Apple bets on Gemini; Congress redraws AI rules
Apple's Siri overhaul crowns WWDC as Congress debates federal AI preemption and the EU confirms a 2027 compliance date.
By BINA Editorial
Six stories this week mark a pivotal convergence of AI product strategy, governance, and safety across three continents.
Apple Overhauls Siri with Google Gemini at WWDC 2026
In the headline announcement at Tim Cook's final WWDC keynote on 8 June, Apple revealed it has rebuilt Siri on a custom 1.2-trillion-parameter version of Google Gemini, licensed at roughly $1 billion per year. The partnership makes Siri the largest commercial deployment of Gemini outside Google's own products. For users of iPhones, iPads, and Macs, the change promises a significantly more capable conversational assistant beginning with iOS 20 later this year.
US House Releases Bipartisan Draft of the "Great American Artificial Intelligence Act"
Representatives Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Lori Trahan (D-MA) released a 269-page bipartisan draft bill on 4 June that would impose a three-year federal preemption on state laws regulating AI model development, while preserving state authority over how AI is actually deployed and used. The framework is intended to create a coherent national standard and avoid a patchwork of fifty different state rules. Consumer and civil-society organisations such as Public Knowledge have raised objections, arguing that preemption strips states of the ability to protect residents where Congress has not yet acted.
EU Confirms December 2027 Deadline for High-Risk AI Compliance
The European Union formally confirmed on 7 June that stand-alone high-risk AI systems must comply with the EU AI Act by December 2027, with fines of up to 6 percent of global annual revenue for non-compliance. The clarification follows months of industry lobbying over the implementation timeline and gives businesses roughly eighteen months to bring systems into line. Sectors most immediately affected include recruitment, credit scoring, critical infrastructure management, and law enforcement tools.
AI Lab Chiefs Jointly Call on Congress for Biosecurity Screening
The chief executives of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft AI jointly wrote to Congress on 5 June, urging mandatory biosecurity screening requirements for companies that synthesise DNA. Their letter argued that AI has materially lowered the barrier to designing dangerous biological material, making current voluntary safeguards insufficient. The call represents a rare public alignment among direct competitors and reflects growing concern at the frontier about dual-use risks from their own technology.
Senator Sanders Proposes AI Sovereign Wealth Fund
Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the "American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act" in early June, proposing a one-time 50 percent tax — paid in company stock — on frontier AI firms including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. The shares would seed a federal sovereign wealth fund, granting the public voting rights on AI company boards and future dividend distributions. The proposal enters a field crowded with rival visions for public benefit, including calls from the Trump administration and several technology investors.
Google Secures $920 Million Monthly Compute Deal with SpaceX
A regulatory filing disclosed on 5 June confirmed that Google has agreed to pay SpaceX approximately $920 million per month for access to around 110,000 Nvidia GPUs, from October 2026 through June 2029 — a commitment of roughly $33 billion over the contract period. The deal is driven by surging demand for Gemini Enterprise and reflects the scale of compute infrastructure now required to serve large commercial AI workloads. SpaceX's entry as a major hyperscale compute provider marks a notable shift in the cloud-services landscape.