Top Stories — Wednesday, April 22, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- Anthropic’s New Mythos A.I. Model Sets Off Global Alarms — nyt News
- OpenAI teams up with Infosys to bring AI tools to more businesses — TechCrunch
- Best Buy names Jason Bonfig as new CEO, replacing Corie Barry in late October — CNBC
Anthropic’s New Mythos A.I. Model Sets Off Global Alarms
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/22/2026, 8:03:35 PM
Mythos has triggered emergency responses from central banks and intelligence agencies globally, as Anthropic decides who has access to the powerful model.
Paul Mozur, based in Taipei, Taiwan, and Adam Satariano, in London, cover global technology issues.
When Anthropic told the world this month that it had built an artificial intelligence model so powerful that it was too dangerous to release widely, the company named 11 organizations as partners to help mount a defense.
All were from the United States.
Within two weeks, the model, called Mythos, had set off a global scramble unlike anything yet seen in the A.I. era. Mythos, which Anthropic has said is uncannily capable of finding and exploiting hidden flaws in the software that runs the world’s banks, power grids and governments, had become a geopolitical chip — and a U.S. company held it.
World leaders have struggled to figure out the scale of the security risks and how to fix them, with Anthropic sharing Mythos with only Britain outside the United States. The Bank of England governor warned publicly that Anthropic may have found a way to “crack the whole cyber-risk world open.” The European Central Bank began quietly questioning banks about their defenses. Canada’s finance minister compared the threat to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
For U.S. rivals like China and Russia, Mythos underscored the security consequences of falling behind in the A.I. race. One Russian pro-Kremlin outlet called the model “worse than a nuclear bomb.”
The responses illustrated a reality that A.I. researchers have long warned about mostly in theoretical terms: Whoever leads in building the most powerful A.I. models will gain outsize geopolitical advantages. Major A.I. breakthroughs are beginning to function less like product launches and more like weapons tests, and most nations want to understand how the technologies work and what protections are needed.
As foundational A.I. “models become more consequential, access becomes more geopolitical,” said Eduardo Levy Yeyati, a former chief economist at the Central Bank of Argentina and a regional adviser on growth and A.I. at the Inter-American Development Bank. “I would take this episode as a policy wake-up call. Governments can no longer ignore the issue.”
Even the U.S. government, which has been embroiled in a clash with Anthropic over the use of A.I. in warfare, has taken notice of Mythos. On Friday, Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, met with White House officials after some in the Trump administration noted the potential for the new model to wreak havoc on computer systems.
Anthropic, which is based in San Francisco, told The New York Times that it was keeping access to Mythos small because of safety and security concerns. It has focused on sharing the model with more than 40 organizations that provide technology used in maintaining critical global infrastructure like the internet or electricity grids. Anthropic named 11 of the organizations, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, that pledged to help develop security fixes for vulnerabilities identified by the model.
The company said that it had no immediate timeline for widely expanding access, but that it would work with the U.S. government and industry partners to determine next steps. It said that it had been bombarded by calls from governments, companies and other organizations seeking access and information, but that these organizations could have varying levels of expertise to safely evaluate such a powerful A.I. model.
Anthropic added that it expected other groups to release A.I. models with similar cyber capabilities more widely within at least 18 months, giving organizations limited time to make the necessary security fixes.
On Tuesday, Anthropic said it was investigating a report that unauthorized users gained access to a version of Mythos.
The scramble over Mythos comes at a moment of minimal international cooperation on A.I. Governments are viewing one another with suspicion as corporations race to outpace rivals. There is no equivalent of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, no shared inspections and no agreed-upon rules for how to handle something like Mythos.
When Anthropic announced the model, many experts praised the company’s caution in limiting who gets to try the model, but expressed concerns about the lack of international coordination to deal with the risk.
Britain was the only other nation to gain access. Its A.I. Security Institute, a government-backed organization, tested Mythos and published an independent evaluation last week, confirming that it could carry out complex cyberattacks that no previous A.I. model had completed.
“This represents a step up in A.I. cyber capabilities,” Kanishka Narayan, Britain’s A.I. minister, said last week on social media, saying the country was taking steps to protect “critical national infrastructure.”
Others got less information. The European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-nation European Union, has met with Anthropic at least three times since the Mythos release, an E.U. official said. But the company has not provided access to the model because the two sides have not agreed on how to share it with the commission, the official said.
