From a small research lab “free from financial obligations” to one of the most valuable private businesses in the world, the company that ushered in the generative AI era has evolved a lot over its decade of existence.

Now, OpenAI is on the verge of more change. Its longtime strategic partnership with Microsoft seems to be fraying. The company’s long drift into for-profit-dom is coming to a head. And as the company still at the center of the generative AI boom, OpenAI’s structural pivots and alliance shifts have implications for the rest of the industry.

“This is going to be a very, very interesting next 12 to 18 months because of all these dynamics,” Ritu Jyoti, group VP at market intelligence firm IDC, told Tech Brew.

History of change: Having gathered top research minds in the AI space from day one, OpenAI has always encompassed a series of competing and evolving visions for what the next generation of AI should look like.

That was one of the takeaways Tyler Johnston, executive director of the nonprofit Midas Project, arrived at as he spent the past several months sifting through more than 200 news articles, legal filings, employee testimonials, and other information about OpenAI’s history. The group recently published the result of this work as a research report called the OpenAI Files in partnership with advocacy group Tech Oversight Project.

“OpenAI is a company that has existed on this insanely accelerated lifespan,” Johnston told us. “It’s just astonishing how much has happened in the 10 years that it’s existed, and how many different visions of the organization have, at various times, flourished or been squashed based on how convenient they were to the leadership at the time.”

Keep reading here.—PK

One of the key factors holding back US electric vehicle adoption is that EVs’ price tags remain higher, on average, than their internal combustion engine counterparts.

In May, the average transaction price for new EVs was $57,734, according to Cox Automotive, which represents a nearly $10,000 price gap between EVs and ICE vehicles.

But truly understanding the cost proposition of EV ownership may require taking the long view.

A new analysis by Atlas Public Policy compared the cost of owning the five most popular ICE models in the US last year to similar EVs. The report examined the total cost of ownership over a seven-year period and took into account purchase price, federal and manufacturer incentives, fuel or electricity costs, insurance, taxes and fees, resale value, and maintenance and repair costs.

The findings suggest that “in all but one case, EVs today deliver savings to owners compared to a similar gasoline vehicle.”

Keep reading here.—JG

Airloom Energy, a wind energy startup, broke ground at its pilot site in Laramie, Wyoming, last month. The next week, President Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law, thereby sunsetting the clean energy production and investment tax credits for solar and wind.

Although it’s going to be a big change, CEO Neal Rickner told Tech Brew the company will adapt: Airloom was created to deliver “the lowest-cost energy, subsidy-free,” but the loss of credits could hinder Airloom’s ability to commercialize.

Airloom’s ability to generate competitively priced energy is due to the design of its turbines. Instead of tall wind turbines that adhere to a traditional, windmill-like design, Airloom’s turbines consist of a group of poles in the shape of an oval connected by a track on which wing-like panels circulate, their movement powered by the wind. They’re shorter than traditional wind turbine blades, and, according to Rickner, faster to build.

Keep reading here.—TC

It began as a moonshot to map our genes—but what really came from the Human Genome Project? Nearly 25 years later, the race that reshaped science is unlocking surprises no one saw coming, from AI-powered biology to the future of disease prediction.