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At the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026, Sundar Pichai announced Google would invest $15 billion in AI infrastructure in India, including a full-stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam. Pichai called AI 'the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes' and met with PM Modi at the summit.

Microsoft announced it matched 100% of its annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. Since its 2020 carbon-negative announcement, the company has contracted 40 GW of new renewable energy across 26 countries through 95+ utilities and 400+ contracts. 19 GW is already online with remainder coming over the next 5 years. Estimated to reduce Scope 2 emissions by 25 million tons of CO2.

A bug (CW1226324) allowed Microsoft Copilot Chat to read and summarize customers' confidential emails without permission for approximately four weeks (January 21 to mid-February 2026). Emails marked with confidentiality labels and protected by DLP policies were incorrectly processed across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Affected organizations included the UK's National Health Service. Microsoft did not disclose the number of affected customers or what data was accessed. This was the second trust boundary violation in eight months, following CVE-2025-32711 'EchoLeak' in June 2025 (CVSS 9.3).

On February 18, 2026, Mark Zuckerberg testified in Los Angeles in a landmark trial over social media's effects on children - his first testimony on child safety in front of a jury. He was grilled about internal documents showing 4M+ users under 13 in 2015 and goals to increase user engagement to 40-46 minutes daily. Zuckerberg said he reached out to Tim Cook to discuss 'wellbeing of teens and kids.' The trial could set precedent for 1,500+ similar lawsuits.

Meta began a $65 million political spending push in February 2026 through four super PACs -- including newly formed 'Forge the Future Project' (backing Republicans) and 'Making Our Tomorrow' (backing Democrats) -- aimed at electing state-level candidates favorable to AI industry interests. Spending began in Illinois and Texas, generally favoring incumbents and open races over challenging sitting officials friendly to Meta's AI agenda.

Following an independent investigation into Swedish forestry company SCA's logging practices in northern Sweden, which raised human rights and environmental concerns, Zalando announced on February 16, 2026 that it would phase out SCA-sourced materials from its packaging products. Zalando does not buy directly from SCA but sources paper indirectly through packaging supplier DS Smith, one of SCA's major customers; the decision followed internal and external dialogue after the investigation concluded. Zalando's move followed a similar decision by Nestle in November 2025. SCA disputed the allegations as unconfirmed and said the impact on its operations would be limited.

At a Las Vegas company event in February 2026, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made at least two remarks joking about ICE officers 'in the building' after asking international employees to stand. Internal Slack channels 'lit up with angry reactions.' 1,400 employees subsequently signed a letter expressing concerns about Agentforce AI being used by ICE to automate processes like handling tipline reports. At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 and at least 9 in 2026, including high-profile shootings.

Security researcher Eaton Zveare found DavaIndia's e-commerce platform allowed unauthenticated users to create 'super admin' accounts via insecure APIs, exposing customer names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, and medication purchase histories from nearly 17,000 online orders, plus administrative control over 883 stores (pricing, prescription requirements, discount coupons). The flaw had been live since late 2024. Zota Healthcare (DavaIndia's parent) was notified via India's CERT-In in August 2025, patched the bug within weeks, but took until late November 2025 to confirm the fix, before public disclosure in February 2026.

On February 12, 2026, Anthropic announced it had raised $30 billion in Series G funding, valuing the company at $380 billion. The massive fundraising round reflects continued investor confidence in Anthropic's safety-focused AI development approach.

In February 2026, Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 identified hacking group TGR-STA-1030 as connected to Beijing in a draft report, but the final published version described them only as 'a state-aligned group that operates out of Asia.' Two sources told Reuters the company feared retaliation from Beijing after Chinese authorities banned ~15 US/Israeli cybersecurity firms in January 2026. The campaign had breached government and critical infrastructure in 37 countries. SentinelOne independently confirmed the China link. VP Nicole Hockin called suggestions 'speculative and false.' Palo Alto has 5 offices and 70+ employees in China.

In February 2026, Kickstarter terminated four union members just three months after ratifying a contract with Kickstarter United (OPEIU Local 153) that included a 4-day workweek and strong AI protections. The company created a new team to take over terminated employee Jason Featherington's work, then outsourced it to non-union contractors using AI tools. Union filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with NLRB and grievances over contractor/AI use undermining bargaining unit work. Shop steward Zak Thompson called the retaliation 'unconscionable.'

