Good morning. Especially if you work at Jaguar Land Rover, which restarts production of its vehicles today after a crippling cyberattack took three of its facilities offline for five whole weeks.
If it was bad for Tata Motors-owned JLR—at 1,000 vehicles per week, that’s about 50 million pounds ($68 million) in lost revenue every seven days—it was even worse for its suppliers.
Good thing JLR is fronting components payments to help catch up. After all, how will Amazon film a new James Bond flick if the villains don’t have anything to drive?
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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And the Nobel Prize in Physics goes to…quantum computing
It’s official: John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research into quantum mechanics.
(Per the Nobel committee, it’s specifically “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” but I’m sure you already knew that.)
Clarke conducted his research at the University of California, Berkeley; Martinis at UC Santa Barbara; and Devoret at Yale and also at UC Santa Barbara.
Two of the three have ties to Google: Martinis headed Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab until 2020; Devoret is currently the chief scientist of Google Quantum AI.
The Nobel committee said the trio’s work—on display in the transistors of any computer chip—will help facilitate the development of “the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.”
The researchers will share a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (almost $1.2 million) and lifelong respect in their field.
It’s hardly the first time tech pioneers have won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Just last year, AI luminaries John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton won for their “foundational discoveries” in machine learning and artificial neural networks. —AN
NYSE owner plows up to $2 billion into Polymarket
Polymarket was once a niche crypto platform. Now, the startup is moving into the ranks of mainstream finance thanks to a $2 billion investment from trading giant Intercontinental Exchange.
Under the terms of the deal, announced on Tuesday, the cash investment will value the company at $9 billion, and the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange will distribute the prediction market’s data.
The two companies will also work together on tokenization initiatives, or the act of putting financial assets into blockchain wrappers, according to a press release.
The nearly $2 billion injection into Polymarket comes as investors are ponying up cash to capitalize on growing enthusiasm for prediction markets, or arenas where investors can bet on whether China will invade Taiwan or the future price of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Proponents say these markets combine the “wisdom of the crowd” with financial repercussions that encourage participants to be intellectually honest about whether an event will occur. —Ben Weiss
Qualcomm acquires Arduino
One of the world’s leading chipmakers has acquired a geek favorite.
Qualcomm said Tuesday that it bought Arduino, an Italian open-source electronics platform that DIY types can’t get enough of.
The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but Arduino was valued at $160 million a couple of years ago—practically an impulse buy for a Fortune 500 company.
Qualcomm says the smaller company will “retain its independent brand, tools, and mission” and continue to “support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers.”
Qualcomm’s value to Arduino is clear—massive resources, global footprint, etc. But what’s the value in the other direction?
For one, getting its AI products in the hands of makers in the open-source community. And perhaps laying groundwork for a bigger push into robotics (which loves an Arduino kit) and physical AI, which according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is the next wave of AI after agentic. —AN
More tech
—AI-related debt is now $1.2 trillion, according to J.P. Morgan.
—Tesla abandons Optimus robot goal. Reported technical challenges with their hands. (Seriously.)
—Anthropic and IBM partner. Claude comes to Big Blue’s software development platform.
—Big Tech to Intel CEO’s rescue. Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang, Michael Dell, and others reportedly came to Lip-Bu Tan’s defense in the wake of President Trump’s withering criticism.
—Dell boosts outlook. Projected annual revenue growth between 7% and 9%, up from 3% to 4%, thanks to all that AI demand.
—xAI gets a CFO. Morgan Stanley’s Anthony Armstrong will also oversee the books for X.
—California bans loud streaming ads. On behalf of the parents of young children everywhere: thank you.
