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The Friday File: Apple; AI; Amazon
Mobile World Live brings you our top three picks of the week as Apple debuted its long-awaited foldable iPhone Duo, concerns over the risks of frontier AI intensified and Qualcomm sealed a custom silicon deal with Amazon.
Apple debuts long-awaited foldable iPhone Duo
What happened: Apple made its long-anticipated foldable debut with the iPhone Duo and unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, marking new CEO John Ternus’ first annual product launch.
Why it matters: Ternus stated the device it has the “largest display ever on an iPhone, while still fitting easily in your pocket”, adding it “feels as natural and intuitive as iPad”. The device, which features a 7.6-inch internal display that is 50% larger than the size of the iPhone 18 Pro Max, starts at $1,999 for 256GB. VP of devices at IDC Francisco Jeronimo said that for Ternus, the “real test” will be whether Apple can “make foldables a more valuable category, own the defining premium product and use that position to extend the economic power of the iPhone portfolio”.
Paolo Pescatore, chief analyst at PP Foresight, said he expects the Duo “to be an instant hit, benefiting the wider market and developer community while putting rivals firmly on notice”. Indeed, IDC forecasted Apple will ship around 10 million iPhone Duo units in its first 12 months and generate $27 billion in revenue. Additionally, Jeronimo noted that although the handset is Apple’s “most expensive iPhone ever”, it is around $500 below market expectations. “Apple entered the foldable market and, in one keynote, set the price and the standard every rival will now be measured against,” he said. China will be its first key test as Huawei captured 79.4% of the country’s foldable units in Q2. Yet, Jeronimo argued Apple has given buyers “their first genuinely compelling reason to reconsider.”
Anthropic researcher issues grave AI warning
What happened: Evan Hubinger, who manages Anthropic’s AI Alignment Stress-Testing team, warned in a post on social media platform X there is more than a 10% chance that increasingly capable, self-improving AI could “kill all humans” within the next decade, raising alarm over the pace of frontier AI development.
Why it matters: Hubinger said the risk from existing models remained “low” but pointed to “recursive self-improvement” as a route to dangerous “superintelligence”. He said Anthropic did not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and was “not clearly on track to”. His comments followed the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who accused Anthropic and OpenAI of “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”. OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta all disclosed unprecedented incidents in recent months involving AI models autonomously executing cyberattacks. Anthropic’s August risk report stated advanced models could eventually “catastrophic harm”.
Iwo Szapar, director of AI innovation and venture building at Information Services Group said the resignation of researchers close to the AI race should prompt action. “Maybe he is wrong about the probability. Maybe he is not. But a handful of private companies, competing to ship first, should not get to decide how much risk the rest of us have to accept,” he argued. “I want the rules,” he added, calling for measures including independent safety evaluations and shared stop conditions across frontier labs. Meanwhile, Thomas White, analyst at Inner Circle Consulting, said users should consider when it is worth delegating work to “an energy-hungry technology with unknown psychological and existential risks”.
Qualcomm lands custom AI chip deal with Amazon
What happened: Qualcomm struck a long-term agreement with Amazon to develop customised silicon for AI inference infrastructure in Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres.
Why it matters: The agreement covers multiple generations of custom silicon, alongside optical connectivity technology designed to move data between AI processors at speeds of up to 1.6Tb/s. The arrangement is linked to up to $60 billion in potential commercial transactions. Amazon will also receive a warrant to buy up to 25 million Qualcomm shares at $161.26 each, worth about $4 billion if fully exercised. The warrants vest against purchase milestones, linking Amazon’s potential stake to its use of Qualcomm technology.
Counterpoint Research co-founder and VP Neil Shah described Amazon as Qualcomm’s “second major hyperscaler partner”, arguing the warrant creates a “multi-gen demand hook” because Amazon receives more equity only if it scales Qualcomm silicon. He noted the partnership is “a good validation for Qualcomm’s data centre portfolio and roadmap”, following the chipmaker’s target of $15 billion in data centre revenue by FY 2029. More broadly, Michael Ajayi, senior lecturer at Stadio Higher Education, said Nvidia’s dominance is driving “a structural response” amongst hyperscalers, with AI infrastructure likely to become “more heterogeneous” as cloud companies adopt custom accelerators.
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