Microsoft on Monday unveiled the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box , a compact desktop computer designed to let software developers run large AI models on their desks instead of paying for cloud computing — a move that directly challenges the per-token pricing model that has defined the AI industry's economics since ChatGPT launched three and a half years ago. The device, announced at Microsoft Build 2026...
Microsoft on Monday unveiled the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box , a compact desktop computer designed to let software developers run large AI models on their desks instead of paying for cloud computing — a move that directly challenges the per-token pricing model that has defined the AI industry's economics since ChatGPT launched three and a half years ago. The device, announced at Microsoft Build 2026 , packs Nvidia’s new Blackwell-architecture RTX Spark processor and 128 gigabytes of unified memory into a small-form-factor chassis, delivering what Nvidia rates at one petaflop of AI compute. In practical terms, that means a developer can load, run and interact with AI models exceeding 120 billion parameters without sending a single API call to the cloud. "These class of devices, we think, will get to about 100 billion parameter model running," Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's executive vice president of Windows and Devices, said during a press briefing ahead of the event. He emphasized that raw model size is only part of the equation: "The model size is one thing, but for the model to be effective, it kind of needs to be able to have enough context, because a larger model, you feed it larger context." At 100,000 tokens of context, he noted, the key-value cache alone can consume 40 to 50 gigabytes of memory — which is precisely why Microsoft and Nvidia engineered the device around a 128-gigabyte unified memory pool shared dynamically between the CPU and GPU. The machine will be available later this year in the United States, sold exclusively through Microsoft.com. The company did not disclose pricing. Why Microsoft is betting that AI's future runs on fixed costs, not cloud meters The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box arrives at a moment when the economics of AI development have become a boardroom-level concern. Companies large and small are grappling with cloud GPU bills that scale unpredictably: every fine-tuning run, every inference call, every agentic workflow that loops through a...
For the past two years, the technology industry has raced to make AI agents more capable — teaching them to write code, navigate software interfaces, manage files, and orchestrate multi-step workflows with increasing autonomy. What the industry has not done, at least not with any consistency, is answer the question that keeps chief information security officers awake at night: what happens when an...
For the past two years, the technology industry has raced to make AI agents more capable — teaching them to write code, navigate software interfaces, manage files, and orchestrate multi-step workflows with increasing autonomy. What the industry has not done, at least not with any consistency, is answer the question that keeps chief information security officers awake at night: what happens when an agent goes wrong? On Tuesday at its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft offered what may become the definitive answer. The company introduced Microsoft Execution Containers , or MXC — a policy-driven execution layer, built into the Windows operating system itself, that lets developers and IT administrators declare exactly what an AI agent can and cannot access, with those boundaries enforced at runtime by the OS kernel. The announcement, buried within a sweeping set of developer-focused updates , is arguably the most consequential platform move Microsoft made at Build this year, and it has the potential to reshape how every enterprise on Earth thinks about deploying autonomous AI software. MXC is not a product you buy. It is an SDK and a policy model — a foundational primitive embedded in Windows and the Windows Subsystem for Linux — that provides what Microsoft calls a " composable sandbox spectrum ." That spectrum ranges from lightweight process isolation, already adopted by GitHub Copilot's command-line interface, all the way up to micro-virtual machines, Linux containers, and full cloud instances running on Windows 365. The system separates an agent's execution from the user's desktop, clipboard, user interface, and input devices. Critically, it binds every agent to a strong identity — either a local ID or a cloud-provisioned identity backed by Microsoft Entra — so that every action the agent takes can be attributed, audited, and governed. The implications are enormous. Until now, the enterprise deployment of AI agents has been stuck in a paradox: the more aut...
Abstrax joins the ranks of Google, Nvidia, Adidas, Walmart, and more, earning the #5 spot in the Manufacturing category Abstrax Makes it to Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2026 We made the list as #5 in Manufacutring on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2026 Irvine, CA, June 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IRVINE, CA (March 24, 2026) — Abstrax, a botanical flavor science company trans...
