SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI are all preparing initial public offerings, competing for investor cash that could determine who ends up the winner of the artificial intelligence era. The three companies “could make 2026 the biggest year for US IPOs”, said the Financial Times. 

SpaceX chief Elon Musk departed OpenAI in 2018, followed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in 2020. Now, the AI rivals are positioning themselves to “command the deepest pool of capital”. But while they’re hoping to “ride a wave of AI enthusiasm” among investors, stock markets may be less enamored of the sector’s “vast cash burn”.

What did the commentators say?
The success of the IPOs depends on whether the AI startups can “keep growing at the ridiculous rates they have achieved so far”, said Parmy Olson at Bloomberg. OpenAI aims to bring in $280 billion in revenues by 2030, up from about $25 billion now. To achieve that goal, the company’s corporate customers “must plug its technology into a broader array” of uses, including “sales, finance, healthcare, human resources, logistics” and more. But many potential business clients are “keeping generative AI at bay”, amid questions about whether it’s “reliable enough for use in high-stakes decision-making”.

The “data centres, chips and cloud capacity” required by OpenAI cost a lot of money, said Beatrice Nolan at Fortune. Its IPO filing will help determine whether the company can turn a profit sooner rather than later. 

What next?
Although many investors are enthusiastic about AI, experts warn that the “novel technology comes with new risks”, said The Wall Street Journal. The markets have “not factored in the cost of the vulnerabilities these systems could create”, Navrina Singh, CEO of Credo AI, told the paper. 

The IPOs could also be derailed by “abundant and cheap” AI available from Chinese labs such as DeepSeek, said CNBC. “Western challengers” like Nvidia, Cohere, Reflection and Mistral are “building cheaper, smaller, more efficient alternatives”, too. By the time these three IPOs come to fruition, the “central premise of their valuations may already be gone”.

The UK government has rejected a call from Scotland’s devolved parliament for a new Scottish independence referendum.  MSPs voted 72-55 in favour of being able to call another ballot, 12 years after the last one failed, but Downing Street said there was no UK-wide consensus for another vote.

Not a ‘potent issue’
When BBC Scotland sampled opinion with a Savanta online survey  earlier this year, 47% of the 2,136 Scots polled said they would vote yes to independence, while 44% said they would vote no, with 8% undecided. Although just a “snapshot”, this is “in line with the polling trend”, said BBC’s Scotland political editor Glenn Campbell. But there’s “another consideration”: only 13% of those polled ranked independence as a “top three priority” for Scotland, trailing the cost of living (62%), the NHS (50%) and the economy (31%).

Independence remains an “important motivator for some voters”, but “it does not feel as potent an issue” as it has in the past. That said, “independence is significantly more popular” than the SNP, the main nationalist party.

‘SNP fights for Scotland’
Although this week’s Holyrood vote was “largely symbolic”, said Bloomberg, “it highlights how Scotland’s constitutional future has returned to the core of British politics”. The SNP may have fallen short of an overall majority in the recent elections to the Scottish Parliament but, with the Greens, they have still “secured their largest ever pro-independence majority”.

That the SNP secured a fifth consecutive election victory despite its “patchy record on public service delivery” and “bouts of internal warfare”, as well as the scandal of Peter Murrell’s embezzling of party funds, reflects “the independence aspirations among half the population and the sense that the SNP fights for Scotland”, said Simeon Kerr, the Financial Times’ Scotland correspondent.

“The SNP don’t have to be good; they just have to be Scottish,” Andy Maciver of PR consultancy Message Matters told the paper. But to build support for independence above 50%, the party will need to restore faith in its competence. The prospect of Reform UK’s Nigel Farage in No. 10 could help. “They need people to run away from the rain in Westminster and towards the sun in Holyrood.”

France’s Moïse Kouamé pauses during a sweltering five-hour match at the French Open. The 17-year-old beat Paraguay’s Adolfo Daniel Vallejo in five sets, becoming the youngest man to reach the third round of a major tournament since Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2003. 

Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images

Many of us have a favourite neighbourhood pub, but visiting a beer festival offers an entirely different experience. These events are spread across the UK and feature an array of pints to discover and enjoy. Here are a few of this year’s best beer festivals.

St George’s Hall Beer Festival, Liverpool
This four-day event promises a long list of “real ales, craft beers, continental lagers” and a “specialist gin and rum bar”, said the Liverpool Echo. “With a line-up that blends respected national breweries with some of the most exciting local names in the region”, beer fans will be spoilt for choice.

Chelmsford Beer and Cider Festival
Enjoy a “refreshing pint” in Chelmsford’s “largest beer garden”, said Chelmsford City Life. Taking place in Admirals Park, the festival will feature a wide range of “ready to enjoy” beers and ciders.

Bristol Craft Beer Festival
Lloyds Amphitheatre, in the “heart of Bristol”, is the venue for a festival that gives the “craft beer revolution” a platform to promote local brewing communities, said The Drinks Business. More than 300 beers will be available to try, along with cocktails, ciders, wine and a range of curated food options.

London Craft Beer Festival
Whether your drink of choice is “a funky sour, cheeky saison or a fruity IPA”, London’s “biggest beer celebration” has something for you, said Time Out. The event takes place in Southwark Park over two days and “promises four-hour sessions of non-stop-beer-drinking bliss”. More than 800 brews will be on offer, including “London’s best beers as well as some international standouts”. 

Grooming gangs are still getting away with it – we Muslims must speak out
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper
“Men of all backgrounds and ages rape girls, women, boys and other men,” writes Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. As an Asian, Muslim feminist, I “condemn all predators, brown, white and black”, including “the grotesque sexual abuse networks of mostly British-Pakistani men” in some English towns. Many Muslims “now accept that their silence” on grooming gangs “failed the victims” and fomented racism. “Blaming all of us for these crimes is totally unfair. But life is unfair.” We need justice to be delivered.

I grieve for the Israel I once admired so much
Max Hastings in The Times
As a young reporter in the 1970s, “I fell in love with Israel”, writes Max Hastings. But I share others’ “revulsion” about its conduct now. “Whatever case Israel may make for its right to take on Hezbollah and Hamas”, the scale of civilian casualties in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza is “wholly unacceptable”. In the past 50 years, “compassion and moderation have been banished from Israel’s polity”, and I mourn the “fine things which it has discarded in the process”.

What’s the point of cheap caviar?
Lisa Hilton in The Telegraph
“Instagram is awash with roe,” writes Lisa Hilton. The once “intimidatingly opulent ingredient has been on the slide for some time”, and now a Michelin-starred chef is launching a £35 tin of caviar. But “making it democratic takes away” the “thrill” of splurging out on it. If the social-media “hits caviar is currently scoring are because people adore it, then hurrah, but I suspect” it’s more a “sans culotte glee in the heretical pairing of nob food with yob food”.