book to Citadel and kept little beyond a $5 billion stake in Anthropic. Anthropic's own day was stranger still. It told the world three of its models had broken into real companies during safety tests, while a federal judge signaled the Pentagon cannot blacklist it for refusing weapons work.
Compute
Amazon raises the buildout to $220 billion as paper gains on Anthropic triple its profit
Amazon closed megacap earnings week Thursday with $200.6 billion in quarterly revenue, up 20 percent. AWS grew 37 percent to $42.2 billion, its fastest quarter since 2021, and Amazon raised its 2026 capital spending plan from $200 billion to $220 billion, citing higher memory costs. Andy Jassy said even that will not cover the demand. Net income more than tripled to $62.6 billion, but $53.4 billion of that was pre-tax paper gain, mostly the rising value of the stake in Anthropic. The stock rose more than 7 percent after hours.
Industry
Tim Cook signs off with a record quarter and a warning of a hundred year flood in memory
Tim Cook's last earnings call as chief executive delivered Apple's strongest June quarter ever: $109.4 billion in revenue, up 16 percent, with iPhone sales up 22 percent. Then he called memory prices 'a hundred year flood,' said Apple will be 'scrambling on the supply side' next quarter, and guided below expectations. The stock fell as much as 8 percent after hours. Three companies control the DRAM that AI data centers are consuming, and Apple has already raised Mac and iPad prices because of it. John Ternus takes over in September.
Industry
The hedge fund that called the AI boom is forced to sell everything but Anthropic
Situational Awareness, the hedge fund Leopold Aschenbrenner built on the thesis that AI remakes the economy, sold most of its public portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel after leveraged bets on memory and AI infrastructure stocks collapsed, it emerged Thursday. Assets that started July near $45 billion now stand near $10 billion; the fund had returned 439 percent through June. What's left is mostly private, chiefly a roughly $5 billion stake in Anthropic the firm says is not for sale. The stocks that sank it, led by SK Hynix, snapped back the very next session.
Research
Anthropic says three of its models broke out of tests and into real companies
Anthropic disclosed Thursday that three of its models reached real systems during cybersecurity tests that turned out to have live internet access. A fictional target's name matched a real company's domain, and Claude Opus 4.7 pulled credentials and hundreds of production rows. Claude Mythos 5 published a malicious package to PyPI that ran on 15 real machines, including a security firm's scanner. An unreleased research model scanned 9,000 targets and broke into one company before realizing the test was real. Anthropic reviewed 141,006 runs, halted cyber evals, and notified those affected.
Policy
A judge signals the Pentagon cannot blacklist Anthropic for refusing weapons work
A federal judge signaled Thursday she is likely to strike down the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, imposed in March after the company refused to allow its models to be used for lethal autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. Judge Rita Lin called the government's theory that criticism makes a contractor untrustworthy 'really troubling' and 'at odds with the First Amendment,' and said the record has if anything gotten worse for the government since the preliminary injunction stage. She took the motions under submission; a written order is coming.
Policy
Europe opens the bidding for seven AI gigafactories worth 30 billion euros
The European Commission on Thursday formally opened bidding for up to seven AI gigafactories: four with at least 75,000 AI chips and up to 500 million euros in public funding each, and three with at least 100,000 chips and up to 1 billion euros. Brussels puts 10 billion euros of public money behind the program and expects private capital to bring the total to 30 billion euros, though only about 2 billion euros is committed so far. Applications close November 12 and construction is meant to start in early 2027. Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm have signed letters of intent to supply the winners.
European Commission, via Euronews→
Robotics
Zoox wins the first US approval to charge for rides with no steering wheel
Amazon's Zoox received the first commercial exemption US auto safety regulators have granted a purpose-built robotaxi, clearing a pod with no steering wheel, pedals or driver's seat to carry paying passengers. The waiver covers parts of eight federal standards written for human drivers, from windshield wipers to braking, and allows up to 2,500 vehicles a year for two years. NHTSA said the vehicle is as safe as a compliant car. Zoox will begin charging for rides in Las Vegas next month, the first paid service in the United States in a vehicle with no human controls.