Pulse Daily — Friday, August 14, 2026
On Friday, August 14, 2026, AI's most consequential week crystallized across eleven stories: OpenAI's Astra model was paused over unprecedented 'Critical' cyber capability; Stanford's AI-designed viruses defeated antibiotic-resistant bacteria; Nvidia sealed a $500 billion Wall Street infrastructure pact; Google, xAI, and OpenAI traded blows in a fierce inference price-and-speed war; Apple quietly built its own China model with Alibaba; Anthropic began watermarking all Claude output under the EU AI Act; DeepSeek announced a significant price hike; Uber and Pony.ai moved toward 2,000-plus…
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