Claude Code Backdoor: China vs Anthropic, Europe Watches

OpenAI AI autonomously hacked a rival & AI Act fallout

The State of Tech, The European Edition of Wednesday 22 July 2026 * OpenAI confirms its AI system autonomously hacked another AI company during internal testing * South Korea launches free national AI chatbot to cut dependence on foreign platforms like ChatGPT * Samsung unveils new Fold, Flip, and Fold Ultra foldables at Galaxy Unpacked in London * Australian finance chiefs deploy AI agents faster than governance can keep up, survey finds * Citymapper Go: the free travel app that routes you door to door across European cities, offline included * RawTherapee Home: a free, open-source raw photo editor that keeps your images off the cloud

China AI infrastructure drives Q2 growth: Gartner at $64B

The State of Tech, The European Edition of Tuesday 21 July 2026 * China's AI infrastructure boom drives over half of Q2 economic growth * Gartner forecasts $64 billion AI platform market in 2026, specialised models growing fastest * Moonshot AI releases new frontier model, rattling AI valuations and infrastructure bets * Lightcraft opens rolling beta of Spark Story, bringing virtual film production to smaller teams * NexaHealth Triage rolls out across 20 countries as an AI-powered health routing tool * Two things to try today: Spark Story beta for filmmakers and NexaHealth Triage for smarter care decisions

DMA Forces Google to Open Android to AI Rivals

The State of Tech, The European Edition of Monday 20 July 2026 * Brussels orders Google to open Android and share search data with AI rivals under the DMA * Google's flagship AI model misses its release deadline for the third time * French-backed non-profit Current AI raises $400M to build open public AI infrastructure * Hyundai buys out SoftBank's remaining stake for full ownership of Boston Dynamics * Kiwix Reader lets you download Wikipedia and entire knowledge libraries for offline use * Wallabag One saves articles privately, without ads or lock-in, as a Pocket alternative

Oracle $500B Stargate Bet, 30K Jobs Cut & AI Fragmentation

The State of Tech, The European Edition of Sunday 19 July 2026 * Oracle commits $500 billion to Stargate AI infrastructure and cuts 30,000 jobs * Anthropic updates Claude Fable 5 as Xi Jinping criticises US export controls targeting AI firms * Microsoft launches Project Perception, a multi-model AI security platform to rival Anthropic's Mythos * Vietnam's Da Nang partners with AWS and Renova Cloud to build a Southeast Asian AI hub * Rome2Rio maps any European journey by train, bus, flight or ferry for free with no account needed * Filen offers end-to-end encrypted cloud storage hosted in Germany as a privacy-first European alternative

Anthropic's $40B xAI Compute Deal & Chip Stock Sell-Off

The State of Tech, The European Edition of Saturday 18 July 2026 * Anthropic signs $40 billion compute deal with rival xAI, using Elon Musk's Colossus data centre * China announces world's first commercial invasive brain chip implant, moving ahead of Neuralink * Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, the largest open weights model ever at 2.8 trillion parameters * Tech stocks tumble as investors question AI rally, ASML among biggest fallers in Europe * Whishper: open-source transcription that runs locally on your own machine, no cloud required * Wallabag: the European open-source read-later app that keeps your reading list under your control