OpenAI unveiled its first gadget and upgraded free ChatGPT, Tesla and SpaceX are going for the world's largest chip factory, and biologists taught AI to build viruses. Here's the week's essentials.
🤖 AI
OpenAI made GPT-5.6 Luna the default model for free ChatGPT
The company lifted rate limits on text chats for Free and Go tiers and added a Think button for harder questions. Luna makes 62% fewer mistakes than the previous GPT-5.5 Instant, while Pro and Plus subscribers got GPT-5.6 Sol.
Stanford and the Broad Institute taught AI to build viruses from scratch
Scientists trained two language models on the genomes of more than two million bacteriophages and used them to generate 16 viable viruses that don't exist in nature. Some kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but experts are calling for stronger biosecurity measures in case bad actors get their hands on the technology.
DeepMind taught AI to predict hurricanes a day earlier
The WeatherNext Cyclones model outperforms existing systems at forecasting the trajectory, intensity, and wind of tropical cyclones — its three-day forecast is now as accurate as competitors' two-day ones. DeepMind open-sourced the model's weights under an Apache 2.0 license.
💻 Software
OpenAI, Google, AWS, and Vercel released a shared standard for agent plugins
Agent Plugins 1.0.0 packages Agent Skills and MCP servers into a single plugin.json manifest that different clients understand — from Cursor to VS Code. Developers won't have to build a separate extension for every tool, though the standard doesn't yet cover permission models or sandboxing.
⚙️ Robots & hardware
OpenAI is prepping its first gadget — a puck-sized speaker for $300+
The screenless device, built with Jony Ive's studio LoveFrom (Apple's former chief design officer), will have moving parts, a camera, and microphones. OpenAI plans to ship the gadget in 2027 as an AI computer that adapts to its user.
Tesla and SpaceX are building the world's largest chip factory
Terafab will be built in Grimes County, Texas; the first phase alone will cost $16.8 billion, and the finished site will span more than 100 million square feet. The plant will combine chip logic, memory, and packaging — for Optimus robots, Cybercab, and SpaceX's space data centers.
Nuclear startup Oklo triggered its first chain reaction in a test reactor
The Groves Isotope Test Reactor reached criticality less than a year after construction began — the first reactor in the US Department of Energy's pilot program to do so on private land. Groves will become the foundation of Oklo's isotope business.
💰 Business
Airtable sold to Bending Spoons for $1.285 billion, but kept its AI agents
Before the deal, the company spun off its Hyperagent platform into a separate entity controlled by founder Howie Liu. Bending Spoons got the mature database business with half a million customers — at a quarter of its $11.7 billion peak valuation.
AMD bought chip startup Taalas to hardwire models into silicon
Taalas builds accelerators with model weights soldered directly into the chip — that's how its stripped-down Llama 3.1 runs. AMD didn't disclose the deal size and will fold Taalas's technology into its accelerator lineup alongside Instinct.
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