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IBM is making one of the biggest bets in its history, investing $10 billion in an effort to build a practical quantum computer by 2029. Jim Love looks at why the company that once stunned the world with Watson's Jeopardy victory is now wagering its future on quantum computing instead of competing head-to-head in the generative AI race. Also in this episode, Elon Musk briefly becomes the world's first trillionaire before slipping back below the trillion-dollar mark just days later as SpaceX's valuation retreats, a reminder of how quickly paper wealth can change. NVIDIA announces a new liquid-cooling architecture designed to dramatically reduce water consumption in AI data centres, a move that could help address one of the fastest-growing sources of public opposition to AI infrastructure. Finally, we examine the growing political influence of major AI companies. As organizations linked to OpenAI and Anthropic spend millions of dollars in the 2026 U.S. election cycle, a larger question emerges: should the companies that increasingly shape how we access information also become major political players? Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 00:36 The World's First Trillionaire Lasted Less Than a Week 02:03 IBM Bets Its Future on Quantum Computing 06:04 NVIDIA Says It Has a Solution to AI's Water Problem 08:08 Should AI Companies Be Political Power Brokers? If you enjoy Hashtag Trending, please subscribe, like, comment and share the show. It helps more people discover fact-based technology journalism. New episodes are published every weekday. Keywords: IBM, IBM Quantum, Quantum Computing, Quantum Starling, IBM Watson, Watson Jeopardy, Practical Quantum Computer, Quantum Computer 2029, Elon Musk, SpaceX, World's First Trillionaire, NVIDIA, NVIDIA Liquid Cooling, AI Data Centres, Data Center Water Usage, Water Cooling, AI Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, OpenAI, Anthropic, AI Regulation, AI Politics, Political Campaigns, AI Campaign Spending, Generative AI, Enterprise AI, Technology News, Tech News, Hashtag Trending, Jim Love

Jim Love reports on the top technology stories for June 23, 2026. A severed optical fibre cable triggered a major internet outage that started with Reddit and spread across a wide range of online services. At nearly the same time, Anthropic's Claude AI suffered a significant outage, highlighting how dependent businesses have become on cloud infrastructure and AI platforms. The episode examines why reliability matters and how the difference between 99.999% uptime and 98% uptime can translate into seconds versus hours of downtime. Also in this episode: • Perplexity introduces a new memory system for its AI agents, designed to learn from previous mistakes, improve accuracy, and reduce token costs. Jim explains why this isn't true model learning but could still be a major advance for agentic AI. • Chinese memory manufacturers including CXMT and YMTC are gaining traction despite U.S. semiconductor restrictions. The story explores China's growing DRAM and NAND industry, future memory shortages, and whether sanctions are creating competitors instead of customers. • General Motors faces criticism after deploying additional robots on its production lines. The discussion looks beyond humanoid robots to the broader trend of versatile automation, cobots, dark factories, and what reshoring manufacturing may look like in an increasingly automated world. If you enjoy practical analysis of AI, cybersecurity, enterprise technology, cloud computing, semiconductors, and digital transformation, subscribe for new episodes every weekday. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #Perplexity #Semiconductors #ChinaTech #Robotics #Automation #TechnologyNews #HashtagTrending 00:00 Top Headlines Today 00:29 Internet and Claude Outages 01:46 Why Reliability Matters 03:14 Perplexity Agents With Memory 04:57 Memory Is Not Learning 06:52 China Challenges Memory Giants 10:26 Robots Threaten Factory Jobs 12:52 Dark Factories and Reshoring 14:10 Closing and Book Request

The hosts discuss a favorite scene from the 1981 film Caveman before introducing Project Synapse, their weekly show on AI and new technology. They cover a hectic week in AI news, including talk of SpaceX buying Cursor for $60B, Cursor's role as an AI-enabled IDE using multiple models, and concerns over token costs and profitability. They describe Anthropic taking Fable offline after a government order cutting off foreign nationals, raising fears about reliance on U.S.-based AI and digital sovereignty, and note Europe's renewed push toward open-source alternatives. They highlight open-source and lower-cost models such as Mistral, DeepSeek, and GLM 5.2, Google's strategy of free tools and local processing, and a DeepMind paper "From AGI to ASI." The episode ends with Midjourney's announced non-radiation full-body scanner concept and spa rollout plans for 2027. Find the links we talked about on our Discord Server. This is the link to you our Discord server https://discord.gg/e9476SGMsz 00:00 Caveman Music Discovery 01:57 Show Intro and Hosts 03:03 SpaceX Buys Cursor 07:23 Is Cursor Still Best 09:18 Fable AI Vanishes 11:20 Government Shutdown Fallout 13:57 Digital Sovereignty Wakeup 18:09 Open Source Reality Check 20:23 Economics Detour Debate 22:30 Governments Back Open Source 27:00 Mistral DeepSeek Shift 29:51 Google Gives AI Away 31:35 Avatars Tokens and X 32:54 Local Models Slow Iteration 33:58 Local AI Smart Speakers 34:40 Chrome Model Backlash 35:20 BitTorrent Style Inference 37:43 Distrust And Data Centers 38:19 Small Models And Transformers 39:45 Google AI Tool Rundown 41:17 DeepMind From AGI To ASI 45:40 Beyond Transformers Next Minds 48:19 AI Splintering And Niches 49:20 Diffusion And SubQ Attention 54:39 Forking And Competition 57:26 Monopolies And CEO Culture 01:02:30 Midjourney Medical Scanner 01:08:59 Innovation Hopeful Wrap