Vice President Kamala Harris’ presumed ascension to the Democratic presidential nomination following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal scrambled this week certainly scrambled the race, but it also set everyone in tech wondering what a Harris administration might mean.

Bottom line: Nobody knows — and of course there’s no guarantee she will win the election come November, despite some reenergized supporters in the industry. But it’s likely that there will be some changes in tech policy if she wins. She seems likely to take a middle ground in artificial intelligence, which is to say more or less in line with Biden’s policies. On other key issues, it’s not so clear, even if her California and Bay Area bona fides suggests she is more amenable to policies that encourage innovation. No doubt we’ll hear a lot more very soon.

It was another huge week for generative AI, as the march of AI models accelerated thanks to new ones from, well, just about everyone in the market. Big fundings also continued with more than a half-billion each to Cohere and even a Chinese company, Baichuan. Moreover, AI is boosting earnings of everything from chipmakers such as Texas Instruments and SK Hynix to enterprise stalwarts such as IBM and SAP, but it didn’t help Alphabet enough given slowing ad growth.

At the same time, AI is coming under increasing fire from researchers, YouTube creators and actors — there are a lot of knotty issues still to be worked out.

On the cybersecurity front, CrowdStrike acted quickly to identify its internet-killing bug and fix it, but a $10 Uber Eats gift card isn’t going to mollify anyone anytime soon. Meantime, Wiz ended its big-money Google talks and will work toward an IPO instead.

Speaking of IPOs, OneStream has a successful one this week, but will it be enough to restart offerings? In any case, next week will provide a huge read on tech sentiment going forward, with earnings reports due from Microsoft, AMD, Samsung, Arm, Qualcomm, Meta, Intel, Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare and more.

And next Tuesday and Wednesday, July 30 and 31, we’ll be running our own editorial event, Supercloud 7: Get Ready for the Next Data Platform. Free online and on-demand afterwards, it will feature high-octane speakers such as Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi, Snowflake co-founder and President of Products Benoit Dageville, data mesh guru and Nextdata CEO Zhamak Dehghani, VAST Data CEO Renen Hallak and many more from Google, Microsoft, Walmart and a raft of startups. Register here.

SiliconANGLE and theCUBE Research analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante discuss this and other news in more detail on theCUBE Pod, now out on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive, Breaking Analysis, out this weekend.

Here’s the big news of the week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:

AI and data: March of the AI models

Money matters

Alibaba-backed Chinese AI startup Baichuan raises $691M

AI model developer startup Cohere raises $500M at $5.5B valuation

IntelePeer raises $140M to automate customer service with generative AI

AI call center startup Level AI raises $39.4M to boost innovation

Lakera AI raises $20M to ward off malicious prompts on generative AI models

Splight raises $12M to unlock the potential of renewable energy sources with AI

AI trust startup Vijil raises $6M to prevent AI agents saying the wrong things

Chekable bags funding from NEC to streamline patent applications with generative AI

New services, and a whole lot of new models

OpenAI debuts AI-powered SearchGPT search engine

Google DeepMind unveils AI models for solving advanced mathematical problems

Meta introduces Llama 3.1, its biggest and best open-source AI model to date

Google’s free Gemini chatbot gets 1.5 Flash update, making responses faster and smarter

Nvidia works with Accenture to pioneer custom Llama large language models

Stability AI introduces Stable Video 4D, its new AI model for 3D video generation

Microsoft debuts AI-powered summaries in Bing search engine

Researchers develop new technique for squeezing full-fat AI models into PCs and smartphones

AWS launches generative AI-powered feature for Connect Contact Lens to help agents in call centers

Iterative debuts DataChain for curating and processing unstructured data with AI models

Dialpad releases enhanced ‘Ai Sales’ platform to streamline sales processes

In other news, AI comes under fire from a number of quarters

X’s new AI training opt-out setting draws regulatory scrutiny

Researchers find that AI-generated web content could make LLMs less accurate

Reddit blocks Bing, several other search engines from indexing its platform on AI training concerns

In latest AI training drama, Runway accused of using publicly available YouTube videos

Video game actors to go on strike following breakdown in AI talks with game developers

FTC will launch probe into AI-driven surveillance pricing

There’s more AI and big data news on SiliconANGLE

Around the enterprise: AI keeps boosting earnings

Earnings and other money matters

Alphabet beats the Street but slowing ad growth drags on stock price

Increased AI bookings help IBM deliver solid earnings and revenue beat, pushing its stock higher

SAP posts solid results and raises profit target for 2025

NXP Semiconductor’s stock falls on weak outlook

Tesla shares drop 6% on mixed results as price-cutting drives down automotive revenue

