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

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

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

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

Podcasting platform Riverside enters the newsletter publishing game: Users will be able use AI to create newsletters based on their recordings. 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

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