June 30, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5 as a cheaper way to run agents: Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 5 brings stronger agentic capabilities, lower pricing, and improved safety, positioning the model as a cheaper alternative to Opus, GPT-5.5, and Gemini Pro. Read More

Nvidia competitor Etched hits $5B valuation, $1B in sales for AI chip: Nvidia AI chip competitor Etched says it has already booked $1 billion under contract for the inference systems powered by its chip. Read More

The DeepMind trio who built a poker AI, are now making money for quant hedge funds: EquiLibre Technologies, a Prague-based AI lab founded by three ex-DeepMind researchers, is now valued at more than $500 million. Read More

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Afternoon Must-Reads

Amazon launches new $1 billion FDE org, following OpenAI and Anthropic: Engineers on the new team will embed within companies to deploy purpose-built agents, focusing on fast deployments and customer self-sufficiency. Read More

Tesla starts testing Cybercab without pedals or a steering wheel in Austin: The company may finally be ready to try to deliver on Elon Musk's years-long promise of launching a robotaxi network of its own. Read More

Realta Fusion generates electricity directly from a fusion reaction, an apparent first: “We can take power from a plasma,” Kieran Furlong, co-founder and CEO of Realta Fusion, told TechCrunch. The milestone shows “what’s possible,” he added. Read More

Anthropic’s Claude Science bets on workflow, not a new model, to win over scientists: Anthropic's Claude Science is a workbench that gives scientists one environment to do computational research, saving them from the need to bounce between databases, pipelines, and tools. Read More

Google introduces a faster, cheaper image generator with Nano Banana 2 Lite: Google is updating its image generator to make it faster and cheaper, making it a more useful tool for creators looking to make AI content. Read More

Last but Not Least

Clicks shows off its BlackBerry-inspired phone in a new hands-on video: A new video shows the final production version of the upcoming Clicks Communicator, a BlackBerry-like smartphone that runs modern apps. Read More

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