Chain of News Digest

Chain of News 18/07/2026

18/07/2026
**Top Story** Databricks has reached a valuation of $188 billion, solidifying its position as a leading AI company. This valuation is a testament to the company's successful transformation into an AI-focused entity, with a strong emphasis on open weight AI models for coding. The implications of this valuation are significant, as it demonstrates the growing importance of AI in the tech industry and the potential for companies to reap substantial financial rewards by investing in AI research and development. As a result, developers can expect increased investment in AI-related projects and a greater demand for AI-powered solutions. Furthermore, Databricks' research on the cost savings of open weight AI models for coding is likely to have a significant impact on the development of AI-powered software, as it highlights the potential for cost-effective and efficient AI solutions. This, in turn, may lead to a shift in the way developers approach AI-powered software development, with a greater emphasis on open weight AI models. SOURCES: [3] **AI Models & Research** The concept of multimodality as supervision is a significant development in the field of AI research, as it enables self-supervised specialization to the test environment via multimodality. This approach has the potential to improve the performance of AI models in a variety of applications, including household robots and other devices that are equipped with multiple sensors and modalities. Additionally, the study on large language models for code generation from multilingual prompts highlights the importance of considering language bias when developing AI-powered coding tools. The findings of this study have significant implications for developers, as they suggest that the choice of language used to prompt an AI model can have a substantial impact on the quality of the generated code. Furthermore, the analysis of Qubes OS security in the public record provides valuable insights into the security measurement of AI-powered systems, highlighting the importance of component boundaries and security-relevant architecture. SOURCES: [6], [7], [8] **Developer Tools & Frameworks** The GitHub Copilot usage metrics API has been updated to include repository-level activity, providing developers with a more detailed understanding of how the Copilot coding agent and Copilot code review are being used in their repositories. This update enables developers to track the daily and per-repository breakdown of pull request activity, allowing them to better understand the impact of AI-powered coding tools on their development workflows. Moreover, the GitHub Copilot app is now available in the usage metrics API, giving enterprise and organization admins visibility into the usage of the app within their organizations. This increased transparency is likely to facilitate the adoption of AI-powered coding tools, as developers and organizations can now more easily track and evaluate their effectiveness. SOURCES: [4], [5] **Industry & Business** Neil Rimer, the venture capitalist who co-founded Index Ventures, predicts that the historic wealth generated by AI in Silicon Valley will have to be redistributed, either voluntarily or involuntarily. This statement highlights the significant impact that AI is having on the tech industry, with many companies generating substantial wealth through their investments in AI research and development. As a result, there may be a growing need for companies to consider the social and economic implications of their AI-powered products and services, and to develop strategies for redistributing the wealth generated by AI in a fair and equitable manner. Furthermore, the luxury foldable device developed by Vertu, which features an AI agent, demonstrates the growing demand for high-end AI-powered products and services, and the potential for companies to generate significant revenue through the development of premium AI-powered solutions. SOURCES: [1], [2] **Worth Watching** The ranking of the best AI coding tools in 2026, which includes Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, and Codex, highlights the growing competition in the AI-powered coding tools market. This ranking provides developers with a valuable resource for evaluating the effectiveness of different AI-powered coding tools, and for selecting the tools that best meet their needs. Additionally, the identification of the best open source LLM in 2026, which includes DeepSeek, Kimi, and Qwen, demonstrates the growing importance of open source AI models, and the potential for developers to leverage these models to develop innovative AI-powered solutions. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these tools and models continue to develop and improve. SOURCES: [9], [10]

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Today's articles

TechCrunch AI

Neil Rimer thinks the AI money is coming back out

Neil Rimer, the venture capitalist who co-founded Index Ventures, predicts the historic wealth AI is generating in Silicon Valley will have to be redistributed, voluntarily or involuntarily.

18/07/2026
TechCrunch AI

Vertu wants executives to pay $6,880 for an AI agent — here’s how it actually performs

From AI workflows to battery life and security, here's what it's really like to live with Vertu's luxury foldable every day.

17/07/2026
TechCrunch AI

Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act

Databricks has remade its image into an AI company and has published research on the cost savings of open weight AI models for coding.

17/07/2026
Copilot Changelog

Repository-level GitHub Copilot usage metrics generally available

The Copilot usage metrics REST API now reports repository-level activity. Two new endpoints return a daily, per-repository breakdown of pull request activity for Copilot coding agent and Copilot code review.… The post Repository-level GitHub Copilot usage metrics generally available appeared first on The GitHub Blog .

17/07/2026
Copilot Changelog

GitHub Copilot app now available in the usage metrics API

The Copilot usage metrics API now reports the GitHub Copilot app usage in the enterprise and organization 1-day and 28-day reports. This gives enterprise and organization admins visibility into the… The post GitHub Copilot app now available in the usage metrics API appeared first on The GitHub Blog .

17/07/2026
HF Daily Papers

Large Language Models for Code Generation from Multilingual Prompts: A Curated Benchmark and a Study on Code Quality

Large Language Models (LLMs) perform differently on identical programming tasks when prompted in different natural languages, a phenomenon known as language bias. While this behavior has been widely studied for general text generation, its impact on code generation quality and programming conventions remains largely unexplored. We investigate how the language used to describe programming tasks affects the source code generated by GPT-4o mini, DeepSeek, and Claude.

16/07/2026
HF Daily Papers

Multimodality as Supervision: Self-Supervised Specialization to the Test Environment via Multimodality

Cross-modal learning, i.e., learning to predict one modality from another, is a fundamental mechanism for self-supervision via leveraging multimodality. Many practical applications, e.g., deploying a household robot, involve devices that are equipped with a rich set of sensors that enable multimodal sensing in their test environment. This presents an opportunity to apply cross-modal learning to the multimodal data sensed by these devices to learn representations.

16/07/2026
HF Daily Papers

Qubes OS Security in the Public Record

Qubes OS is a revealing case for security measurement because its architecture makes component boundaries security-relevant. We present a protocol-driven longitudinal analysis of 109 public Qubes Security Bulletins (QSBs, 2011--2025), the official Qubes-maintained Xen Security Advisory (XSA) tracker, and a secondary vulnerability-event sensitivity series. The study measures the public advisory record rather than latent vulnerability incidence or realized compromise.

16/07/2026
Tavily: LLM breakthrough research

Best Open Source LLM 2026: DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen Ranked

# Best Open Source LLM [2026]: DeepSeek V4 Hits 80.6%. For the first time, the best open source LLM you can download and self-host is not a distant runner-up to the closed frontier — it is trading blows with it. In the first half of 2026, a wave of open-weight releases from Chinese labs pushed real-world coding and reasoning scores to within a few points of GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8, at a fraction of the price. Vellum’s open-LLM leaderboard now shows the leading open model, **DeepSeek V4-Pro**

18/07/2026
Tavily: AI coding agents Claude C

Best AI Coding Tools in 2026: Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, and ...

# Best AI Coding Tools in 2026: Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, and Codex — Ranked. Compare the 6 best AI coding tools in 2026: Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Codex CLI, and Aider. The best AI coding tool in 2026 depends entirely on one thing: what kind of work you're doing. If you're refactoring a 50,000-line codebase solo at 2am, that's a different problem from writing boilerplate inside your IDE, shipping enterprise features under compliance constraints, or running a side pro

18/07/2026