In a statement, the commission said it was “assessing possible implications” of Mythos, which “exhibits unprecedented cyber capabilities.”
Claudia Plattner, the president of Germany’s cybersecurity agency, known as B.S.I., said it had not received access to Mythos, but she met with Anthropic employees in San Francisco recently for “meaningful insight” into how it works. The capabilities point to “a paradigm change in the nature of cyber threats,” Ms. Plattner said in a statement.
Among U.S. rivals, the response has been more muted. Despite Anthropic’s recent clash with the Trump administration, Mr. Amodei has made clear that A.I. should be used to defend the United States and other democracies and defeat autocratic adversaries.
Neither Beijing nor Moscow has made a major public statement on Mythos. Inside China, researchers and the broader A.I. community have been watching closely, according to analysts studying the country’s tech community. Many of the country’s banks, energy companies and government agencies run on the same software in which Mythos found vulnerabilities — but for now, they have no seat at the table.
“For China I think this is the second wake-up call after ChatGPT,” said Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He added that a U.S. policy to prevent China from obtaining the most sophisticated semiconductors for building advanced A.I. systems was helping to extend the U.S. lead.
Some A.I. researchers in China have privately expressed concern that the country could fall further behind, missing out on advantages that come with building a foundational model first, said Jeffrey Ding, a professor of political science at George Washington University.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China was not familiar with the specifics of Mythos but supported a peaceful, secure and open cyberspace.
Mythos is the latest sign of a growing global A.I. divide. Nations without powerful computing infrastructure and A.I. models risk being left dependent on companies like Anthropic, Google and OpenAI while having little sway over how their products are designed and safeguarded, Mr. Yeyati said.
“The idea that access to frontier A.I. is something a company can unilaterally restrict, using criteria that are opaque and unappealable, should be a real concern,” he said.
Paul Mozur is the global technology correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Previously he wrote about technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul.
Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent for The Times, based in London.
Read the full story at nyt News.
OpenAI teams up with Infosys to bring AI tools to more businesses
Source: TechCrunch • Published: 4/22/2026, 7:52:10 PM
OpenAI has partnered with Infosys to integrate its artificial intelligence tools, including coding assistant Codex, into the Indian IT giant’s Topaz AI platform.
Infosys said the integration will be used to help its clients modernize software development, automate workflows and deploy AI systems at scale, initially focusing software engineering, legacy modernization, and DevOps.
India’s IT services firms face mounting pressure from a mix of slowing client spending and rapid advances in generative AI. Shares of Infosys have fallen over 22% this year amid a broader sell-off triggered by weak forecasts, investor concerns that AI tools could automate parts of traditional outsourcing work, and macroeconomic turmoil due to the U.S.-Iran war.
The move also reflects a broader trend of AI firms teaming up with global IT services providers to scale adoption in large enterprises. OpenAI has previously partnered with HCLTech, and Infosys has struck a similar deal with Anthropic.
OpenAI gains a distribution channel into large enterprises through Infosys’ global client base and delivery capabilities across more than 60 countries. The companies said the deal is aimed at helping enterprises move from experimentation to large-scale deployment.
Infosys has been ramping up its AI business. The company said earlier this year that AI-related services generated ₹25 billion (about $267 million) in revenue in the December quarter, or roughly 5.5% of its total.
The deal is part of a broader push by OpenAI to expand its enterprise footprint through initiatives such as Codex Labs, announced on Tuesday, which involves engineers working with clients to help deploy its tools. Initial partners include Accenture, Capgemini, CGI, Cognizant, Infosys, PwC and Tata Consultancy Services, as OpenAI aims to build a distribution network to scale adoption of Codex, which now has more than 4 million weekly active users.
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Jagmeet covers startups, tech policy-related updates, and all other major tech-centric developments from India for TechCrunch. He previously worked as a principal correspondent at NDTV.
You can contact or verify outreach from Jagmeet by emailing mail@journalistjagmeet.com.
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Read the full story at TechCrunch.
Best Buy names Jason Bonfig as new CEO, replacing Corie Barry in late October
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/22/2026, 7:39:29 PM
Best Buy said Wednesday that company veteran Jason Bonfig will succeed Corie Barry as the retailer's CEO on Oct. 31, taking over as Best Buy tries to break a run of stagnant sales.
