The Next Web
- Foreign automakers are not staging a comeback in China. They are learning to be the junior partner.by Alina Maria Stan on 02/05/2026 at 17:09
In January and February 2026, Volkswagen reclaimed the top position in China’s passenger vehicle market with a 13.9 per cent share, narrowly ahead of Geely at 13.8 per cent. Toyota’s joint ventures held 7.8 per cent. BYD, which dominated 2024 and much of 2025 as the world’s largest EV maker, slipped to fourth at 7.1 This story continues at The Next Web
- Nvidia built the AI engine. Alphabet is building the car, the road, and the toll booth. The market is pricing accordingly.by Cristian Dina on 02/05/2026 at 16:47
On Thursday, Alphabet’s share price rose nearly 10 per cent after the company reported first-quarter revenue of $109.9 billion, a 22 per cent increase year over year that beat analyst estimates by almost $3 billion. Google Cloud crossed $20 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, growing 63 per cent. The cloud backlog nearly This story continues at The Next Web
- China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same.by Ana Maria Constantin on 02/05/2026 at 16:30
A quality assurance supervisor identified only as Zhou joined a technology company in Hangzhou in November 2022. His job was to work with AI large language models, optimising their outputs and filtering sensitive content. He earned 25,000 yuan per month, roughly $3,640. In 2024, the company decided that its AI systems had improved to the This story continues at The Next Web
- The EVs America is losing in 2026 are not failing. They are being tariffed out of existence.by Alina Maria Stan on 02/05/2026 at 12:43
At least a dozen electric vehicle models have been discontinued, paused, or cancelled in the United States this year. The list includes some of the most recognisable names in the industry: Tesla’s Model S and Model X, Honda’s entire 0 Series, the Volvo EX30, the BMW i4 and iX, the Hyundai Kona Electric and This story continues at The Next Web
- Y Combinator built its empire on software. Its latest investment thesis says the garage is no longer enough.by Cristian Dina on 02/05/2026 at 10:01
Y Combinator published its Summer 2026 Request for Startups in late April, just days before the application deadline. The document lists 15 categories of companies that YC’s partners want to fund. Eight of them require capital, hardware, or both. The list includes AI for low-pesticide agriculture, counter-swarm drone defence, inference chips for space, lunar manufacturing This story continues at The Next Web
- Seven minutes from JFK to Midtown. Joby just flew the route it plans to sell.by Alina Maria Stan on 02/05/2026 at 09:50
The flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown Manhattan took seven minutes. By car, depending on the time of day, the same journey takes between 60 and 120 minutes. On Friday, Joby Aviation landed its all-electric air taxi at the heliport as part of a demonstration hosted This story continues at The Next Web
- The company that built TikTok’s algorithm is now designing drugs for diseases pharma called undruggableby Allison Steffens Herrera on 02/05/2026 at 09:01
The company that built TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, the system that predicts with unsettling accuracy what a person wants to watch next, is now using a related class of AI to predict how molecules will behave inside a human body. ByteDance’s drug discovery unit, Anew Labs, presented its first AI-designed therapy at the American Association of This story continues at The Next Web
- Musk’s case against OpenAI lands roughly in its first weekby Ana-Maria Stanciuc on 02/05/2026 at 07:38
Three days of cross-examination in Oakland produced a $130bn lawsuit’s most awkward admissions, including that xAI trains on OpenAI’s models. The judge, not the jury, will decide. Elon Musk took the stand in Oakland on Tuesday with a story he has been telling for two years. He had founded OpenAI in 2015, he said, to This story continues at The Next Web
- Apple’s $599 Mac mini is gone. Blame the AI agents.by Ana Maria Constantin on 02/05/2026 at 07:24
Apple has quietly raised the desktop’s starting price to $799 after demand from developers building local AI tools cleared its shelves. Tim Cook says it could take months to catch up. For five years, the Mac mini has been the cheapest way into Apple’s desktop ecosystem. Since the M4 refresh in late 2024, that price This story continues at The Next Web
- Why a Canadian bank is trying to predict earthquakes with quantum computersby Allison Steffens Herrera on 02/05/2026 at 07:12
BMO has filed a provisional patent on a quantum algorithm for seismic forecasting, and is sending mobile branches to wildfire zones with AI dispatch. The bank says it is the future of risk. Banks are not, as a rule, in the earthquake business. They are in the business of pricing risk, which is adjacent. Still, This story continues at The Next Web