Abstrax joins the ranks of Google, Nvidia, Adidas, Walmart, and more, earning the #5 spot in the Manufacturing category Abstrax Makes it to Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2026 We made the list as #5 in Manufacutring on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2026 Irvine, CA, June 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IRVINE, CA (March 24, 2026) — Abstrax, a botanical flavor science company transforming how breweries and beverage brands source and use flavor ingredients, has been named to Fast
Microsoft only just announced a new Surface Laptop Ultra at the weekend, and it's now revealing a miniature Surface PC aimed at developers. The new Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is powered by Nvidia's new Arm-based RTX Spark chips, just like the Surface Laptop Ultra, and is optimized for sustained workloads and local AI tasks. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box looks a little like the top of an Xbox Series...
Microsoft only just announced a new Surface Laptop Ultra at the weekend, and it's now revealing a miniature Surface PC aimed at developers. The new Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is powered by Nvidia's new Arm-based RTX Spark chips, just like the Surface Laptop Ultra, and is optimized for sustained workloads and local AI tasks. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box looks a little like the top of an Xbox Series X console, with an aluminum chassis that also doubles as a heatsink. It has a 100 watt thermal envelope, slightly more than the 45 watt to 80 watt thermal envelopes for Nvidia's RTX Spark laptops. This miniature Surface PC also has 128GB of unifie … Read the full story at The Verge.
On the Friday before Memorial Day, on the eve of a long weekend, the Trump administration announced that it was further gutting legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security didn't use this language. "This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes," the agency said on X . "The era of abusing our nation's immigration system is o...
On the Friday before Memorial Day, on the eve of a long weekend, the Trump administration announced that it was further gutting legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security didn't use this language. "This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes," the agency said on X . "The era of abusing our nation's immigration system is over." A press release from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles legal immigration, provided few details. Following the Trump playbook, DHS seemingly intended to bury this news by announcing it at a time that hardly anyone … Read the full story at The Verge.
Microsoft is kicking off its Build developer conference today with a promise of making Windows a trusted platform for development. As the company continues to focus on performance and reliability fixes for Windows 11 , it's also creating a developer-optimized experience that bundles a lot of useful tools and apps and embraces Linux even further. "We have optimized the Windows 11 experience for dev...
Microsoft is kicking off its Build developer conference today with a promise of making Windows a trusted platform for development. As the company continues to focus on performance and reliability fixes for Windows 11 , it's also creating a developer-optimized experience that bundles a lot of useful tools and apps and embraces Linux even further. "We have optimized the Windows 11 experience for developers, bringing frequently used command line utilities, a familiar comfort shell, faster setup experience, a built-in way to create and interact with Linux containers on Windows and a new experimental Intelligent Terminal," explains Windows chief … Read the full story at The Verge.
Andrzej Rostek/iStock via Getty Images There are now more ETFs than public companies, and among the new trends are funds that play mega-IPOs and current tech themes like digital memory. Andres Rincon, Head of ETF Sales and Strategy with TD Securities lays out some of the risks and opportunities with these new fund types. Greg Bonnell: There are now more exchange-traded funds in the markets than pu...
Andrzej Rostek/iStock via Getty Images There are now more ETFs than public companies, and among the new trends are funds that play mega-IPOs and current tech themes like digital memory. Andres Rincon, Head of ETF Sales and Strategy with TD Securities lays out some of the risks and opportunities with these new fund types. Greg Bonnell: There are now more exchange-traded funds in the markets than publicly traded companies. And that number is growing every day, with new and novel ETFs being launched all the time. Joining us now to discuss some of the trends he's seeing out there is Andres Rincon, head of ETF Sales and Strategy with TD Securities. Andres, always a pleasure having you on the program. Welcome back, my friend. Andres Rincon: Thank you for having me. Greg Bonnell: Let's talk about what we're seeing in the space in terms of trends. Thematic ETFs - let's start there. Digital memory is all the rage. What are you seeing? Andres Rincon: Before I get there, I do want to mention what you said. There's more ETFs than stocks. I always say, too, there's also more words than letters in the alphabet. So, that doesn't mean that there's going to be a shortage of them, and there's going to be a lot more growth as there's going to be more interest. And on that note, thematics is an area of huge growth right now. And I'm not sure if that's-- what that says about the markets, if I'm honest. But we're seeing a lot of interest in thematic ETFs right now. And it's getting a little bit into silly season, if I'm honest, with some of the launches that we're seeing right now. We're seeing 2x on single stocks that are doubling in a single day just because they have some AI exposure to them. But we're seeing a lot of different trends and definitely interest there. So just year to date, $75 billion has gone into thematic ETFs. That's 11% of all inflows in the US, for example. So that's a significant amount of money given that, usually, as you know, the traditional beta products domina...