Bonfig, 49, is chief customer, product and fulfillment officer and rose through the ranks after joining the retailer as an inventory analyst in 1999. He will become Best Buy's sixth chief executive officer and join the company's board.
Barry will stay on as a strategic advisor for six months after stepping down, the company said in a news release. She is the second-longest tenured CEO in the company's history after its founder, Dick Schulze.
Best Buy's leadership change comes as the retailer tries to get back to meaningful sales growth and capitalize on the wave of artificial intelligence-enabled mobile phones and laptops.
In an interview with CNBC, Barry said Best Buy is in a good moment for a transition. She said the company is seeing "an upward swing of momentum" as customer and employee metrics improve and it enters a stage where artificial intelligence has begun to reshape the world of consumer electronics.
"It'll change the way we work. It'll change the way people shop, but in our industry in particular, it will change the devices we sell materially," she said, describing that as a three- to five-year journey.
"It's important for someone to steer that kind of next horizon," she said.
Bonfig told CNBC that AI will not only refresh the products that Best Buy sells, but also open up new categories and new features for customers. For example, he said, Ray-Ban Meta glasses didn't exist before.
"You'll see us continue to make sure we're as quick as possible to bring those in front of our customers, both digitally and in our stores," he said.
Barry said Bonfig is well suited to take the helm, since he oversees crucial parts of Best Buy's strategy to drive more sales and higher profits, including its third-party digital marketplace, which launched in the U.S. in August, and its advertising business, Best Buy Ads.
In his current role, Bonfig also oversees merchandising, marketing, supply chain and e-commerce.
Best Buy's CEO transition comes as its sales have lagged in the past four years, which Best Buy has attributed to a slower housing market, price-conscious U.S. consumers and less tech innovation.
The company said at least some of those dynamics will likely persist this fiscal year. Best Buy said in early March that it expects revenue to range between $41.2 billion and $42.1 billion, compared with $41.69 billion last fiscal year. It expects adjusted earnings per share to range from $6.30 to $6.60, after it reported adjusted earnings per share of $6.43 for the previous fiscal year.
It said comparable sales, a metric that tracks sales online and in stores open at least 14 months, will range from a decline of 1% to an increase of 1%.
Barry, 51, will step down after nearly seven years in the company's top job. She became the first woman to lead Best Buy when she started in the role in June 2019. She led Best Buy through a period marked by rapid changes and spikes in demand — including a rush to buy computer monitors and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic — along with supply chain headaches, high inflation and President Donald Trump's sharp increase in global tariffs.
David Kenny, chair of the company's board of directors, said in a statement that Barry "guided Best Buy with a confident and steady hand and an unrelenting commitment to drive value for our employees, customers, partners and shareholders through some of the most tumultuous and uncertain times we have ever seen."
Best Buy's stock has reflected that turbulence, too. On the day she began as CEO, the price of the company's shares were $65.52, but they shot up to an all-time closing high of $138 on Nov. 22, 2021.
Shares of Best Buy closed Tuesday at $66.59, bringing the company's market cap to $13.93 billion. As of Tuesday's close, Best Buy's stock is up about 7% over the past year and down about 0.5% this year. That compares with the S&P 500's approximately 37% gains and 3% rise, respectively, during the same time periods.
The company's shares were down more than 4% in morning trading on Wednesday.
Best Buy faces some skepticism among investors. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs downgraded the company's stock from buy to sell.
In an equity research note, retail analyst Kate McShane said the company may get a bounce from higher tax refunds in the first quarter of the year as customers buy new devices. Yet she said she expects sales and margins to come under pressure during the rest of the year as higher memory costs drive up the price of computers and laptops and consumers trade down to cheaper devices.
Plus, she said, Best Buy's sales of appliances and other consumer electronics have lagged, even as competitors like Home Depot and Lowe's have posted stronger sales trends.
Regardless of the economic backdrop, Bonfig said Best Buy's teams "are always focused on staying as close to our customers as possible," whether shoppers want value, ease or inspiration.
Barry said Best Buy's business model as a specialty consumer electronics retailer works best "when we see innovation intersect with replacement cycles" — a dynamic that she said is returning again. One sign of that, she said, is the company's nine straight quarters of sales growth in computing.
"We're starting to see the indicators," she said. "As more innovation proliferates, we feel like we're set up well to capitalize on that."
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