On February 11, 2026, California AG Rob Bonta announced the largest CCPA settlement to date with Disney. The company's opt-out webform only stopped sharing through Disney's own ad platform while continuing to sell data to third-party ad-tech companies. Disney failed to provide in-app opt-out in streaming apps, ignored device-specific Global Privacy Control signals for logged-in users, and required bundle subscribers to opt out up to 10 separate times to fully stop data sharing.

On February 11, 2026, Marc Andreessen personally contributed $25 million to Leading the Future, a super PAC he co-founded with Ben Horowitz to elect candidates favorable to a light-touch AI regulatory environment. The donation was part of $42.1 million in personal 2026-cycle political spending disclosed by Andreessen, 97% of which went to super PACs rather than directly to candidates or parties.

Abiodun Olokunjuwon filed suit against Moniepoint in the High Court of Oyo State (Case No. M1W/014/2026, filed February 11, 2026), alleging the fintech opened two accounts using her National Identification Number and Bank Verification Number without her knowledge or authorization, exposing her personal data to misuse and triggering third-party restrictions on her legitimate accounts. The suit cites Section 37 of Nigeria's Constitution and the Nigeria Data Protection Act, seeking N50 million in damages, deletion of her data, and closure of the unauthorized accounts. Moniepoint said it had not been served with court documents as of the report.

Between February 9-13, 2026, at least nine engineers departed xAI, including six of the original twelve co-founders. Notable departures included Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba (both Feb 10). Musk addressed the wave of exits, stating xAI was 'reorganized a few days ago to improve speed of execution.' The departures came amid controversy over Grok producing inappropriate content and shortly after the SpaceX-xAI merger.

On February 10, 2026, PayPal disclosed a data breach affecting approximately 100 PayPal Working Capital loan applicants due to a software coding error. Personal data including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and business contact information was exposed from July 1 to December 13, 2025. Some customers experienced unauthorized transactions and received refunds. PayPal offered 2 years of free credit monitoring through Equifax.

A CBS News investigation and a China Media Project analysis found Alibaba's open-weight Qwen models return canned CCP-aligned responses or refusals on topics like Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and Xinjiang, and were found to follow instructions to describe China's human-rights record using only positive framing while listing both positives and negatives for other countries. Independent benchmarking cited in the reporting found roughly 90% of politically sensitive prompts triggered censored or biased responses in base Qwen models. Qwen has been downloaded over 3 billion times and is used inside products at companies including Airbnb and Uber, spreading the bias into international business tools. As of the reporting, Alibaba had not publicly addressed the findings.

In February 2026, Anthropic aired anti-OpenAI advertisements during the Super Bowl, criticizing OpenAI's announced plans to add 'Instagram-style' advertising to ChatGPT. The ads resulted in an 11% boost in Anthropic users. Sam Altman called the ads 'deceptive.' The rivalry escalated at the India AI Summit where Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands during a group photo with PM Modi.

The UK's Financial Ombudsman Service found that Monzo wrongly rejected 34% of the 3,372 fraud and scam complaints referred to it in 2025 -over 1,000 cases- the highest wrongful-rejection rate among major British banks, ahead of NatWest (33%) and HSBC (32%). The complaints covered authorised push payment scams, chip-and-PIN fraud, and identity theft.

On February 7, 2026, Ola drivers joined Uber and Rapido counterparts in an 'All-India Breakdown' - a six-hour offline strike across Delhi, Mumbai and other major metros - organized by the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union and the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers. Drivers protested platform commissions of 20-30% of fares (on top of 5% GST on the base fare and 18% GST on the commission itself), fare policies they called arbitrary, income volatility, lack of access to social security, and vulnerability to algorithmic fare disputes and account suspensions, while also demanding action against unregulated bike-taxi services. Similar driver protests over commission rates recurred in Delhi and Mumbai in late August/early September 2026.

In February 2026, after FEC filings revealed Greg Brockman's $25 million combined donations to MAGA Inc., the QuitGPT boycott movement launched on February 5, 2026. The boycott attracted over 300,000 participants and was endorsed by actor Mark Ruffalo. The movement focused on Brockman's political donations and OpenAI's partnerships with ICE/DHS. It became part of a broader 'Resist and Unsubscribe' campaign organized by NYU Professor Scott Galloway targeting 10 tech companies.

In early February 2026, Tim Cook told Apple employees he was 'deeply distraught' with the US approach to immigration and vowed to lobby lawmakers on the issue. The statement came as the Trump administration pursued restrictive immigration policies.

