Nvidia announces new open AI models and tools for autonomous driving research

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this afternoon

View this email online in your browser  December 01, 2025 TechCrunch Top 3 Nvidia announces new open AI models and tools for autonomous driving research: Nvidia continues its push into physical AI with the release of a new reasoning world model and other tools for physical AI. Read More MKBHD's wallpaper app Panels is shutting down: From the time Brownlee launched Panels in September 2024, the app struggled to find an audience of its own. "We knew it was niche … and ultimately, we weren't able to turn it into the vision I had," Marques Brownlee said. Read More Construction workers are cashing in on the AI boom: "I pinch myself going to work every day," one 51-year-old says of his new supervisor role overseeing 200 workers at a data center site. Read More Be the first to know when news breaks Subscribe to our News Alerts, and you won't miss a thing. Breaking news, exclusives, and special reports—straight to your inbox. Sign up for News Alerts! A message from Arm How AI and Energy Costs Are Rebuilding the Cloud Rising energy prices and AI's massive compute demands are pushing hyperscalers to redesign data centers around efficient chips. AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft are leading the shift with Arm-based processors to deliver higher performance, lower energy use, and a more sustainable internet. Explore the shift Afternoon Must-Reads Korea's Coupang says data breach exposed nearly 34M customers' personal information: E-commerce company Coupang has confirmed a massive data breach affecting 33.7 million customer accounts in South Korea. Read More Nvidia's $2B Synopsys bet tightens its grip on the chip-design stack: The $2 billion investment in Synopsys, which makes software and components for designing semiconductor chips, deepens their existing partnership at a time when analysts scrutinize circular AI-industry deals and warn of a potential bubble. Read More Zillow drops climate risk scores after agents complained of lost sales: The move is a loss for homebuyers, who through Zillow had ready access to a property's climate risks scores from First Street. Read More At least 80 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025 so far: Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the VC-backed startups that became unicorns so far this year. Read More Shopify resolves outage disrupting merchants on Cyber Monday: Shopify was down for many merchants this morning, preventing them from processing transactions. It appears to be fixed now. Read More A message from Amazon Web Services Cloud security, no buzzwords allowed From threat detection to compliance, our hosts skip the jargon and dig into real AWS security trends—live from AWS re:Invent. Tune in to hear security experts and AWS Partners get real about today's toughest cloud security battles—what's working, what's not, and what's next. Learn More You missed these chats from Disrupt: Kindred talks home-swapping platform for travelers, Chef Robotics introduces AI into commercial kitchens, and Character.AI addresses chatbot safety with teens. Watch on Cheddar.com Watch on Streaming Last but Not Least Amazon's AI chatbot Rufus drove sales on Black Friday: On Black Friday, Amazon sessions that resulted in a sale were up 100% in the U.S. when the AI chatbot Rufus was used. They only increased by 20% when Rufus wasn't used. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

At least 80 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025 so far

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  December 01, 2025 TechCrunch Top 3 At least 80 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025 so far: Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the VC-backed startups that became unicorns so far this year. Read More Korea's Coupang says data breach exposed nearly 34M customers' personal information: E-commerce company Coupang has confirmed a massive data breach affecting 33.7 million customer accounts in South Korea. Read More 'Avatar' director James Cameron says generative AI is 'horrifying': James Cameron's movies are often at the cutting edge of visual effects technology, but that doesn't make him a fan of generative AI. Read More Be the first to know when news breaks Subscribe to our News Alerts, and you won't miss a thing. Breaking news, exclusives, and special reports—straight to your inbox. Sign up for News Alerts! A message from HSBC Innovation Banking US Discover founder-first banking for the future. HSBC Innovation Banking US is committed to helping leaders in the innovation economy get started on the future faster by providing access to an extensive global network, dedicated sector experts, and a robust suite of banking products and services. Learn more Morning Must-Reads Black Forest Labs raises $300M at $3.25B valuation: The round was co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Anjney Midha (AMP), and saw participation from a16z, NVIDIA, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, BroadLight Capital, General Catalyst, Temasek, Bain Capital Ventures, Air Street Capital, Visionaries Club, Canva and Figma Ventures. Read More New York state law takes aim at personalized pricing: Businesses that use personalized pricing are now required to tell customers, "This price was set by an algorithm using your personal data." Read More New report examines how David Sacks might profit from Trump administration role: David Sacks' role as President Donald Trump's artificial intelligence and crypto czar could work out very well for his investments, according to a new report. However, Sacks fired back, calling the story a "nothing burger." Read More ChatGPT launched three years ago today: It's no hyperbole to suggest that ChatGPT subsequently transformed the worlds of business and tech. Read More Varda says it has proven space manufacturing works -- now it wants to make it boring: CEO Will Bruey says people often get Varda wrong. The company isn't "in the space industry; we're in-space industry," he said. Space is "just another place to ship to." Read More A message from Amazon Web Services Cloud security, no buzzwords allowed From threat detection to compliance, our hosts skip the jargon and dig into real AWS security trends—live from AWS re:Invent. Tune in to hear security experts and AWS Partners get real about today's toughest cloud security battles—what's working, what's not, and what's next. Learn More You missed these chats from Disrupt: Kindred talks home-swapping platform for travelers, Chef Robotics introduces AI into commercial kitchens, and Character.AI addresses chatbot safety with teens. Watch on Cheddar.com Watch on Streaming Last but Not Least Behind the scenes of drone food delivery in Finland: TechCrunch went behind the scenes of a three-party partnership between Irish drone delivery company Manna, Doordash-owned food delivery platform Wolt, and food startup Huuva. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107