CNBeta — 2026-07-07#

Top Story#

Apple is grappling with a severe supply chain breach after a data leak from India’s Tata Electronics exposed extensive details about the unreleased iPhone 18 Pro. The leak highlights the security vulnerabilities of Apple’s expanding “Make in India” initiative, and has already spurred rapid prototyping among copycat manufacturers in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei electronics hub (read more). Concurrently, another leak reveals that Apple’s first foldable device, the iPhone Ultra, is entering mass production this month.

Tencent has officially launched its new Hunyuan Hy3 AI model, which adopts a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 295 billion parameters and claims to rival larger flagship models in reasoning and coding tasks. In the AI startup ecosystem, a former Huawei “Genius Youth” publicly criticized DeepSeek’s sluggish and unprofessional interview process, claiming he was falsely accused of cheating during a coding test. Over in the US, Elon Musk’s xAI has completed its brand restructuring, officially merging into SpaceX under the new name SpaceXAI to leverage the aerospace company’s vast infrastructure and data centers. The AI hardware market also saw temporary jitters after rumors circulated that Nvidia’s next-gen Kyber NVL144 server rack architecture is delayed until 2028 due to PCB manufacturing bottlenecks, though Nvidia quickly denied any changes to its roadmap.

Tesla has rolled out a long-wheelbase version of the Model Y, the Model Y L, across the US, Puerto Rico, and the UAE. The 6-seat family SUV aims to directly compete with traditional automakers in the mid-size SUV segment (read more). On the computing front, an Apple executive detailed why the Mac mini has become a massive hit in the local AI era, crediting its localized processing capabilities and Apple Silicon for efficiently handling Agent-based workloads. For upcoming smartphones, a leaked image of the iPhone 18 Pro motherboard reveals the A20 Pro chip alongside a Qualcomm 5G modem, while Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S27 Pro is slated to use the Exynos 2700 chip in most global markets instead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. Furthermore, Intel is reportedly planning a dual-side power delivery system for its 14A Gen2 (14A2) process to rival TSMC and Samsung’s 1.4nm advancements.

Sony’s controversial decision to end physical game disc production by 2028 has ignited a massive debate over digital ownership and triggered a surge of interest in jailbreaking the PlayStation 5. The move has drawn sharp criticism from industry experts and former executives, who warn that players are at risk of losing access to their purchased games if accounts are banned or servers go offline. In other industry news, Microsoft is continuing its massive restructuring, laying off roughly 1,600 employees within the Xbox division as part of a broader 4,800-person workforce reduction, while simultaneously appointing Minecraft veteran Helen Chiang as Xbox’s first Chief Operating Officer.

China’s Tianwen-2 probe has successfully reached its target asteroid 2016HO3 after a 400-day journey, coming within 20 kilometers to begin its scientific observation and preparation for sample return. Deep beneath the Earth, scientists have discovered a bizarre reversal in the flow of molten iron in the outer core under the Pacific Ocean, challenging traditional models of planetary magnetic field generation. Additionally, a new study introduces a 3D “laser micro-stirring” technique that enables the additive manufacturing of high-entropy alloys, paving the way for complex aerospace components.

Tencent has ceased to be a major shareholder of Kuaishou following a significant block trade stock sale.
Unitree Robotics has secured approval for its IPO on the STAR Market, riding the wave of its quadruped and humanoid robot success.
Samsung and SK Hynix are reportedly delaying the adoption of hybrid bonding in their HBM4 memory after JEDEC relaxed thickness standards.
US authorities arrested a 19-year-old ransomware hacker in Finland using Microsoft’s Windows 11 Global Device Identifier (GDID) tracking.