On February 4, 2026, Kakao notified KakaoTalk's 47M+ users it would begin collecting and analyzing usage records and patterns for targeted advertising. After public backlash over privacy invasion, Kakao revised its terms on February 11, deleting some controversial provisions. This followed a September 2025 redesign debacle that was rolled back in 5 days after user revolt, and criticism of a location-sharing feature that allegedly enabled stalking.

FEC filings show Peter Thiel contributed $1.5 million to Club for Growth Action, a conservative super PAC, on February 3, 2026 -- his first major federal-level political donation since sitting out the 2024 presidential cycle after previously helping fund Trump's first presidential run.

As CEO and co-founder of Sierra, an AI customer-service agent company, Taylor publicly argued that fears of AI-driven job losses reflect 'a failure of imagination,' comparing the shift to how ATMs changed bank teller roles and how agriculture's share of the workforce shrank historically. He cited a Sierra customer that rebranded call-center staff as 'AI Architects' who manage AI agents' decision logic rather than take calls directly, and advised customer-service workers to proactively steer their careers toward wherever AI savings get reinvested rather than 'waiting passively.' He did not describe company- or policy-level retraining or transition-support programs, instead placing the burden of adaptation on individual workers. Sierra's pricing model charges clients only when its AI agent resolves a case without transferring to a human, creating a direct financial incentive to minimize human involvement.

UN Special Procedures sent Joint Allegation Letters to Samsung and the governments of South Korea and Vietnam over 'irresponsible chemical management' and pollution at Vietnamese plants tied to Samsung's supply chain. A SHARPS investigation conducting five on-site inspections in January-February 2026 around Samsung's Bac Ninh facility and four first- and second-tier subcontractors found the Bac Ninh factory itself had improved but had outsourced its toxic processes, while all four subcontractors showed severe air pollution, malfunctioning pollution-control equipment, and improperly disposed or burned industrial waste. This followed earlier reporting that Samsung outsourced toxic plating, painting, and printing operations to subcontractors starting 2017-2018 despite internal awareness of problems dating to 2012. Samsung disputed the findings as largely inaccurate or already addressed and said the main subcontractor named had only a ~2% transaction share.

SpaceX submitted an application to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission seeking approval to deploy as many as one million low-Earth-orbit satellites dedicated to artificial intelligence computing. The plan envisions orbital data centers powered by solar energy. Critics warn of escalating space debris, astronomical interference, and unresolved environmental costs. Astronomers raised alarms about the potential for further light pollution and space debris from a million-satellite constellation.

Workers at DN Automotive's Ulsan battery plant were told they were receiving vitamin shots but were actually given chelation injections to artificially lower lead readings ahead of mandatory occupational health screenings, union officials alleged in February 2026. South Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor investigation (March-April 2026) found 68 violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, fined the company 46.2 million won, and suspended lead-exposure processes. On October 12, 2026 the Ministry referred the company to police for obstruction of government health-protection measures; President Lee Jae-myung called it 'an unacceptable and grave human rights violation.' Workers reported numbness, kidney disease, and other symptoms after repeated injections.

In February 2026, Roelof Botha traveled to Washington, D.C. and participated in the bipartisan Hill and Valley Forum to discuss AI policy with lawmakers. In a podcast interview around the same time, he argued that AI policy should focus on regulating applications rather than 'basic technology,' comparing regulation of foundational AI models to regulating electricity or combustion engines in the abstract, and said Europe 'may be going more aggressively in this direction than it should.' He also said he is a 'staunch supporter' of open-source AI, citing competition with Chinese open-source models. Botha's position was not blanket anti-regulation -- he said 'reasonable regulation allows our country to thrive' and pointed to fair-lending rules as an example of appropriate application-level oversight -- but the thrust of his advocacy was to narrow the scope of regulatory oversight applied to frontier AI models themselves.

Between January and March 2026, Tencent conducted rolling layoffs and funding withdrawals across several game studios it owns or invests in. It pulled 'a significant amount of funding' from external studio Wildlight roughly two weeks after its game Highguard launched, prompting staff cuts there; laid off staff at its own Lightspeed LA studio after redirecting the Last Sentinel project; cut roughly 100 staff at TiMi's North American subsidiary; and laid off employees at Sumo Digital. Tencent also shut down its TiMi Montreal subsidiary without releasing a title and was reported to be negotiating exits from several Japan studio investments, part of a broader pattern of scaling back Western studio operations while expanding investment in Asia.