What's good for a new-school company can also be good for an old-school one.
The big picture: Nvidia passed $5 trillion in value Wednesday, while Caterpillar's stock soared. The burgeoning AI economy is fueling insatiable demand for the modern form of picks and shovels — the types of AI chips that Nvidia designs — and for the actual picks and shovels needed to build that new capacity.
It's all hands on deck for LA's AI adoption as the city gears up to host a string of major sporting events.
Why it matters: LA faces a massive logistical challenge as it prepares to host three global sporting events in three years — and it's turning to AI to help the city cope.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday unveiled steps to streamline the way it approves lower-cost versions of biologic drugs, in a bid to curb health costs.
Why it matters: After years of lagging uptake, biosimilars are gaining traction, especially for cancer and autoimmune conditions.
But manufacturers have had to conduct additional research, such as switching studies, in order to deem the treatments interchangeable with the brand-name product.
Driving the news: Federal regulators laid out conditions under which biosimilars can be brought to market without the need for such comparative effectiveness studies.
A streamlined approach can be considered when the brand-name product and proposed biosimilar are manufactured from clonal cell lines, are highly purified and can be well-characterized analytically, per the guidance.
There still are circumstances where added studies will be necessary, the agency said.
What they're saying: "Under this new framework, companies may not always need to conduct large, expensive human trials when advanced testing can already prove that biosimilars work just as effectively and just as safely as the original drug," Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.
FDA commissioner Marty Makary pointed to red tape he said delayed for years biosimilars for AbbVie's blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira.
The big picture: It's the latest administration move aimed at curbing drug costs and streamling approvals.
The FDA recently awarded priority reviews for nine drugs, though some are already FDA-approved, meaning the priority review is only for approval of a new use.
The other side: The drug industry has previously opposed efforts to make it easier to swap biosimilars for their brand-name counterparts.
OpenAI and Character.AI are tightening safeguards after increasing reports of adults and teens forming unhealthy attachments to chatbots.
Why it matters: A series of suicideslinked to users' emotional dependence on AI companions has prompted senators to propose regulation and AI companies to begin making changes.
For True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers, the future of defense conjures thoughts of "space warfare, flat out."
"Warfare is becoming autonomous. It's becoming multi-domain, and it's becoming an activity that happens in the gray zone," he told Axios in an interview.
"There's all this entanglement around economics, politics and warfare," he added, "and the battlefield just looks very, very different than it used to."
Why he matters: Rogers is — as he puts it — a former space operations officer, commercial fisherman and grease monkey.
His company in April announced a $260 million Series C.
The AI industry is preparing to launch a multimillion-dollar ad campaign through a new policy advocacy group, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The new group — Build American AI — is the latest sign that the flush-with-cash AI industry is preparing to spend massive sums promoting its agenda, namely its push for federal, not state, regulation.
A slew of major companies announcing large-scale layoffs serves as a warning that the U.S. labor market, which has been in a prolonged-but-precarious balance, could be starting to tip over.
The big picture: Corporate psychology looks to be shifting, as the worker shortages of 2021 fade into memory and AI advances hold the promise of doing more with less.
A leading business group — in a report shared exclusively with Axios — is trying to jump-start efforts in Congress to cut red tape so that new AI and other projects can roll out more rapidly.
Why it matters: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) carries considerable clout with Republicans.
More than a dozen states could see the sky light up from the Northern Lights Tuesday night and Wednesday.
Why it matters: Forecasts suggest geomagnetic activity will trigger breathtaking celestial shows of the Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, in the bulk of upper North America.
Nvidia on Tuesday revealed a new computing system designed to enable autonomous vehicle developers to accelerate self-driving cars — with Uber signed on as an early collaborator.
Why it matters: The "inflection point" for robotaxis "is about to get here," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the Nvidia GTC in Washington, D.C.
OpenAI has committed to spend about $1.4 trillion on infrastructure so far, equating to roughly 30 gigawatts of data center capacity, CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday.
Why it matters: The statement helps clarify the many announcements the company has made with its chip, data center and financing partners.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5storm on Tuesday —bringing an "EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE-THREATENING SITUATION," per the National Hurricane Center.
The big picture: Officials confirmed three storm-related deaths on Monday evening, before the monster hurricane had made landfall in the Caribbean island nation.
Campbell Brown, a veteran news anchor and the former head of news at Meta, has raised a $3 million seed round to co-launch a new company called Forum AI that evaluates AI models for bias and makes judgment calls about high-stakes topics.
Why it matters: Brown believes much more transparency and expertise are required to inform human-level intelligence within AI systems.
Adobe announced Tuesday it is building new AI-based assistants into its core creative apps and a plan to also allow its apps to run inside popular chatbots.
The big picture: Adobe has been working for years to show creators how generative AI can be a boon to their jobs rather than an existential threat.
Amazon on Tuesday said it would cut 14,000 corporate roles, in an effort to thin out bureaucracy and be more flexible in an AI-driven era.
Why it matters: Big companies are starting to cut back headquarters positions in an uncertain economy, where AI is increasingly capable of supplanting many roles.
As five of the Magnificent 7 report earnings this week, investors are looking for fresh ways to play the AI boom beyond those overbought Big Tech stocks.
Why it matters: Wall Street's shift of attention away from the Mag 7 is throwing a spotlight on three AI companies: Oracle, Broadcom and Palantir.
Editor's note: For the latest on Hurricane Melissa, click here.
Hurricane Melissa strengthened into the world's most powerful storm of 2025 on Monday fueled by warmer ocean temperatures, as the Category 5 behemoth closed in on Jamaica ahead of its expected Tuesday landfall.
The big picture: The impacts of the storm that forecasters described as "catastrophic" were already being felt in Jamaica and three storm-related deaths were reported, the Jamaican Ministry of Health and Wellness said on X Monday evening.
