Tech News Roundup: Nvidia Floats a $2,000-per-GPU AI Software Fee, SoftBank's $50B Malaysia Push, Big Tech's AI Earnings Week & More (Oct 25, 2026)

Nvidia hardware (image via Tom's Hardware)

Nvidia wants a yearly cut of every GPU: Jensen Huang floated a roughly $2,000-per-GPU annual fee for the software that runs AI agents. SoftBank's Masayoshi Son has reportedly picked Malaysia for a $50 billion AI and data center push, and Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon all report earnings this week as investors fret about AI spending. Also today: a researcher says Samsung TVs gather audio and screenshots for ads, r/opensource bans AI projects, Nvidia eyes Germany's old nuclear plants for data centers, Instacart reportedly talks sale, Google's AI search reshapes publishing, jailbroken PS5s run Steam games, physicists trap antimatter for months, CD drives get scarce, Wired builds an Ikea speaker wall, Windows XP turns 25, the UK's space junk mission may be named Binface, and Samsung's "Galaxy OS" rumor fizzles. Here's the Lanbrew tech roundup for October 25, 2026.

Nvidia hardware (image via Tom's Hardware)

Jensen Huang floats a $2,000-per-GPU yearly fee for Nvidia's AI agent software

Nvidia wants to get paid every year, not just when it sells you a GPU. At GTC Berlin on Oct. 22, Jensen Huang said licensing will become "increasingly a major part" of Nvidia's business, and put the cost at roughly $2,000 per GPU per year to run the software stack that "runs agents on these AI factories," Tom's Hardware reports.

The math gets big fast: five million licensed GPUs would mean about $10 billion a year. But a lot is still fuzzy. Nvidia hasn't said exactly which software the fee covers, when it would start, or how it lines up with its existing AI Enterprise platform, which already lists at $4,500 per GPU per year. The comments land right after Nvidia unveiled its OpenShell reference architecture for running AI agents securely in the enterprise.

Source: Tom's Hardware

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son (image via The Business Times/Reuters)

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son picks Malaysia for a reported $50 billion AI and data center push

Masayoshi Son has chosen Kuching in Sarawak and sites in Peninsular Malaysia for about $50 billion in AI, new technology and data center investments, according to Malaysia's prime minister, who said Son shared the plan on a video call this week. Bloomberg's report, carried by The Business Times, notes SoftBank hadn't commented yet, and no timeline or funding structure has been announced. Nikkei reports SoftBank's own money would be only part of the total, with project financing expected to cover the rest.

It would be one of the biggest tech commitments in Southeast Asia. Malaysia has already pulled in about $94 billion in data center investment since 2021 from the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google, and earlier this month SoftBank signed early agreements with Grab and Petros to explore AI infrastructure in Sarawak.

Source: The Business Times (Bloomberg), Nikkei

Big Tech reports this week (image via CNBC)

Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon report earnings this week with AI spending under the microscope

It's a huge week for Big Tech earnings. Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon are all on deck, with Alphabet reporting Wednesday after the bell, CNBC reports. About 160 S&P 500 companies report this week overall.

The mood going in is jumpy. Worries about how much companies are spending on AI, and how they're paying for it, sparked a sell-off Thursday that gave the Nasdaq its worst day since June, even though results so far have mostly been strong, with about 83% of reporting S&P 500 companies beating estimates. Meta set the tone last week, raising its 2026 capex outlook to $135 billion to $145 billion. Investors will be watching cloud growth closely to see whether it's keeping pace with the data center bills.

Source: CNBC

A Samsung TV (image via Tom's Hardware)

A security researcher says Samsung TVs run AI that gathers audio and screenshots for ads

A reverse engineer and bug bounty hunter who goes by log4j got suspicious about "weirdly targeted ads" on their 2025 Samsung TV, rooted it, and dug through the Tizen OS, Tom's Hardware reports. Their findings, posted on X, describe telemetry that includes audio categorization, screenshots, a cross-device ad ID, which ads you skip and what you watch, plus an on-device neural network that tracks viewing behavior. They also say TVs without a mic can look for connected devices like soundbars to capture audio.

A Hugging Face engineer testing a rooted, locked-down TV saw the mic open for five seconds and then stop, so stock sets may behave differently. As a twist, log4j says OpenAI banned their account for "cyber abuse" while they were doing the reverse engineering. Samsung hadn't publicly responded in the report.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Reddit (image via The Verge)

r/opensource bans AI projects, and the subreddit revolts

The moderators of Reddit's r/opensource posted new rules Saturday night that open with: "If your project uses AI, is made by AI, or is intended for AI, it's not welcome on r/opensource." The Verge reports the backlash was instant, with a rival r/trueopensource already spun up.

A moderator says there's room for nuance, like software that happens to use AI for captions. Critics point out that the Linux kernel itself now contains some AI-written code. The AI ban isn't the only change either: projects now need to be at least a year old, actively maintained and have multiple contributors, which shuts out solo devs looking for help.

Source: The Verge

A decommissioned nuclear site (image via Tom's Hardware)

Nvidia looks at turning Germany's shut-down nuclear plants into AI data centers

Nvidia and German energy company PreussenElektra have agreed to study whether decommissioned nuclear plant sites in Germany could become AI data centers, Tom's Hardware reports. The idea isn't to run on nuclear power. It's to reuse what's already there: grid connections, land, water for cooling and industrial zoning, which could cut the cost and time of building from scratch.

