Welcome back to Daily Zaps, your regularly-scheduled dose of AI news ⚡️ 

Here’s what we got for ya today:

• 🧙‍♂️ Google to buy Wiz for $32 billion in cash

• 🧐 Mistral releases Small 3.1

• 🛒 Amazon Alexa premium tier

• 💻 Nvidia's push to dominate the AI infrastructure

Let’s get right into it!

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BIG TECH

Google to buy Wiz for $32 billion in cash

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has confirmed the acquisition of cloud security startup Wiz for $32 billion in an all-cash deal, marking its largest acquisition to date. The total value reaches $33 billion, including $1 billion in retention bonuses for Wiz's 1,700 employees. Wiz, currently generating $700 million in annual recurring revenue and projected to reach $1 billion, will remain an independent platform operating across all cloud providers.

The deal, expected to close in 2026 pending regulatory approval, positions Google Cloud to strengthen its enterprise security offerings and compete with AWS and Microsoft Azure. Previously, Google attempted to acquire Wiz for $23 billion, but negotiations fell through over concerns about price, antitrust issues, and Wiz's autonomy. The acquisition is seen as a strategic move to boost Google Cloud’s market position and complement Alphabet’s broader investments in AI and cybersecurity.

STARTUPS

Mistral releases Small 3.1

Mistral AI has released Mistral Small 3.1, a lightweight, high-performance model that surpasses comparable models like Gemma 3 and GPT-4o Mini in text generation, multimodal understanding, and long-context processing (up to 128k tokens). The model achieves 150 tokens per second inference speed and is optimized for various generative AI tasks, including instruction following, conversational AI, image understanding, and function calling.

It is lightweight enough to run on a single RTX 4090 or a Mac with 32GB RAM, making it ideal for on-device and low-latency applications. Mistral Small 3.1 is available under an Apache 2.0 license and can be accessed via Hugging Face, Google Cloud Vertex AI, Mistral AI’s developer platform (La Plateforme), and soon on NVIDIA NIM and Microsoft Azure AI Foundry.

BIG TECH

Amazon Alexa premium tier

Amazon has unveiled Alexa+, a revamped version of its smart assistant, available for a $19.99 monthly subscription, featuring more natural conversations and seamless third-party integration. Alongside this launch, Amazon's devices chief, Panos Panay, is spearheading a major overhaul of the company's hardware lineup, introducing premium Alexa-powered devices to complement existing affordable options. This shift aims to enhance sound quality, battery life, and security, revitalizing the Alexa brand.

While Amazon won’t revive past failures like the Fire Phone, Panay hinted at augmented reality glasses and wrist-worn devices as potential future releases. The first wave of Alexa+-powered devices is expected between August and October 2025, featuring a new AI operating system to create a smoother user experience. This marks a strategic shift for Amazon, positioning Alexa+ as the core platform for a new generation of smart home devices.

BIG TECH

Nvidia's push to dominate the AI infrastructure

At its GTC conference, Nvidia introduced the Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin GPU family, set to launch in 2026. The Vera Rubin system includes Nvidia’s first custom CPU, which is twice as fast as before, while the Rubin GPU can process 50 petaflops of AI tasks. Nvidia is also changing how it labels GPUs, now counting combined chips separately, with a four-GPU Rubin Next chip planned for 2027. The Blackwell Ultra boosts AI speed and efficiency, helping cloud providers make 50 times more revenue than before. Nvidia is also improving AI reasoning models, launching new AI-powered computers like DGX Spark and DGX Station and Dynamo software to make its chips even faster.

Nvidia is expanding beyond cloud AI, targeting the $500 billion enterprise IT market with new AI-powered computing, networking, storage, and software. It is also pushing into robotics and automation, using AI to improve industries like manufacturing, logistics, and self-driving systems. These innovations further secure Nvidia’s place as a leader in AI technology.