The wire

Just two weeks after Thinking Machines released Inkling , its first open source AI language model, the well-funded startup led by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati today introduced Inkling-Small without sacrificing much of any performance — and in fact, the new model surpasses its larger predecessor on several benchmarks. Inkling Small is a 276-billion-parameter multimodal reasoning model with a permissive Apache 2.0 license that comes within a single point of its larger sibling on the third-party Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index , despite the original Inkling being 975 billion parameters (internal model settings). It accepts text, image and audio inputs, produces text, and supports a context window of up to one million tokens. Inkling Small uses 12 billion active pa…

Dubai Financial Market trading value jumped 40.4% to AED119.5bn in H1 2026 as 42,864 new investors joined and international participation grew sharply

RIYADH — The founding members of the Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance on Thursday approved the establishment of the coalition as a framework for maritime defense cooperation, with Saudi Arabia designated as its founding nation, leader and permanent headquarters.In a joint statement, the founding states said growing threats to global maritime security require stronger collective cooperation to protect freedom of navigation, international trade routes and global energy supply lines through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.The alliance said it will operate in accordance with international law, United Nations conventions and internationally recognized norms to enhance maritime security, safeguard international shipping and protect shared maritime interests.The…

The former OpenAI researcher’s fund was forced to unwind public equities after leveraged public bets plummeted. But he still has cards to play.

Reddit's financial situation is looking good but uncertainty about its relationship to Google and the new AI-ified web are stirring market concerns.

Amazon isn't slowing down on data center spending — but investors don't seem to mind.

More than 135,000 UAE bank customers received AED13.5bn ($3.68bn) in loan repayment relief as banks recorded their lowest-ever bad loan ratio

To quote an ancient Jedi Master "Begun, the AI price wars have!" OpenAI is sharply reducing the prices of two models in its GPT-5.6 frontier series, cutting GPT-5.6 Luna, the smallest and fastest model in the series, by 80% and GPT-5.6 Terra, the mid-tier model, by 20%, while adding a premium Fast mode for its flagship GPT-5.6 Sol model. The cuts place Luna much closer to the lowest-cost commercial models in the market and arrive just a few days after Anthropic released its highly performant Claude Opus 5 at the same price as Opus 4.8, and Google introduced Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite , two rival models built around lower inference costs, faster execution and more efficient agent workloads. O penAI is successfully undercutting Google's price per intelligence and attempting t…

The UAE will announce petrol prices for August 2026 this week, following a drop in July

The exchange reported lower quarterly revenue and a net loss as crypto trading activity declined, while subscription, stablecoin, and lending businesses continued to grow.

A Dubai Marina real estate brokerage has hired a CEO on a AED250,000 ($68,100)-a-month package as firms prioritise proven leaders despite softer hiring

A federal judge said the Trump administration has not presented enough evidence to justify labeling Anthropic a supply-chain risk, casting doubt on the government's ban on its AI technology.

Dubai completed 24,800 new homes in H1 2026 as deliveries jumped 38 per cent, while sales slowed and developers launched fewer projects, says Cavendish Maxwell

Friend, the AI wearable, can now talk to its users — for an enhanced price.

Scott Bessent urged the Senate to immediately vote on the crypto market structure bill, accusing Democrats of delaying the legislation for political reasons.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Thursday hosted an international meeting to advance its proposal for a multinational maritime defense alliance aimed at strengthening maritime security, protecting international shipping lanes and countering threats to global trade.The meeting brought together chiefs of staff and their representatives from 43 countries, as well as the European Union Delegation to Saudi Arabia, underscoring growing international support for enhanced maritime defense cooperation.Participants reviewed escalating threats to maritime security, including attacks on commercial vessels, energy tankers and critical maritime infrastructure, warning that such incidents pose risks to freedom of navigation, global supply chains and the international economy.The meeting also examined the propose…

A multi-institution study found that today's frontier AI agents could handle the mechanics of research but failed to produce original work worthy of acceptance at a top AI conference.

Dubai population reaches 4.58m as city adds 332,000 residents and daytime population climbs to 6.392m

The UAE Capital Market Authority has abolished 15 fees, introduced new charges and overhauled its fee framework. Here's what businesses need to know

Abu Dhabi supermarkets will remove unhealthy food from checkouts, entrances and online promotions under mandatory new rules from January 1, 2027