Google's Chief Scientist Jeff Dean left the company along with three senior AI researchers to launch a new AI startup called Discovery Loop. This venture will focus on building frontier AI systems that rapidly propose, execute, evaluate and iterate experiments across machine learning, science, drug discovery and engineering. Alphabet has joined as a founding investor and cloud computing partner.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot maker Unitree Robotics' Shanghai IPO, thereby acquiring a 2.31% strategic stake. Under the deal, the two Hangzhou-based firms agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid robots. The partnership is expected to combine DeepSeek's model-training expertise with Unitree's motion control and mechanical engineering.

Google parent Alphabet's former Chief Scientist Jeff Dean shared a pitch deck for his new AI startup, Discovery Loop. The deck mentioned that Dean and other co-founders, including Indian-origin engineer Sanjay Ghemawat, helped build Google Search, Ads, Gmail and Cloud TPUs. They also contributed to AI projects including Gemini, AlphaFold and Google's first neural chatbot.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek announced plans for a significant price increase across its AI services in the near term. In a user notice, the Hangzhou-based company urged customers to plan usage accordingly, though it did not specify exact rates and dates. The decision comes shortly after DeepSeek launched its low-cost V4-Flash model, as surging demand strains compute infrastructure.

Meta Platforms has launched Muse Code, an AI coding assistant powered by its new Muse Spark 1.2 model. The tool helps developers write, debug and verify code while managing complex projects and running multiple AI sub-agents simultaneously. Its launch intensifies competition with AI coding tools from Anthropic and OpenAI as companies race to monetise AI assistants.

Shiprocket will open its ₹1,617.5 crore IPO for public subscription on August 12. The issue includes a fresh share sale worth ₹885.5 crore and an offer-for-sale of ₹731.9 crore by existing shareholders, while the price band will be announced on August 6. The company has reduced the IPO size by 30% from the earlier proposed ₹2,342.3 crore.

OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig will pay $3.2 million to settle US government claims that they discriminated against American job applicants while favouring foreign workers on temporary visas. The Justice Department alleged they discouraged US applicants by requiring paper applications, airing late-night radio job ads, and not listing openings on external websites.

Consumer-to-consumer marketplace Vingo has raised ₹10 crore (about $1.2 million) in a seed funding round led by IndiaQuotient, with participation from Inuka Capital and angel investor Rishabh Goel. The Bengaluru-based platform plans to use the funds to improve its product, strengthen trust and payment systems, study user behaviour and support marketing efforts. It was founded in 2026.

Apple has expanded its trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging more former employees may have shared confidential hardware information before leaving the company. A new court filing says an internal investigation identified at least 11 additional ex-employees who may have been involved or witnessed the transfers. The alleged leaks involve unreleased AI hardware and consumer device designs.

Skyroot Aerospace has invited investors to bid for a stake in the company at a $2 billion valuation, up about 80% from its last funding round, Moneycontrol reported. Instead of a traditional fundraising process, the startup is evaluating investor bids before choosing partners. The move follows the successful launch of Vikram-1, India's first privately developed orbital launch vehicle.