Week in Review: Google buys Wiz
Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of stories to share from this week, like the greatest hits from Nvidia GTC; the NASA astronauts finally came home; Rippling’s lawsuit; and Google bought Wiz. Let’s get to it!
Google finally does it: Google made its biggest acquisition in its history this week when it confirmed that it was buying Wiz for $32 billion. Google says it will position Wiz as a “multicloud” offering, meaning Wiz will not be a Google-only shop. Last year, Google offered Wiz $23 billion for its business. Guess it pays to say no sometimes.
Speaking of acquisitions: xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, bought Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video-generation tools. The acquisition could signal that xAI plans to build its own video-generation models to compete with the likes of OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s Veo 2, and others.
Nvidia GTC: Nvidia’s biggest conference of the year ended on Thursday, and we were on the ground bringing you the latest from the chipmaker. The company announced two personal AI supercomputers; Groot N1, a foundational model for humanoid robots; new GPUs, called Blackwell Ultra, Vera Rubin, and Feynman; and much more.
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News
The gloves are off: HR company Rippling sued Deel, another player in the space, alleging racketeering, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty. Deel denies the allegations.
Welcome back to Earth: The two NASA astronauts who were stranded for more than nine months on the International Space Station have finally returned to Earth. Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in a SpaceX Dragon capsule on Tuesday after a 17-hour return journey from the ISS.
Pixel newness: Google this week released a new Pixel, called the 9a. The $499 smartphone features an upgraded 6.3-inch Actua display, which Google says is 35% brighter than the Pixel 8a. But the real update here is to the design: It’s ditching its camera bar on the backside.
Hacked: The Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the largest organization for educators in Pennsylvania, says hackers stole the sensitive personal information of more than half a million of its members. PSEA said member account numbers, PINs, passwords, and security codes were also accessed during the breach, according to a letter sent to affected individuals.
Neat! A 12th grader built a website called Minecraft Bench (MC-Bench) that pits two AIs against each other to see which one builds better creations in Minecraft. MC-Bench is technically a programming benchmark, since the models are asked to write code to create the prompted build.
Actually super helpful: Google is switching up how you find email in your inbox. Rather than displaying everything chronologically, it will now use AI to consider factors like recency, most-clicked emails, and frequent contacts when surfacing emails based on your search query. A toggle will allow people to switch between “Most relevant” or “Most recent” emails on a search results page.
Humanoids in the home: The hype around humanoid robots for the home seems to have reached new heights. Norwegian robotics company 1X is capitalizing on this, announcing that it will test its humanoid robot, Neo Gamma, in “a few hundred to a few thousand” homes by the end of the year.
Analysis
Nvidia on top: Nvidia is sitting on top of the AI world, but it faces U.S. tariffs, DeepSeek, and shifting priorities from top AI customers. At this year’s GTC, the company sought to assure attendees — and the rest of the world watching — that demand for its chips won’t slow down anytime soon.
Wayve rides the wave: Wayve, which launched in 2017 and has raised more than $1.3 billion over the past couple years, plans to license its self-driving software to automotive and fleet partners, such as Uber. Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall sees promise in bringing his autonomous vehicle startup’s tech to market.
Karyne Levy is the deputy managing editor of TechCrunch. Before joining TC, Karyne was deputy managing editor at Protocol, helping manage a newsroom of more than 40 people. Prior to that she was a senior producer at Scribd, an assigning editor at NerdWallet, a senior tech editor at Business Insider, and assistant managing editor at CNET, where she also hosted Rumor Has It for CNET TV. She lives outside San Francisco.
