AI News Roundup: $2.5B AI Chip Smuggling Charges, OpenAI Superapp, Meta Eyes Layoffs

Super Micro Co-Founder Charged in $2.5 Billion AI Chip Smuggling Scheme

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Super Micro Computer co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw and two associates with conspiring to divert $2.5 billion worth of AI servers equipped with advanced NVIDIA chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls. The scheme allegedly used a pass-through company in Southeast Asia to obscure the final destination, with fake documents and repackaged shipments designed to evade detection.

According to prosecutors, surveillance cameras documented individuals using hair dryers to remove labels and attach fake serial number stickers to dummy servers. Servers worth $510 million were shipped to China in a single three-week window in mid-2025 alone. Super Micro’s stock cratered 33% following the news. The case underscores the escalating tensions around AI hardware export controls and the high-stakes cat-and-mouse game between regulators and those seeking to circumvent restrictions on advanced AI technology reaching China.

OpenAI Plans Desktop Superapp Merging ChatGPT, Codex, and Atlas Browser

OpenAI is building a unified desktop application that combines its ChatGPT chatbot, Codex coding tool, and Atlas AI-powered web browser into a single experience, according to Bloomberg. The move aims to reduce fragmentation across OpenAI’s growing product lineup and keep users engaged as competition from Anthropic and Google intensifies.

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, will lead the effort alongside President Greg Brockman. The superapp would let users chat, code, browse, and automate tasks without switching between separate tools. No launch date has been announced, and OpenAI says it will continue offering its standalone ChatGPT app. The strategy mirrors a broader trend in AI toward all-in-one platforms — Anthropic recently integrated Claude into Excel and PowerPoint, while Google has deepened Gemini’s embedding across Workspace.

Meta Weighs Laying Off 20% of Workforce to Fund AI Buildout

Meta is reportedly considering layoffs that could affect 20% of its roughly 79,000 employees — approximately 15,000 people — as the company looks to offset staggering AI infrastructure costs. The company’s 2026 capital expenditure is projected between $115 billion and $135 billion, nearly double last year’s $72 billion, driven almost entirely by AI compute buildout.

A Meta spokesperson called the report “speculative,” but the company’s stock actually climbed nearly 3% on the news. If confirmed, it would mark Meta’s largest reduction since the 2022–2023 “year of efficiency” cuts. The potential layoffs reflect a broader pattern: companies are simultaneously pouring record sums into AI infrastructure while shrinking headcount, betting that AI-assisted workers will generate more output with fewer people.

Atlassian Cuts 1,600 Jobs to “Self-Fund” AI Pivot

Atlassian eliminated 10% of its global workforce — roughly 1,600 positions — with CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes framing the decision as necessary to “self-fund further investment in AI and enterprise sales.” More than 900 of the affected roles came from software research and development, the company’s core product engine.

The cuts follow Block CEO Jack Dorsey’s decision weeks earlier to lay off nearly half of Block’s 10,000 employees, also citing AI automation. Cannon-Brookes acknowledged that “it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need.” Atlassian expects to take $225–$236 million in charges related to the restructuring, with cuts largely complete by the end of June.

ChatGPT Hits 900 Million Weekly Active Users

Andreessen Horowitz’s latest Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps report reveals that ChatGPT has grown its weekly active user base by 500 million people over the past year, reaching 900 million WAU. The app remains 2.7x larger than second-place Gemini on web traffic and 2.5x larger on mobile.

The competitive landscape is heating up: Claude grew paid subscribers by over 200% year-over-year, while Gemini grew 258%. The report also highlighted the rise of agentic AI — OpenClaw, an open-source project, surpassed both React and Linux to become the most-starred project on GitHub. Platforms like Manus and Genspark that let users hand off entire workflows to AI also made the rankings for the first time.

Apple’s AI-Powered Siri Delayed Again

Apple’s long-awaited AI overhaul of Siri will not ship with iOS 26.4 as originally targeted for March 2026. The first beta launched in February without any new Siri features, and reports now indicate the full conversational Siri won’t arrive until iOS 27 in September 2026, with some capabilities potentially surfacing in iOS 26.5 around May.

Apple is reportedly paying Google approximately $1 billion per year for a multi-year deal to power the new Siri with Gemini models. The delay continues a pattern of setbacks for Apple Intelligence — the company has struggled to match the pace of competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in delivering consumer-facing AI capabilities.