Liu Qiangdong’s pledge to safeguard JD.com’s workforce from automation sits uncomfortably with his own ‘unmanned era’ vision and a flagship warehouse already running on four employees.

Liu Qiangdong, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, vowed in an internal speech this week to protect the company’s 900,000-strong workforce from AI and robotics, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday citing a video circulating on Chinese social media.

JD.com will, on Liu’s telling, “do everything possible to safeguard employment for hundreds of thousands of staff, including blue-collar workers,” even as it accelerates the deployment of AI and autonomous logistics across the business.

The vow lands in a Chinese policy environment in which it would be unwise for a major employer to say anything else.

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Chinese courts ruled twice in six months in 2026 that companies cannot fire workers simply because an AI can do their jobs, holding that a strategic decision to adopt AI is not the kind of unforeseeable circumstance the Labour Contract Law contemplates as legal grounds for termination.

Beijing’s top governing bodies formalised gig-worker protections earlier this year covering more than 200 million platform workers, with binding algorithm-transparency requirements taking effect in 2027. The political costs of a large Chinese employer being seen to fire workers because of AI are now structurally high.

Liu’s statement is also, however, in visible tension with positions he has taken on the record over the past 12 months.

At the 2025 World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, he argued that in the coming “unmanned era,” people might only need to work one hour a week and that governments should impose a 90% tax on tech monopolies to fund the resulting social compact.

He has separately announced JD’s plan to open the world’s first fully unmanned delivery station in April 2026, integrating drones, autonomous vehicles, and household robots capable of placing parcels directly inside homes through authorised smart locks.

Liu’s public framing has alternated between “automation will replace most jobs and that is a problem to be policy-managed” and, this week, “we will protect jobs.”

The operational record cuts more cleanly than the rhetoric. JD.com has been one of the most aggressive deployers of warehouse robotics in Chinese e-commerce.

The company opened a fully automated warehouse in 2018 that handles 200,000 orders a day with four human employees, all of whom service the robots.

JD Logistics, the company’s separately listed delivery arm, runs Large Language Models for route optimisation and has deployed autonomous delivery vehicles, drones and robot couriers at scale across Chinese cities.

The 900,000 employees Liu now vows to protect are the result of structural overhang from JD’s decade as a labour-intensive operator, not a forward-looking plan for the role of human workers in the firm.

The line JD is now trying to walk is the same one the entire Chinese platform-economy sector is being asked to walk. Beijing wants the productivity gains AI offers and the employment stability the Communist Party’s political legitimacy rests on.

The two are not obviously compatible. JD’s public framing this week, that automation will cut logistics costs and unleash a “positive cycle” of higher employee pay and stronger consumer confidence, is the version most agreeable to Beijing.

Whether the cost-cutting incentives at company level actually deliver that cycle, or simply translate into fewer human couriers and warehouse staff over time, is the operational question.

The press-release framing, separate from the Bloomberg-sourced video of the internal speech, also reportedly emphasises that JD has fostered 183 different types of frontline roles, including AI trainers and robot maintenance engineers.

Those new categories are real but small relative to the courier-and-warehouse base. If they will absorb workers displaced from the larger roles, or simply create higher-skilled positions filled from outside the affected workforce, is the question the next several years of JD’s labour data will answer.

Neither JD.com nor Liu commented through formal channels on the Bloomberg-reported internal speech.

The OWC Stack AI promises to make local processing of large LLMs easier by somehow inflating your Mac’s GPU memory across Thunderbolt. We have questions.

The majority of the AI industry consists of the big AI players, including OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic, among others. However, using them can become expensive, especially for people with massive workloads and enterprise clients.

One way to trim the bills is to bring it locally, with AI models being used on a computer instead of a server. The problem there is the expense of the hardware needed for it. And, there are privacy concerns for cloud-based models too.

You can buy a Mac mini and load a model onto it, but you will be hit by a memory limitation. Since the entire model has to be held in memory, the amount installed limits the size of model you can use.

There are workarounds to this limitation, such as projects involving multiple Macs connected over Thunderbolt 5 to share memory and compute performance.

However, OWC thinks it can do something better.

OWC Stack AI’s memory boost

The OWC Stack AI, or the Thunderbolt 5 AI Accelerator and Storage Hub, looks pretty much like an old-style Mac mini. It’s a nondescript aluminum block that you can stack a Mac Studio on top of, similar to some other docks and hubs.

Connecting to the Mac using Thunderbolt 5, it does provide some storage capacity, but the real benefit is its ability to extend the working GPU memory. In effect, it uses onboard high-speed flash to expand the onboard VRAM of a PC’s graphics card, and eventually Apple Silicon too.

With more memory available to use, OWC says that the host computer can handle Large Language Models (LLMs) of a far greater size than the graphics card’s VRAM alone.

This is not the same as using an eGPU enclosure with a Mac. From OWC’s description, the AI Stack works as an external memory enhancement, not an external processor.

OWC’s announcement explains that the Stack AI will support Windows and Linux at first, with Mac support expected at some point in the future.

The company says that Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and its small size means it’s a portable and transferrable item. It can be moved between desks with a notebook, or even shared between team members.

When it comes to the AI ecosystem, OWC assures that it will support numerous AI agents and applications, including OpenClaw, at launch.

AppleInsider has asked OWC for more information, including how the Stack AI works, the delay for Mac support, specs, price, and exspecifications and price. This piece will be updated with further information if we get a response.

What OWC has confirmed is that it will be at the Computex Taipei trade show starting on June 2. At that point, more concrete details about the hardware will emerge beyond an early Q4 launch target. Maybe.

Local processing boon

OWC has been light on details about the Stack AI and its price. We see the potential as an extremely useful item for AI research. Certainly, it would be a good tool for businesses, and depending on price, maybe everybody else too in this day-and-age.

The key problem surrounding local AI processing is having enough RAM that can accommodate the models the users want to use. The other is processing the queries, once you have that memory available.

The current cluster-based projects work well, connecting to each other over Thunderbolt to share cores and memory. That is a problem for more cash-strapped users who can’t afford the tens of thousands of dollars for high memory Macs.

It is arguable that, with the introduction of the M5 chip, Apple has gone a long way to solve the processing side of things. The Neural Accelerators in each GPU core of an M5 GPU means there’s a lot more machine learning processing power available.

This makes it possible for local processing tasks to do a lot more with less. But it only improves the processing itself, not the memory limitations.

You can get an M5 Max 14-inch MacBook Pro with 128GB of memory, but that is a $5,099 purchase with only the necessary upgrades applied. That’s a hefty price to get that much memory.

When Apple comes out with the M5 equivalents of Mac mini and Mac Studio, there will be similar high memory capacity options on the table. But again, they will be extremely highly priced given how the industry is headed.

In May 2026, Apple’s memory prices are reasonable. It’s not clear how long that will last, given the ongoing memory crisis affecting the industry as a whole.

With a product like the Stack AI, there is the potential to buy an M5 Mac with the processing and GPU you want, but not necessarily the memory you need. The Stack AI would handle that bit for you.

This does, however, require OWC to price it at a level that makes sense for consumers to take that road to begin with. OWC is just as price-sensitive to memory as any other company, and that sensitivity will ultimately impact the price the Stack AI sells for.

Apple won’t be holding onto its 20% stake in Globalstar once Amazon’s acquisition of the satellite firm concludes, with the shares set to be held by a “Grapefruit” company instead.

On April 14, Amazon agreed to acquire satellite service provider Globalstar in an $11 billion deal. The purchase adds Globalstar to Amazon’s existing satellite portfolio, which includes its Leo business.

However, Apple holds 20% of the shares in Globalstar, under a $1.1 billion commitment from 2024, which included a $400 million share purchase. Once the deal concludes, it won’t be holding onto the shares, nor the accompanying voting rights.

In a filing with the FCC dated May 26, 2026, Amazon and Globalstar ask the regulator to permit the transfer of licenses and authorizations between the two companies. This is one of the key elements needed for the acquisition to complete in the United States.

The filing, spotted by PCMag, explains that Amazon is creating a subsidiary to complete the merger. The subsidiary is being called “Grapefruit Acquisition Sub II, LLC.”

Apparently, someone in Amazon business development has a sense of humor.

Grapefruit will acquire Apple’s 20% in equity and voting interests for Globalstar. In the end, Globalstar, Inc. will cease to exist, with Grapefruit managing Globalstar USA LLC, Globalstar Licensee LLC, and GUSA Licensee LLC.

Satellite service continues

The document doesn’t state what Apple will receive in exchange, if anything, from the transfer and stock changes. However, it won’t be left out in the cold.

During the April announcement, Amazon insisted that Apple won’t be affected at all. An agreement was made for satellite connectivity to be maintained for current and future Apple Watch and iPhone features.

That includes features like Emergency SOS via Satellite and Roadside Assistance via Satellite.

That included using Globalstar’s existing and planned low Earth orbit satellite constellations. Amazon also said it would work with Apple to come up with future satellite services using Amazon Leo’s expanded satellite network.

In the FCC filing, Amazon reiterates its commitment to supply service and for improvements in the future. However, Amazon also plans to use its Globalstar purchase with other smartphone and mobile device producers and mobile carriers.

SpaceX did not commit to a multi-year lease of its Memphis Colossus 1 cluster to Anthropic, Elon Musk said on Wednesday, describing the agreement as 180 days with a 90-day mutual cancellation right.

Elon Musk has clarified that SpaceX did not commit to a multi-year lease of its Colossus 1 data centre to Anthropic, contradicting widely reported framing of the deal as a $1.25bn-per-month, three-year arrangement running through May 2029.

The agreement, Musk said in posts on his X account on Wednesday, is in fact a 180-day base lease with a mutual 90-day cancellation right on either side after that.

“The short term was our request, not Anthropic’s,” Musk wrote. “We won’t leave them hanging and will provide a reasonable off-ramp, but if compute gets super tight I said we might need it back at some point.”

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The clarification matters because it lands inside the SpaceX IPO roadshow window. The company filed for its public listing last week.

The S-1 mentions a 90-day mutual cancellation provision on the Anthropic agreement but does not, as initially reported, anchor the deal at the six-month base term Musk has now publicly named.

The disclosure gap, combined with the visible revision of the deal duration in public Musk statements, will be one of the questions analysts and prospective LPs press on during the roadshow that starts in earnest in June.

The underlying transaction is itself worth recapping. Anthropic announced earlier this month that it had taken access to the full compute capacity of Colossus 1, the Memphis facility built originally to train xAI’s Grok. Colossus 1 houses more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and provides over 300 megawatts of compute capacity.

The published monthly rent figure was $1.25bn. Anthropic immediately used the new compute headroom to raise rate limits on Claude Code and Opus API customers, citing the SpaceX deal specifically.

xAI had by then moved its own model training to Colossus 2, a newer and larger facility, leaving Colossus 1 available for external lease.

What changed today is the lease-term reading. A 180-day base term with 90-day post-base cancellation is a meaningfully different commercial commitment from a 36-month contract.

For SpaceX, the short term retains flexibility to reclaim compute if Grok training demand or other internal SpaceX-xAI requirements spike.

For Anthropic, it means the Colossus capacity is a useful near-term bridge rather than the structural data-centre anchor analysts had read it as.

Anthropic’s public posture around the deal, particularly the Claude rate-limit increases announced earlier this month, presumed a longer-term arrangement than Musk has now confirmed.

The IPO-disclosure question is the part SEC lawyers will care about. SpaceX is a private company filing for a public listing. Material commercial agreements with revenue impact are required disclosure.

A 36-month deal worth $45bn cumulative ($1.25bn × 36) is structurally different from a 6-month deal with mutual cancellation worth at most $7.5bn ($1.25bn × 6) if no extension is negotiated.

The S-1’s mention of the 90-day cancellation provision but not the 180-day base term sits in the gap between the two readings.

The Musk-Anthropic relationship is itself the contextual oddity. Musk has spent the past two years publicly describing Anthropic as “Misanthropic” and as a competitor to xAI.

All 11 xAI co-founders have departed over the past year, and xAI itself lost $6.4bn from operations on $3.2bn of revenue in 2025, with growth well below the rates Anthropic and OpenAI have posted.

The Colossus 1 rental to Anthropic was already commercially logical given xAI’s capacity utilisation and SpaceX’s IPO timing. Today’s revision suggests Musk now wants the flexibility to walk it back if circumstances change.

Neither SpaceX nor Anthropic separately commented on the lease-term clarification through formal channels. The SpaceX IPO roadshow is scheduled to begin on 8 June.

The update also introduces the app’s take on film stock simulation.

Personal Tech

Also somehow censoring too much while refusing to hand over account ban evidence for review

The EU’s moderation appeals watchdog says Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube routinely leave hate speech online while stonewalling attempts to independently review suspended accounts.

Appeals Centre Europe, an Ireland-certified dispute settlement body operating under the EU’s Digital Services Act, says it overturned platforms’ decisions not to remove reported hate speech 70 percent of the time between April 2025 and March 2026, including content targeting migrants, Roma communities, religious minorities, and LGBTQI+ people.

TikTok fared worst, with the Appeals Centre overturning its decisions in 83 percent of reviewed hate speech disputes, followed by Instagram at 74 percent, Facebook at 61 percent, and YouTube at 58 percent.

The report suggests that Europe’s moderation accountability regime is functioning more or less how veteran tech policy watchers feared it might. In theory, the system gives EU users a free way to challenge moderation decisions through an independent review body. In practice, Appeals Centre Europe says platforms often fail to hand over the disputed content or account material needed to review cases.

Account bans appear to be where the process really starts to fall apart. Appeals Centre Europe says that despite receiving more than 14,000 suspension disputes, it got enough content from platforms to fully review fewer than 150 cases. Instead, thousands of cases ended in what the Appeals Centre calls “default decisions,” in which platforms failed to provide the material within 30 days, and the ruling automatically went in the user’s favor. More than 7,300 disputes ended that way.

Meta appears to be struggling most with the “independent review” part of independent review. The report says that out of more than 4,600 eligible Facebook and Instagram account suspension disputes, the company supplied the disputed content in fewer than 100 cases.

The findings also complicate the increasingly popular narrative that platforms are over-censoring everything in sight. Appeals Centre Europe says it overturned decisions to remove users’ content 52 percent of the time in cases where it could actually review the material. Rules around restricted goods and services proved especially messy, with the group overturning removals in 65 percent of reviewed disputes.

In other words, the platforms appear capable of simultaneously leaving up content they should remove while deleting content they should leave alone, which is an impressive operational achievement even by social media standards.

Thomas Hughes, CEO of Appeals Centre Europe, said: “Online hate and harassment have real-world consequences for many people and communities. In more than two-thirds of our decisions about hate speech, we found that platforms failed to enforce their own policies and left up hateful content. This goes to show that platforms don’t always get it right. If you’re in the EU, you can challenge a platform’s decisions free of charge to Appeals Centre Europe and get an expert, impartial review.”

However, the report also suggests platforms do not always implement the Appeals Centre’s decisions even after cases are reviewed. In one section covering disputes submitted by civil society groups, the organization says it is aware of only “a handful” of cases in which platforms acted on its rulings, while many disputed posts remained online.

That’s not exactly the robust moderation accountability system Brussels has spent years promising users. ®