Amazon Pulls the Plug on Physical Retail; Zoom’s Quiet AI Jackpot; Microsoft Enters the Chip War; and Space Infrastructure Gets Serious

Amazon is quietly walking away from its most futuristic retail experiment, shutting down Go and Fresh stores as Big Tech sobers up on what actually scales in the real world. Zoom, once written off as a post-pandemic relic, is suddenly back in the spotlight after a stealth AI bet on Anthropic may be worth billions. Microsoft is escalating the AI arms race with a new in-house chip designed to loosen Nvidia’s grip on data centers and outmuscle cloud rivals. And in the rapidly crowding skies above, a little-known space startup just locked in both fresh venture capital and a U.S. Space Force contract, proving that the next space boom may be built on Earth. All this and more signals of where power, capital, and ambition are really moving in today’s Read It And Eat!

MAJOR HEADLINES

• Amazon to close all Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores

 

Amazon is shutting down all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, effectively ending its most ambitious push into cashier-less retail. The decision marks a major retreat from a strategy that once symbolized Amazon’s vision of the future of shopping, built around automation, computer vision, and frictionless checkout. Despite years of experimentation and significant capital investment, the stores struggled to scale profitably amid rising operating costs and shifting consumer behavior.

The closures reflect a broader recalibration under Amazon’s current leadership, which has increasingly emphasized discipline, efficiency, and return on investment. Physical grocery retail proved to be a difficult fit for Amazon’s margins, especially as inflation, labor costs, and supply-chain pressures weighed on the sector. Internally, Amazon has also faced criticism that its “Just Walk Out” technology was more labor-intensive than advertised, relying heavily on human review behind the scenes.

Strategically, the move signals Amazon’s renewed focus on its strongest engines of growth: cloud computing, advertising, logistics infrastructure, and third-party marketplace services. Rather than abandoning physical retail entirely, Amazon appears to be folding lessons from Go and Fresh into its core platforms. The shutdown underscores a sobering reality for Big Tech: even with scale, data, and capital, not every innovation survives contact with real-world economics. Bloomberg 

• Zoom’s 78x VC Investment Return in Anthropic

Zoom’s shares jumped after analysts revealed that the company’s early investment in AI startup Anthropic may now be worth between $2 billion and $4 billion. The disclosure reframed Zoom’s market narrative almost overnight, positioning the video-conferencing firm as a quiet but meaningful beneficiary of the generative AI boom. Investors had largely written Zoom off as a pandemic-era winner facing structural slowdown, making the revelation particularly striking.

The investment highlights the growing importance of strategic minority stakes in foundational AI companies. Anthropic, a major competitor to OpenAI, has attracted backing from Amazon and Google, placing it at the center of the AI arms race. Zoom’s exposure offers optionality — a way to participate in AI’s upside without bearing the massive infrastructure costs associated with building models from scratch.

For Zoom, the stake could prove transformational. It provides balance-sheet value, strategic leverage, and a renewed growth narrative at a time when competition in collaboration software is intensifying. More broadly, the episode illustrates how hidden assets — not just earnings — are increasingly shaping tech valuations, especially as AI redraws the hierarchy of winners and losers across the industry. CNBC

• Microsoft takes aim at Google, Amazon, and Nvidia with new AI chip

  
  

Microsoft has unveiled its next-generation custom AI chip, Maia 200, signaling a direct challenge to Nvidia’s dominance and escalating competition with Amazon and Google in cloud infrastructure. Initially deployed in Microsoft’s own data centers, the chip is designed to power AI workloads more efficiently while reducing reliance on third-party suppliers. The move reflects a strategic push toward vertical integration as AI demand continues to surge.

Custom silicon has become a critical battleground among hyperscalers. Nvidia’s GPUs remain the gold standard, but their scarcity and cost have pushed cloud providers to develop in-house alternatives. By controlling its own chips, Microsoft gains greater pricing flexibility, performance optimization, and supply-chain resilience — all crucial advantages as enterprises race to deploy AI at scale.

Maia 200 also strengthens Microsoft’s Azure ecosystem, positioning it as a more competitive platform for AI developers and enterprise customers. As AI infrastructure spending accelerates, control over chips may prove just as decisive as control over software. The launch underscores a fundamental shift in Big Tech competition: the future will be won not just by the smartest models, but by whoever owns the full AI stack. Yahoo Finance 

• Northwood Space secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force contract

  
  

Northwood Space has raised $100 million in Series B funding while simultaneously securing a $50 million contract with the U.S. Space Force, marking a major vote of confidence in its ground-based satellite communications technology. As satellite launches accelerate and orbit becomes increasingly crowded, the bottleneck is no longer in space — it’s on the ground. Northwood aims to modernize the infrastructure that connects satellites to Earth.

Traditional ground stations are costly, fragmented, and slow to deploy, creating inefficiencies as satellite constellations expand. Northwood’s approach focuses on scalable, software-driven ground systems that can support higher traffic volumes and more dynamic satellite operations. The dual funding and defense contract suggest strong commercial and national-security demand for solutions that can keep pace with the rapid growth of space activity.

The deal highlights a broader shift in the space economy, where infrastructure — not launches — is becoming the next frontier for investment. As governments and private companies compete for orbital advantage, reliable ground connectivity is emerging as mission-critical. Northwood’s momentum underscores how space is evolving from a frontier industry into a strategic layer of global communications and defense infrastructure. Techcrunch 

Minor Headlines

• Meta, Corning sign deal worth up to $6 billion for fiber-optic cables in AI data centers  Reuters 

• Pinterest to cut up to 15% of its workforce as focus on AI intensifies  Yahoo Finance  

• Meta, TikTok and YouTube facing landmark trial related to youth addiction claims Wall Street Journal  

• Sam Altman said OpenAI is planning to 'dramatically slow down' its pace of hiring  Business Insider 

• Senegal is now the only African debt in distressed territory Bloomberg

• Dollar suffers worst one-day slide since last April after Trump says currency hasn’t fallen too low CNBC

• Dangote Appoints MTN CEO to Fertilizer Unit Board With IPO Plans Bloomberg 

• TikTok Star Khaby Lame Sells His Core Company In Deal Worth $975 Million Forbes