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AI startup CEO pleaded guilty in US to trading on insider tips from lawyers

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The founder and chief executive of an AI startup secretly pleaded guilty last year to participating in a vast scheme in which attorneys at major law firms tipped traders about mergers their employers were advising on.

Court records unsealed on Monday show that Arya Bolurfrushan, a former Goldman Sachs banker who founded Abu Dhabi-based AppliedAI, pleaded guilty in June 2025 after striking a deal with federal prosecutors in Boston who were working to build cases against dozens of other people accused of participating in the long-running insider trading scheme.

Those individuals include Nicolo Nourafchan, who had worked at the law firms Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter before prosecutors in May unveiled charges against him and 29 other people accused of engaging in a scheme to profit from confidential information about mergers underway.
Bolurfrushan pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud in a plea agreement where prosecutors agreed to recommend that he be sentenced to two years in prison and forfeit $954,496 he derived from the scheme.
Jordan Estes, his lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, declined to comment.

Nine other people also pleaded guilty in secret proceedings in the years before prosecutors announced the indictments.
Prosecutors say Bolurfrushan traded on tips passed along to him by Nourafchan and his partner, personal injury attorney Robert Yadgarov, in exchange for a cut of any trading profits.

Bolurfrushan had met the two lawyers through one of Nourafchan’s family members and was recruited into the scheme in 2023 while he was in Dubai, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which settled civil claims against Bolurfrushan in a related lawsuit on Monday.

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Nourafchan and Yadgarov pleaded not guilty last month to securities fraud and other charges and are awaiting trial.
According to prosecutors and the SEC, Nourafchan, while working as an associate at Goodwin Procter, in September 2023 accessed electronic documents concerning a deal he was not working on, the planned acquisition of Goodwin’s client Orchard Therapeutics by Kyowa Kirin Co Ltd.
Nourafchan tipped Bolurfrushan off to the expected merger, allowing him to buy Orchard securities, authorities say.

The SEC said he earned $950,000 in trading profits and passed along about $60,000 to Nourafchan and Yadgarov.

Bolurfrushan engaged in insider trading again in mid-2024, based on a tip about investment firm Sixth Street’s plans to acquire insurer Enstar for $5.1 billion, according to charging documents.

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Apple to spend $30 billion on Broadcom chips as it boosts US sourcing

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Apple , opens new tab plans to spend more than $30 ​billion under a multi-year chip supply deal with Broadcom, bolstering ‌its U.S. sourcing as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to expand domestic chip manufacturing.
Broadcom shares rose more than 4%, while Apple shares were ​down marginally.
Apple said on Wednesday the deal, which ​was struck earlier this week and runs through 2031, ⁠covers FBAR filters – or radio-frequency chips used for ​wireless connectivity in its devices – that it had been ​developing with Broadcom since at least 2023.
Broadcom will invest $1.5 billion to expand its Fort Collins, Colorado, factory under the deal, which Apple ​said would result in the production of at ​least 15 billion chips and support its work with the Trump ‌administration ⁠to source more components domestically.
“The cutting-edge components built in Fort Collins are essential to delivering the incredible performance and connectivity our customers expect, and we’re proud to deepen our ​investments in ​U.S.-based suppliers ⁠that share our commitment to excellence and innovation,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in ​a statement.
“We’re grateful to the president and his ​administration ⁠for supporting important projects like this.”
In August 2025, Apple raised its U.S. investment commitment to $600 billion over four ⁠years, adding $100 billion ​to a previously announced spending ​plan.

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China plans to let top AI firms buy limited Nvidia H200 chips, the Information reports

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China is planning to allow the country’s top AI companies to buy a limited number of Nvidia’s, opens new tab H200 chips, ​the Information reported on Wednesday, citing two people with direct knowledge ‌of the matter.
Chinese officials have told Alibaba, opens new tab, ByteDance and DeepSeek in recent weeks that they may soon receive permission to buy some H200 chips, the report said.
Shares of Nvidia ​rose 1% after the report.
The chip giant did not immediately respond to ​a Reuters request for comment, nor did the U.S. commerce ⁠department, which oversees exports of advanced AI chips overseas.
China’s commerce ministry also ​did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Alibaba, ByteDance and ​DeepSeek did not respond outside of regular business hours.
The U.S. government has allowed Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to China, and licensed about 10 Chinese firms to buy the ​chips. However, Chinese officials, keen to nurture domestic suppliers, have withheld approval so ​far.
Reuters reported in March that Nvidia had won Beijing’s approval to sell the chips to China, ‌citing ⁠sources, and around the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also told CNBC that the company had clearance from China.
Beijing is still determining the exact number of Nvidia chips to approve, and it could amount to fewer than 200,000 ​in total, the ​Information said, adding ⁠that was less than half of what the companies requested earlier this year.
Last month, Reuters exclusively reported that Nvidia told ​Chinese clients its new “Vera” central processors for AI data centres ​could be ⁠available as soon as August and that they can begin placing orders.
Nvidia’s market share in China has effectively fallen to zero, Huang said in October, hurt ⁠by U.S. ​export controls and Beijing’s push for self-reliance in ​key technologies.
The potential shift in China’s stance underscores the growing computing capacity crunch that the country’s ​tech companies are facing.

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Australia’s under-16 social media ban fails first age check hurdle, study finds

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A team of software testers found that Australian social media platforms did not request age proof for any of 50 accounts that declared themselves to be 16, a result that leaves the country’s world-first under-16 ban “ineffective” at the most basic screening stage, according to a study seen by Reuters.

Since December, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube have been required to bar people under 16 and take “reasonable steps” to verify age, with regulators recommending multiple layered checks. But the new research, conducted by those who advised the nationwide curb, shows that the initial vetting step, which estimates a user’s age from general online activity, is failing to flag young people for tougher verification.
The testers, who last year trialled age-assurance software on more than 1,000 Australians, opened 50 new accounts after the law took effect and set the age as 16. None of the platforms asked for additional proof, the researchers told Reuters. The findings highlight a flaw that has been largely overlooked while public debate has focused on photo-based age-estimation tools.

The ban’s rollout has been widely criticised after surveys indicated that most under-16s still access the platforms. The government last month doubled the maximum fine and warned of possible court action against tech giants, accusing them of setting the system up to fail. Platforms have countered that they are simply following the regulator’s guidance, which prioritises low-friction checks and prevents reliance on government ID alone due to privacy concerns.

Some advisers to the original trial said they had repeatedly warned that the testing process ignored real-world circumvention, including minors entering false birthdates. “We did want to talk about circumvention, but we kept on being told that that wasn’t part of the actual trial,” Colm Gannon of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children told Reuters. A youth digital rights academic involved in a longer-term study of the ban said more impressive results might emerge once platforms move to age-inference methods later in the year. The regulator maintains that the recommended layered approach, if implemented correctly, ensures no single point of failure.

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