Julian Lim

Julian Lim is an entrepreneur, technology writer, and a researcher. He started JL Data Analysis after graduating from NUS in Intelligent Systems. Julian writes about technology innovations and entrepreneurship on Business Times, Asia Pacific Magazine and occasionally contributes to Startup Fortune.

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Julian Lim · Jul 18, 2026 · 5:51 AM

SpaceX is reportedly chasing a Pentagon AI compute deal

SpaceX is reportedly in talks with the Pentagon to provide AI data-center capacity in a deal that could be worth several billion dollars. The talks would push Elon Musk's company deeper into U.S. defense infrastructure as the Pentagon pursues its nearly $30 billion AI Arsenal plan.

Julian Lim · Jul 18, 2026 · 12:05 AM

Keyrock Buys BlockFills Trading Arm for $3.25 Million Out of Bankruptcy

Keyrock closed its purchase of BlockFills' institutional trading and brokerage business for $3.25 million on July 16, four months after the Chicago firm filed for Chapter 11 following $75 million in losses. The fire-sale price, next to Citadel Securities' $400 million bet on Crypto.com the same week, shows a crypto market-making industry splitting into clear winners and casualties.

Julian Lim · Jul 17, 2026 · 7:07 PM

Upper90 Lends $400 Million Against AI Inference Chips Instead of Nvidia GPUs

Upper90 has extended a $400 million credit facility to AI infrastructure startup General Compute, secured by SambaNova inference chips rather than Nvidia GPUs. It's a bet that the financing model Upper90 used to help build CoreWeave can work again with a different kind of silicon.

Julian Lim · Jul 17, 2026 · 1:26 PM

Zcash rallies past $550 as its Ironwood upgrade nears mainnet activation

Zcash has climbed past $550, weeks after a critical Orchard shielded pool bug crashed the token 40%. The coming Ironwood upgrade, activating around July 28 at block 3,428,143, replaces Orchard with a formally verified pool, and traders are piling roughly $1 billion in futures open interest into the bet that it works.

Julian Lim · Jul 17, 2026 · 4:48 AM

A Former DeepMind Researcher Just Raised $55 Million Before Building Anything

Andrew Dai left Google's DeepMind and within five months raised $55 million for Elorian AI at a $300 million valuation, before the startup had a product. It's part of a widening pattern of pre-product megadeals for AI lab alumni, echoing Periodic Labs' $300 million seed just months earlier.

Julian Lim · Jul 16, 2026 · 11:46 PM

A Scrappy New York Startup Is Betting $9 Million It Can Outsmart Kalshi and Polymarket

Pascal, a New York prediction market startup founded by two ex-traders, raised a $9 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures to challenge Kalshi and Polymarket on settlement reliability rather than size. The company launched in June, remains in private beta, and won't disclose trading volumes.

Julian Lim · Jul 16, 2026 · 7:20 PM

Intel Ships the First High Volume Chips Made With ASML's Next EUV Tool

Intel Foundry has shipped the first high-volume logic chips made with ASML's next-generation High-NA EUV lithography, years ahead of TSMC's own timeline. The milestone lands on Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake chips built on the 18A node, with yields matching older EUV tooling. It's a real technical win, but Intel still needs to convert it into paying foundry customers.

Julian Lim · Jul 16, 2026 · 2:13 PM

Uber Offers $14.8 Billion to Take Over Delivery Hero and Reshape Food Delivery

Uber has made a formal $14.8 billion takeover offer for Delivery Hero, with both boards unanimously in support and major shareholder Prosus already committed to tender. To ease antitrust concerns, Delivery Hero is selling operations in 14 overlapping markets to SSW Partners for about $1.6 billion, setting up a combined 99 market delivery and mobility network with $236 billion in pro forma bookings.

Julian Lim · Jul 16, 2026 · 8:34 AM

TSMC posts record revenue and hands Wall Street its verdict on the AI buildout

TSMC reported record second-quarter revenue of about $39.62 billion on Thursday, a print Wall Street is treating as a referendum on the entire AI infrastructure trade after chip stocks lost well over a trillion dollars in value since June. Sold-out CoWoS packaging capacity and ASML's second straight guidance raise suggest the demand behind the spending is real, even as competition from custom silicon and shifting GPU rental prices keep the bubble debate alive.

Julian Lim · Jul 16, 2026 · 1:35 AM

Mira Murati's Thinking Machines releases Inkling and admits it isn't the best model out there

Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab released Inkling, its first model, with open weights on Hugging Face and live fine-tuning through its Tinker platform. The company openly admits Inkling isn't the strongest model available, betting instead that enterprises want a customizable base over a locked-down frontier API.

Julian Lim · Jul 15, 2026 · 9:17 PM

A Caltech Startup Shrank a 27 Billion Parameter AI Model to Fit on an iPhone

PrismML, a Caltech spinout backed by Khosla Ventures, released Bonsai 27B on July 14, 2026, a 1-bit and ternary compressed version of Qwen3.6-27B that runs natively on an iPhone 17 Pro. CNBC reports Apple is already evaluating the technology for on-device AI.

Julian Lim · Jul 15, 2026 · 2:57 PM

Japan Is One Vote Away From Treating Bitcoin Like a Stock

Japan's Upper House committee has cleared a bill reclassifying Bitcoin, Ethereum and about 105 other tokens as financial instruments, leaving just one floor vote before passage. The reform cuts crypto's top tax rate from 55% to a flat 20% and opens the door to spot Bitcoin ETFs, a sharp contrast to the stalled CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate.

Julian Lim · Jul 15, 2026 · 9:33 AM

Demis Hassabis wants a Wall Street style referee for frontier AI models

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is calling for a FINRA-style independent body to test frontier AI models for cyber, bio, and deception risks before release. He wants it running by year-end, even as the Trump administration has ruled out formal AI regulation.

Julian Lim · Jul 15, 2026 · 5:13 AM

Hinge's Founder Just Bet $18 Million That Swiping Is Broken

Hinge founder Justin McLeod has raised $18 million for Overtone, a voice-first AI matchmaking startup, with backing from Match Group itself. The bet: fewer, better introductions instead of endless swiping, with Esther Perel and Match CEO Spencer Rascoff joining the board.

Julian Lim · Jul 14, 2026 · 10:56 PM

Adam Mosseri Says AI Token Costs Could Soon Match Engineer Salaries

Julian Lim · Jul 14, 2026 · 6:30 PM

Keyper raises $11 million to kill the postdated rent cheque in the Gulf

Dubai proptech Keyper raised an $11 million Series A led by Speedinvest, with Mashreq's NeoVentures, Property Finder and Arab National Bank among the backers. The startup fronts landlords their rent upfront while letting tenants pay monthly, replacing the UAE's postdated cheque system, and has now financed over $44 million in rent value since 2022.