Tensions between the United States and its European NATO allies have become “more difficult to manage” according to the organization’s former chief Jens Stoltenberg. Relationships have frayed, even compared to the period when US President Donald Trump toyed with the idea of leaving the alliance after the 2024 election. “If anything it has moved in an even worse direction,” said Jens Stoltenberg in...
Tensions between the United States and its European NATO allies have become “more difficult to manage” according to the organization’s former chief Jens Stoltenberg. Relationships have frayed, even compared to the period when US President Donald Trump toyed with the idea of leaving the alliance after the 2024 election. “If anything it has moved in an even worse direction,” said Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with Bloomberg in Oslo. “I still believe that the task is to try to keep North America and Europe together but there are limits for what we should accept.” Stoltenberg, who has served twice as prime minister of Norway, led the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as its secretary general from 2014 to 2024, during a shifting security landscape which included Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump has criticized NATO allies for not backing US efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. European leaders have resisted supporting the US in its conflict with Iran which led Trump to slam the bloc a “paper tiger.” In recent weeks, Trump has made often contradictory statements in relation to withdrawing troops from Europe. Turkey said it expects the president to attend the NATO summit in Ankara in July , where members of the alliance will face pressure to make progress on ramping up defense spending, something that has been a longstanding demand by the US. What You Need to Know Today UniCredit’s €38.6 billion ($44.9 billion) offer to takeover Commerzbank has been accepted by enough investors to push the stake over 30% . Shares equivalent to 7.58% of the German lender’s capital had been tendered by June 2, according to a filing today. Italian UniCredit already owns a direct stake of 26.77%, meaning the additional shares will take the total holding to 34.35%. The bid, which has been open to investors since early May, runs through June 16. UniCredit won’t have ownership of the additional shares until the offer is over and it has received the relevant regulatory clearances. UniCred...
Google parent Alphabet Inc. is raising $80 billion through a package of equity offerings, including an investment deal with Berkshire Hathaway Inc., to help fund ambitious and growing artificial intelligence spending plans. Ted Mortonson, Managing Director: Technology at Baird, discusses this offering, the historic AI infrastructure buildout, and the companies powering the current tech cycle. (Sou...
Google parent Alphabet Inc. is raising $80 billion through a package of equity offerings, including an investment deal with Berkshire Hathaway Inc., to help fund ambitious and growing artificial intelligence spending plans. Ted Mortonson, Managing Director: Technology at Baird, discusses this offering, the historic AI infrastructure buildout, and the companies powering the current tech cycle. (Source: Bloomberg)
Akamai’s Guardicore Segmentation solution will be integrated into Nvidia’s Vera BlueField-4 STX storage architecture, which runs on Nvidia’s DOCA software platform.
Akamai’s Guardicore Segmentation solution will be integrated into Nvidia’s Vera BlueField-4 STX storage architecture, which runs on Nvidia’s DOCA software platform.
The question of whether PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) can punch through to a new all-time high in 2026 is closer to a coin flip than the chart suggests. Shares trade at $144.19, sitting roughly 1% below the 52-week high of $169.96, but the stock has lost 7.15% over the last month. Our proprietary model frames that pullback ... Will Pepsi Stock Hit a New All Time High in 2026?
The question of whether PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) can punch through to a new all-time high in 2026 is closer to a coin flip than the chart suggests. Shares trade at $144.19, sitting roughly 1% below the 52-week high of $169.96, but the stock has lost 7.15% over the last month. Our proprietary model frames that pullback ... Will Pepsi Stock Hit a New All Time High in 2026?
