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Informed by Washington, Defined by Insight
Thursday, Feb 26, 2026

From fears of AI-fuelled unemployment to Big Tech's record investment, this is AI Weekly.

Global markets react to projections of rising AI-driven unemployment as major technology firms announce record investments, allegations of improper AI model training emerge in China, and the U.S. administration considers AI-based pricing for critical minerals.
Fears of AI-fuelled mass unemployment have unsettled global markets.

This follows a now-viral report on the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence, projecting unemployment could rise to 10.2% by 2028.

The report stated that as AI continues to rapidly replace software and delivery applications, it could lead to widespread layoffs.

Markets have heavily invested in the technology, and investors have now sold shares in software companies and sectors considered vulnerable to automation.

AMD announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to sell up to 60 billion dollars’ worth of AI chips to Meta over five years.

The deal will allow the owner of Facebook to purchase up to 10% of the chipmaker.

It marks AMD’s second major chip supply agreement, following a similar pact with OpenAI last year.

The move was seen as a vote of confidence in AMD’s chips and software, significantly boosting its stock price.

Following the latest deal announcement, shares rose approximately 9% in pre-market trading.

Anthropic stated that three Chinese AI companies used its chatbot Claude to improve their own models.

The company accused DeepSeq, Moonshot, and Minimax of generating more than 16 million interactions with Claude through approximately 24,000 fake accounts.

Anthropic described the process as distillation, which involves training a less capable model using the outputs of a stronger one.

It warned that illicitly distilled models lack necessary safeguards and pose national security risks.

The Trump administration plans to use a Pentagon-developed AI program to help establish reference prices for critical minerals, according to three sources who spoke to Reuters.

They said Washington will focus the AI pricing model on at least four critical minerals as part of efforts to build a global metals trading zone.

Separately, it was stated that the AI boom has entered what was described as "a more dangerous phase," marked by exponentially rising investments in physical infrastructure and increasing reliance on external capital.
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