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Top stories today:
- Microsoft unveils MAI-Voice-1, MAI-1-preview in-house AI models
- CFTC opens door for overseas crypto exchanges to register in U.S.
- Elonās xAI debuts Grok Code Fast 1 agentic coding model
- Meta said to release next-generation Llama AI model by 2025-end
- RFK Jr. taps pro-longevity advocate Jim OāNeill to lead CDC
- Apple pressed by UK for wider back-door data access, filing shows
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Microsoft unveils MAI-Voice-1, MAI-1-preview in-house AI models
MAI-1-preview hit 13th on LMArenaās text leaderboard, ahead of Gemini 2.5 Flash, o1, Claude Sonnet 4, and Qwen3 235B-A22B-Thinking:
Trained on ~15K NVIDIA H100 GPUs, vs. 100K+ chips used to train xAIās Grok.
Available to ātrusted testersā initially, with no specific date on its broader availability.
MAI-Voice-1 is Microsoftās new speech model, designed to run on a single GPU and produce a 1-minute audio in under a second.
Used techniques gleaned from the open-source community to get maximum results with minimal resources, Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman said.
2. CFTC opens door for overseas crypto exchanges to register in U.S.
The agency issued an advisory clarifying how foreign platforms can register as āforeign boards of trade.ā
They need to be fully licensed in jurisdictions the CFTC considers equal to U.S. oversight.
Binance and others could be benefited by this move.
Hyperliquid was -8%, suggesting decentralized exchanges could be hurt by this move.
North America is the largest crypto market globally, with ~$1.3T in on-chain value between Jul. 2023-Jun. 2024, ~22.5% of global activity, per Chainalysis.
Meanwhile, demand for top finance pros is skyrocketing.
Inside this must-read report:
Whatās really driving the accountant exodus (hint: itās not just retirement).
How talent shortages are becoming a serious business risk.
How LatAm talent is solving the crisisāfast, affordably, and in your time zone.
This is essential reading for any finance leader navigating 2025.
*Disclaimer: We have equity in Athyna.
4. Elonās xAI debuts Grok Code Fast 1 agentic coding model to rival OpenAI, Anthropic
Grok Code Fast 1 outputs more tokens per second at a lower cost than GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Claude Sonnet 4, per xAI tests:
