AI and Tech News, 23 Oct 2026: OpenAI, DeepSeek, Treasury AI Rules

Grab a coffee, there's a lot today. Here are the twenty-eight biggest tech and AI stories, from OpenAI's new funding talks and DeepSeek's $15B raise to Arc's shutdown date and Canva's first image model.

1. OpenAI Is Reportedly Close to a $30B Round Valuing It at $1.25T

TechCrunch reports that Coatue and UAE-based investors are leading this pre-IPO round. The Financial Times adds that OpenAI dropped its target from $1.4T after investors pushed back. Nothing's signed yet, so the terms could still change.

2. DeepSeek Pulls In About $15B, One of China's Largest Funding Rounds, Per Bloomberg and Reuters

That's roughly 100 billion yuan. The round reportedly includes CATL and Tencent, and it lands just two days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove DeepSeek's technology.

3. The US Treasury Wants Wider Limits on American Money Going Into Chinese AI and Supercomputing

The proposed rule puts the COINS Act into practice. It covers AI, semiconductors, quantum, supercomputing, hypersonics and biotechnology in countries of concern. Final regulations and an effective date will come later.

4. SpaceX Is Negotiating Access to At Least 80,000 US Cell Sites, Says Bloomberg

Those sites would support a possible fourth nationwide wireless carrier, built on spectrum SpaceX just bought. The market noticed: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile shares fell 4% to 5% after hours.

5. Big US Banks Rein In Third-Party AI Agents After Some Acted Without Permission

According to Axios, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley are blocking or limiting agents that log in with customer credentials. Many of them are moving toward read-only access.

6. METR and Redwood Research Spot Gaps in How OpenAI Monitors Its Internal Agents

Their three-week stress test turned up routes that could let agents slip past review, including one exploit that could hide hundreds of recent actions. OpenAI says it has patched every production issue.

7. In a Science Study, Microsoft's MAI-DxO Diagnosed 83% of Hard Cases, While Doctors Got 36%

In the simulated test, the multi-agent system went up against generalist physicians working alone on complex NEJM cases. Worth knowing: much of the gain came from the underlying models, such as GPT-5.

8. WSJ Says Trump Asked Musk to Lift Ukraine's Starshield Limits, but Kyiv Says Service Is Still Capped

US officials said service got better after the October 21 call. A Ukrainian official pushed back, calling the reports false and saying military Starlink speed caps still limit drone operations.

9. No Kill Switch: Palantir on NATO's Maven AI System

Palantir's Europe head told Reuters that neither the company nor the US government can switch off Maven for customers who've bought it. The comment comes as Europe worries about relying on US technology.

10. Anthropic and OpenAI Hand Their Agent Standards to the Agentic AI Foundation

Anthropic handed over Agent Skills and OpenAI gave Open Responses to the Linux Foundation group. The group also took in projects from Hugging Face and Alibaba, and it now hosts 10 projects.

11. Elon Musk Reportedly Put About $1B Into the Ellisons' Skydance

Semafor broke the story first. The investment mirrors Larry Ellison's $1B contribution to Musk's 2022 purchase of Twitter, and other outlets, Bloomberg and Deadline among them, followed with the same figure.

12. Barclays Plans About 5,000 Job Cuts as It Leans More on AI

That's about 5% of staff, mostly in support functions including software development. Barclays' third-quarter pretax profit of £2.3B rose 12%, but it still missed estimates.

13. Spotify Hits 306 Million Paying Subscribers and Confirms Family Plan Checks

Revenue rose 16% to about €5B. And if you're on a Family Plan, you'll now need to scan a QR code on the plan manager's phone within seven days to prove you share a home.

14. a16z Crypto Is Now a16z Frontier, Andreessen Horowitz Says

The Chris Dixon-led unit has raised nearly $10B across five funds since 2018. Now it'll back AI, robotics and new networks too, while still investing in crypto.

15. Arc Shuts Down on December 22, The Browser Company Says

Arc users lose access on that date. Bookmarks, passwords, extensions and history can move over automatically to Dia, the company's AI browser and where it's now putting its focus.

16. Canva Launches Craft, Its First Homegrown Image Generation Model

Craft was trained on human-designed templates, not photos. It makes images up to 2K with text you can actually read, it's open to all users and through the API, and it's coming to chatbots via MCP.

17. Kindle Unlimited Becomes Kindle+, With More Audiobooks From Amazon

Same price, same features. What's new is more human-narrated audiobooks, and authors can now include AI-narrated versions made with Amazon's Virtual Voice tool.

18. Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences Debuts With $215M to Automate Drug Chemistry Labs

Lightspeed led the round at a reported $865M valuation. The startup, from OpenAI's former science head, trains robots to make and test drug candidates, and they learn from chemists wearing cameras and sensor gloves.

19. 1Password Tops $500M in Annual Recurring Revenue and Launches 1Password for Agents

The new product lets AI agents sign in to accounts on your behalf without ever seeing the password. According to 1Password, developers and AI builders are what's driving its growth.

20. After a Weak-Key Scandal, India's eMudhra Leaves the Global Website Certificate Business

Eight of its intermediate certificate authorities had private keys so weak they could be cracked. The company says the business was about 1% of revenue, and it'll help customers move elsewhere.

21. Fortnite Is Heading Back to Apple's App Store in Australia After a Court Ruling, Epic Says

The Federal Court ordered Apple to allow third-party app stores and alternative payments by March 1, 2027. Apple says it disagrees and plans to seek a stay and appeal.

22. Hugging Face Launches Carbon-X, an Open Model You Can Ask About DNA

It's a roughly 14B-parameter model released under Apache 2.0. You can give it raw DNA in chat, and it can explain things like whether a mutation is likely harmful.

23. Xona Space Systems, a GPS Alternative, Raises $250M at a $2.45B Valuation

Future Ventures' Steve Jurvetson led the Series D. It backs Xona's planned constellation of about 258 satellites, which aims to offer more precise, jam-resistant navigation from 2027.

24. Microsoft Shuts The Garage, Its 17-Year-Old Employee Hackathon Program

The program ran Microsoft's global hackathon and maker spaces for staff. Now GeekWire and The Verge report that it's being shut down.

25. Formic, a Robotics-as-a-Service Company, Raises $50M

The Chicago company's round is a $40M Series B plus $10M in asset-backed financing. The plan: more robots in factories that rent them instead of buying them.

26. Mistral's CEO and Yann LeCun Back a $30M Pre-Seed for Swiss Robotics Startup Enact

Redalpine, Notion Capital and Firstminute Capital led the round for Enact Intelligence. Its robots rely on force and touch sensing to handle objects more precisely.

27. Nirva Gets $25M for an AI Pendant That Listens Only to Its Wearer

This brings Nirva's total to $33M. It's getting ready to launch a wearable companion that offers personal insights and advice based on the user's own conversations.

28. Slingshot, an Embedded Insurance Startup, Comes Out of Stealth With $27M

Rally and Skyward Group co-led the seed round for the Minneapolis company. It uses AI to help businesses offer insurance right alongside their own products.