Germany shut its last reactors in April 2023, and PreussenElektra is dismantling eight plants. Both companies stress this is an early feasibility study, with no investment amounts or construction plans set.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Instacart (image via TechCrunch)

Instacart reportedly held sale talks with DoorDash and Uber

Instacart may be for sale. The Information reports the grocery delivery company hired a bank to weigh its options and held acquisition talks with DoorDash, and Bloomberg says it also talked to Uber, which reportedly walked away, TechCrunch reports.

Instacart is worth more than $13 billion and its stock is up 25% this year, so this could be a good moment to sell. The talks are said to be early and may not lead to a deal. Instacart declined to comment, but its stock jumped more than 9% on Friday while Uber and DoorDash shares slipped.

Source: TechCrunch

Illustration (image via The Verge)

How Google's AI search upended online publishing

For years, the deal between Google and publishers was simple: sites filled Google's index, and Google sent readers back. The Verge's new deep dive explains how AI Overviews, launched in 2024, and later ranking changes broke that arrangement, making it much harder for outlets to survive on Google search traffic alone.

It's a good read if you've wondered why so many sites have changed how they work over the past two years.

Source: The Verge

Playden running on a PS5 (image via Tom's Hardware)

Jailbroken PS5s can now install and run Steam PC games

A homebrew launcher called Playden for PS5 lets jailbroken consoles sign in to Steam and install games straight from your library, Tom's Hardware reports, via VideoCardz. Each game gets its own PS5 app tile and runs through prospero-win, a PS5 port of Wine.

It's an early alpha, so results vary: one user got Portal running with no mouse cursor, while another hit a crash. The developer lists games like Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal and Left 4 Dead 2 as compatible, and warns it's an unofficial Steam client that Valve doesn't support, so any risk is on you.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Illustration (image via Wired)

Physicists trapped a single antimatter particle for months

A Northwestern team led by Gerald Gabrielse held a single positron, the antimatter twin of the electron, in a trap for months, Wired reports. Their "single-positron quantum cyclotron" uses electric and magnetic fields to keep it in a vacuum near absolute zero, so they can control its quantum states without destroying it.

That could allow measurements of antimatter's magnetic properties about 30 times more precise than before. So far, no differences from the electron have shown up, but any that do could help explain why the universe is made almost entirely of matter.

Source: Wired

A CD player (image via Tom's Hardware)

New CD players keep launching, but almost nobody makes the drives anymore

CDs are having a moment, but the parts to play them are drying up, Tom's Hardware reports. PS Audio ended production of its PMG SACD transport after Marantz parent D&M stopped selling optical drives to outside companies, and Naim hit the same wall with its Uniti Star. Both are keeping leftover drives for repairs only.

Marantz builds its drives in-house, and Musical Fidelity sources mechanisms from SUOS-HiFi, but PS Audio's CEO says building its own disc reader is beyond the company. That leaves open questions about how long new players will stay fixable.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Ikea Kallsup speakers (image via Wired)

Wired chained 149 of Ikea's $10 speakers into a wall of sound

Ikea says you can link up to 100 of its tiny $10 Kallsup Bluetooth speakers, so Wired asked to test it. Ikea upped the ante and shipped 150, admitting "no one has ever tried this, though. We haven't." One arrived broken, so the London office stacked 149.

Chaining is simple: pair one cube with your phone, then hold Play on each new one until it chimes into multi-speaker mode. It's a fun read on whether Ikea's claim actually holds up.

Source: Wired

Windows XP (image via Tom's Hardware)

Windows XP turns 25

Windows XP hit store shelves 25 years ago today, on Oct. 25, 2001, Tom's Hardware notes. It was the first consumer Windows built on the NT core instead of DOS, and it brought plug-and-play USB that actually worked, built-in CD burning and ClearType.

The launch was the centerpiece of a $500 million campaign. XP stayed supported until April 2014, which made its life more than two years longer than Windows 10's, the version once billed as the last Windows.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Space debris (image via The Register)

Register readers want to call the UK's space junk mission 'Binface'

The UK Space Agency asked for a name for its Active Debris Removal Mission, which ClearSpace UK is leading to pull two UK-registered satellites out of low Earth orbit. The Register's readers delivered.

Early favorites included SpaceyMcSpaceFace and Binny McBinFace, plus Dusty Bin, SHART (Satellite Harvesting And Re-entry Tug) and Project TIDY. The Register's own pick: Baron Binface. Given Boaty McBoatface history, Project TIDY sounds like the safe bet.

Source: The Register

Samsung One UI (image via Engadget)

No, Samsung probably isn't renaming One UI to 'Galaxy OS'

A rumor that Samsung would swap One UI for a new AI-heavy "Galaxy OS" spread fast this month, but Engadget says the name likely isn't going anywhere. The claim started with an Oct. 11 post on X, and the original source later said One UI wasn't being replaced and called it a translation error.

Big AI changes may still be coming in Samsung's next update. Samsung hasn't officially commented either way.

Source: Engadget