China Vows Response to US Sanctions Threat Against AI Firms - Bloomberg

• Big Tech companies are funding their aggressive investments in artificial intelligence by implementing significant payroll cuts and layoffs of skilled employees. • This strategy, highlighted in recent reporting by Fortune's Eva Roytburg, involves trading human capital for AI infrastructure and development.

• Software security flaws in popular technology products are on pace to roughly double in 2026 due to the increasing use of AI. • Alexander Leslie of Recorded Future Inc. reports that the average time for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities has plummeted from 72 hours last year to just 24 hours.

• Microsoft is investing in unrestricted funding for university research to explore the cybersecurity implications of AI systems. • The initiative focuses on how AI models can be attacked, manipulated, or abused within operational environments.

• Stripe is reportedly in talks to acquire OpenRouter, a company that serves as an intermediary routing layer between AI model providers and developers. • OpenRouter optimizes AI requests based on cost, latency, and capability, and was previously valued at $1.3 billion during a May 2026 funding round.

• Software security vulnerabilities discovered in 2026 are on pace to roughly double the total reported in 2025, according to a Bloomberg report. • The U.S. National Vulnerabilities Database had already recorded over 45,000 flaws by late July, nearly matching the previous year's full total.

• AegisAI has secured $36 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures to develop AI agents capable of detecting and blocking sophisticated spear-phishing attacks. • The investment addresses the growing threat of cybercriminals utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate and scale malicious activities.

• Lam Research is scheduled to report its Q4 earnings on July 29, with analysts highlighting unique strengths compared to its semiconductor equipment rivals. • The company has maintained growth despite export controls, reporting a 23.76% year-over-year revenue increase, with Korea and Taiwan each contributing $1.34 billion.

• Chinese AI startups are successfully attracting global developers by offering low-cost, open-weight models to increase user adoption. • Despite high user growth, these companies are facing heavy financial losses driven by the soaring costs of compute and infrastructure.

• China's commerce ministry has accused several American artificial intelligence companies of "distilling" Chinese AI models during their research and development processes. • The ministry claims that U.S. firms have utilized Chinese examples and data to train and refine their own AI models.

• SK Telecom has launched a dedicated AI infrastructure company, SK Hyper, to develop 15GW of AI data center capacity over the medium to long term. • The new firm follows the creation of an integrated development division reporting directly to the CEO to coordinate infrastructure efforts across the broader SK Group.

• South Korean venture capital firms are aggressively investing in local semiconductor material startups to capitalize on the escalating global AI chip race. • This surge in funding is driven by the intensifying competition for dominance in artificial intelligence hardware and the critical need for advanced materials.