Morning Brief - 28 October 2026

Overnight, the AI industry saw valuation debates, workforce cuts, and sovereignty plays, while robotics moved from demos to production floors across Asia.

Anthropic files IPO prospectus valuing company at over $1.5 trillion

Anthropic's cofounder told an IMF meeting in Bangkok this month that the singularity has begun, a claim central to the company's newly filed IPO prospectus. The 335-page document values the firm at more than $1.5 trillion, with roughly 100 pages devoted to risks. The company positions its technology as both inevitable and dangerous. Read more →

Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 workers to fund AI build-out

Microsoft announced on 27 October 2026 that it is extending voluntary severance packages to approximately 60,000 employees, more than one-quarter of its global workforce. The move aims to free up resources for the hundreds of billions of dollars the company is channeling into AI infrastructure, including data centres and specialized chips. Read more →

Japan's Sakana AI to train sovereign foundation model for defense use

Sakana AI unveiled plans on 26 October to build a domestically developed foundation model, provisionally named Sawara, targeting defence and cybersecurity applications. The Tokyo-based startup, Japan's most valuable private tech company, framed the move around national security imperatives, breaking from the pattern of fine-tuning foreign base models. Read more →

Databricks cofounder says people and process beat tech in enterprise sales

Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji, Databricks cofounder and senior vice president of field engineering, explained at a recent industry event that startup sales to Fortune 500 buyers fail not because of inferior technology but because of organisational and process mistakes. He learned through repeated setbacks that people and processes matter most. Read more →

China launches central state enterprise to unlock siloed data for AI training

On 20 October, China established a centralised state-owned enterprise in Xiongan New Area tasked with turning the country's sprawling digital holdings into AI training material. The national data group operates under direct central government oversight, reflecting how seriously policymakers view the bottleneck created by provincial archives, state ministries, and private platforms hoarding information. Read more →

Unitree targets household robot deployment by 2027 with self-improving AI

Unitree Robotics is building an AI architecture that learns and refines its own performance without human intervention. Founder Wang Xingxing told attendees at the World Physical AI Conference in Hangzhou on 22 October that ordinary households could see Unitree robots operating inside their homes before 2027 closes, depending on whether the autonomous learning stack can handle domestic variability. Read more →

Chinese humanoid makers move from demos to commercial trials in South Korea

UBTech Robotics, Anyverse Dynamics, and a cluster of mainland startups have begun pitching South Korean factory operators on humanoid platforms that walk upright and manipulate objects. The shift marks a move from trade-show appearances to production environments where downtime costs money, as South Korean manufacturers face labour shortages in welding, assembly, and logistics roles. Read more →

Pinduoduo eliminates minimum order requirement for free shipping to Singapore

Pinduoduo eliminated its previous minimum order requirement of RMB 99, approximately USD 14.80, in August, extending the change to Singapore and other regional markets. A shopper can now order a single item priced at SGD 3 and receive it without paying for delivery, even though international parcel delivery from China to Singapore typically costs merchants between USD 3 and USD 5. Read more →

Compiled by OTW Briefing Desk from Opentechwire reporting.