Texas Instruments stock rises after it posts earnings beat

SK Hynix second-quarter profit surges on AI chip sales (per the Wall Street Journal)

Seagate shares rise 5% after better-than-expected earnings

Pegasystems’ earnings beat forecasts and stock rises

Juniper disappoints with earnings that fall well short of forecasts

OneStream shares pop 34% on Nasdaq debut in positive sign for tech IPOs

Legal software startups Clio and Harvey raise nine-figure funding rounds

QA Wolf raises $36M in fresh funding to ease application reliability testing

In other news

Intel says patch is coming to fix processor instability problem plaguing gamers for months

Putting pressure on Google, Apple Maps is now available on the web

There’s plenty more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps

Cyber beat: Wiz deal fizzes out

Money matters

Wiz reportedly ends $23B acquisition talks with Google

Compliance automation and trust management startup Vanta raises $150M

Chainguard nabs $140M to secure enterprise applications’ open-source components

Unified security remediation platform startup Dazz raises $50M to enhance capabilities

Linx Security raises $33M for its identity security platform

Heeler Security raises $8.5M to advance real-time application security platform

AI-powered cloud risk resolution startup ZEST Security launches with $5M in funding

Attack & response

CrowdStrike reveals cause of faulty update that led to Windows crashes But at least people got a $10 Uber Eats gift card out of it… 🙄

Microsoft reveals only 8.5M Windows computers were affected by CrowdStrike outage

US grand jury indicts North Korean hacker for role in Andariel cyberattacks

Stolen internal documents from Pentagon contractor Leidos leaked online

NetRise study warns that network equipment vulnerabilities far exceed previous estimates

Cisco Talos: Business email compromise and ransomware topped threats in second quarter

Now-patched Telegram for Android vulnerability exposed users to malicious videos

New PlugX RAT campaign distributed through USB drives targets Steam users

New services

New Nozomi Networks security sensor provides extended visibility into industrial control systems

New Secure Code Warrior agent enhances secure-by-design approach for application security teams

More cybersecurity news here

Elsewhere in tech

Policy

Google no longer plans to end support for third-party cookies in Chrome

EU finds that Meta’s ad-free tier may be in breach of consumer protection rules

White House task force releases first-of-its-kind online safety report aimed at protecting kids

EU reportedly set to fine Meta over allegedly anticompetitive Marketplace Facebook integration

Money matters

Electric autonomous tractor company Monarch Tractor raises $133M

Warehouse robotics automation firm Mytra launches with $78M to change how materials move

Cyber insurance provider Cowbell reels in $60M to grow its product portfolio

Caldera raises $15M to help developers deploy their own scaling for blockchain networks

And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy

Comings and goings

High-profile ServiceNow executive CJ Desai quits over internal hiring policy violation

Check Point Software appoints Nadav Zafrir new CEO after earnings beat, replacing co-founder and CEO Gil Shwed, who becomes executive chair.

Data security firm Bedrock Security has a new CEO: Bruno Kurtic, co-founder and former chief strategy officer of Sumo Logic.

Intel names Naga Chandrasekaran to lead foundry manufacturing and supply chain, succeeding retiring Keyvan Esfarjani as chief global operations officer.

AMD President Victor Peng, who had rejoined the company with the acquisition of Xilinx in 2022, will retire on Aug. 30.

DigitalOcean hires former Rapid7 Chief Customer Officer Larry D’Angelo to be its new chief revenue officer.

Former Boston Consulting Group exec Pranay Ahlawat is Commvault’s first chief technology and AI officer.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise appoints its Chief Communications Officer Jennifer Temple to a new post of chief marketing officer and chief communications officer as current CMO Jim Jackson retires Aug 1.

What’s next

July 30: Supercloud 7: Get Ready for the Next Data Platform: Our latest Supercloud editorial event will look at the foundation for the new AI era, with lots of executives, practitioners, analysts and entrepreneurs from startups to established companies. Here are some of the topics we’ll be exploring. And get up to speed with our special section ahead of the event.

Earnings — a huge lineup next week

Monday, July 29: F5 Networks

Tuesday, July 30: Microsoft, AMD, Samsung, Arista, Informatica, Commvault, Freshworks and PayPal

Wednesday, July 31: Arm, Qualcomm, Meta, Kyndryl, Tenable and Western Digital

Thursday, Aug. 1: Intel, Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Mobileye, Twilio, Appian, OpenText, RingCentral, Altair, Atlassian, SolarWinds, Block, Coinbase and Snap

Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram