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In Today’s Issue:
🏥 The new HIPAA-ready "Claude for Healthcare" connects directly to Apple Health and CMS databases
🏛️ Alibaba warns that there is a <20% chance China will overtake US AI leaders
🛒 Retail API usage surged from 8.3T to 90T tokens in one year
💤 Clinical trials for BMB-101 show a 90% increase in REM sleep duration
⚖️ Chinese AI startups raised over $1B this week
✨ And more AI goodness…
Dear Readers,
When the Department of Justice launches a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chair over marble finishes and fancy elevators, you know something much bigger is at play - Jerome Powell himself called it out Sunday night as political retaliation for setting interest rates based on economics rather than presidential preferences, and the implications for every mortgage and retirement account in America are staggering.
But that's just where today's issue begins: we're also diving into Anthropic's bold healthcare gamble with HIPAA-ready AI that could finally let you understand your own medical records, unpacking why China's top AI leaders are privately admitting the gap with the US might actually be widening despite a billion-dollar IPO week, and exploring Google's vision of agentic checkout that's driving an 11× explosion in retail AI usage. Let's get into it.
All the best,
🤖 China AI Gap Widens
China’s top AI leaders warned that the country is unlikely to overtake the US in advanced AI anytime soon, with Alibaba’s Justin Lin putting the odds below 20% over the next 3–5 years. Despite a blockbuster $1B+ IPO week for firms like Zhipu and MiniMax, executives say limited compute resources and US export controls may actually be widening the gap, pushing China to focus on multimodal models, agents, and collaboration over rivalry.
😴 REM Boost, Not More Sleep
BMB-101’s big headline: it reportedly increased REM sleep by ~90% while not making people sleep longer overall - so it’s shifting sleep quality (more REM) rather than just knocking people out. That matters because REM is linked to brain health and recovery, and the thread argues this REM-boosting effect could help tough-to-treat epilepsy patients with excellent safety (no treatment-related serious adverse events) and may have implications beyond seizures.
🛍️ AI Agents Redefine Retail Shopping
Google says retail is entering an AI platform shift, with usage on its cloud APIs jumping from 8.3T to 90T+ tokens in one year (11× YoY growth) - a signal that AI-powered commerce is scaling fast. CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled an open Universal Commerce Protocol, agentic checkout inside Search and Gemini, and new enterprise tools that let retailers personalize discovery, decision, and delivery, while still owning the customer relationship.
Best of CES 2026
AI Gets a White Coat:
Anthropic's Bold Healthcare Gamble
The Takeaway
👉 Anthropic's Claude for Healthcare offers HIPAA-ready infrastructure, enabling providers and payers to use AI for workflows involving protected health information for the first time
👉 Consumers can now connect personal health records via HealthEx and Apple Health integrations to get plain-language explanations of their medical data
👉 Key connectors include CMS Coverage Database, ICD-10 codes, and National Provider Registry—targeting prior authorization and claims appeals as primary use cases
👉 The launch directly competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT Health, signaling healthcare as the next major battleground for AI companies
The race to revolutionize healthcare just got a lot more interesting. Anthropic has launched Claude for Healthcare, a HIPAA-ready AI suite that lets doctors, patients, and researchers tap into powerful new capabilities—and it could fundamentally change how we interact with medicine.
What exactly is happening? Anthropic announced tools enabling users to share access to their health records to better understand their medical information. For providers, Claude now connects to Medicare databases, medical coding systems, and the national provider registry. That means faster prior authorizations, smoother claims appeals, and less administrative chaos.
For everyday users, it gets personal: through a partnership with startup HealthEx, patients can use Claude to ask questions about their own electronic health records. Imagine having an AI assistant that actually explains your lab results in plain English.
The timing is no accident. The announcement comes just days after OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT for Health, reflecting growing competition among leading AI labs to build specialized products for lucrative industries like healthcare.
Why it matters: Healthcare administration drowns clinicians in paperwork while patients struggle to understand their own medical data. AI tools that bridge this gap could save countless hours and potentially lives, if they get it right.
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Trump vs. The Fed: A Constitutional Crisis Unfolds
This is unprecedented. The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—and Powell is fighting back with extraordinary force.
Here's what happened: Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over his June testimony before Congress about the central bank's $2.5 billion renovation of its headquarters in Washington, DC. The official reason? Questions about whether Powell was truthful about marble finishes and fancy elevators.
But Powell isn't buying it. In a rare video statement Sunday night, he called the charges what he believes they really are: "Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."
The stakes couldn't be higher. This amounts to an extraordinary escalation of President Trump's campaign against Powell, whom Trump has assailed over interest rate policy. Even some Republicans are alarmed - Senator Thom Tillis said he would oppose the nomination of Powell's successor until the legal case is resolved.
Central bank independence is the bedrock of stable financial markets worldwide. If political pressure can dictate interest rates, every mortgage, business loan, and retirement account could be affected by whoever occupies the White House.
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