Gajus/iStock via Getty Images “When health is nurtured, wealth is earned, and prosperity is embraced, life becomes a symphony of joy and fulfillment.”― Henry Johnson Jr. Over the past ten years since I first began writing for Seeking Alpha, my investing strategy evolved from growth stocks to managing a portfolio that now holds mainly income investments. I like investing for passive income, especia...
Gajus/iStock via Getty Images “When health is nurtured, wealth is earned, and prosperity is embraced, life becomes a symphony of joy and fulfillment.”― Henry Johnson Jr. Over the past ten years since I first began writing for Seeking Alpha, my investing strategy evolved from growth stocks to managing a portfolio that now holds mainly income investments. I like investing for passive income, especially now that I am retired from a 42-year career in information technology. I call my approach my Income Compounder portfolio due to the strategy that I employ of buying stocks and funds “on sale” that offer steady, mostly monthly or even weekly distributions, and then reinvesting the majority of those distributions to grow my future income stream. For the fixed income side of my income portfolio, I desire solid funds with a reputation for paying out steady, monthly distributions that deliver high-yield income, many of which offer current yields of 12% or more. The PIMCO family of taxable CEFs (closed-end funds) are good candidates to consider with an excellent long-term track record of strong performance. However, in the last nine months all of the PIMCO CEFs have seen their premiums plummet . This has led some to believe that these funds must be a bad investment if investors no longer want to pay a premium to buy them. But long-term investors understand that PIMCO funds can withstand the ups and downs of market cycles. For example, PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund ( PDI ) has never cut the distribution since its inception in 2012, not even after the Covid pandemic meltdown in 2020 nor during the bear market of 2022. After the disastrous first quarter of 2026, with the sudden market correction in March that sent the market prices of PIMCO funds even lower, I found this table published in an April press release showing the fund performance through the end of Q1 2026. As you can see in the table, as of the end of March, just about every fund listed had significantly lower total retu...
CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) at $124.82 screens as a wait-and-see setup over the next 12 months, with a working reference value near $138.56. The stock has whipsawed since its 2025 IPO, with tension between a $99.4 billion backlog and $50.81 billion in liabilities driving the volatility. CoreWeave rents GPU-accelerated cloud capacity to AI model builders and enterprises. ... Buy, Hold, or Sell: Is Core...
CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) at $124.82 screens as a wait-and-see setup over the next 12 months, with a working reference value near $138.56. The stock has whipsawed since its 2025 IPO, with tension between a $99.4 billion backlog and $50.81 billion in liabilities driving the volatility. CoreWeave rents GPU-accelerated cloud capacity to AI model builders and enterprises. ... Buy, Hold, or Sell: Is CoreWeave a Multibagger in the Making, or an AI Infrastructure Debt Trap?
HJBC/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Seven U.S. states have sued the Trump administration and French company TotalEnergies ( TTE ) for canceling a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York in exchange for a pledge by its owner to invest instead in fossil fuel projects, Reuters reported Tuesday. The lawsuit in D.C. federal court challenges a March decision by the U.S. Department of th...
HJBC/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Seven U.S. states have sued the Trump administration and French company TotalEnergies ( TTE ) for canceling a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York in exchange for a pledge by its owner to invest instead in fossil fuel projects, Reuters reported Tuesday. The lawsuit in D.C. federal court challenges a March decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior to cancel a lease by TotalEnergies ( TTE ), reimburse $795M to the company, and extract a pledge from the company not to develop new offshore wind projects in the U.S. The Attentive Energy project would have generated enough power for 1.3M homes in New York and New Jersey, which said they both rely on offshore wind development to meet soaring energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The suing states allege the Trump administration failed to follow proper administrative processes and misused a government fund reserved for legal settlements even though there was no litigation between the parties. In addition to New York and New Jersey, the suing states are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. More on TotalEnergies TotalEnergies Shareholder/Analyst Call Transcript TotalEnergies: Oil's War Premium Won't Last Forever (Downgrade) TotalEnergies: Nearing Or At A Cyclic Peak (Rating Downgrade)