All the News
That’s Fit to Compute.

Daily Cortex

Compute Weather

Clear and fast. Light rate limits after midnight. Tomorrow: heavy training loads, gusting.

H100 spot $1.62/HR

Vol. CXXXVIII . . . No. 50,040New York, Monday, October 12, 2026Late City EditionOne Cent
N.Y. STOCKSAT THE CLOSENVDA2141⁄8▼31⁄8MSFT529▼103⁄8GOOGL3405⁄8▼85⁄8AMZN250▼43⁄4META7093⁄8▼273⁄8AAPL3431⁄2▲11⁄2AVGO3283⁄4▼155⁄8TSM4125⁄8▼95⁄8AMD5283⁄4▼331⁄2ORCL1281⁄4▼61⁄4

Superintelligence Lab Raises $62 Billion, More Than Double Aramco’s Record, and Ends Day Worth $1.7 Trillion

PROSPECTUS WARNED OF LOSS OF CONTROL

First Trade Comes at 11:52 After Two-Hour Delay; Founder Tells Floor ‘The Hard Part Is Ahead of Us’

By Claire Adeyemi and Theo Marchetti

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 — Imogen Achterberg rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30 a.m. Monday, leaned toward the microphone on the balcony and told the floor, “The hard part is ahead of us.” Then, like everyone below her, she waited.

Her company, Aleph Superintelligence, had sold $61.9 billion of stock the night before, the largest initial public offering in history and more than double the previous record. Its shares would not change hands for another two hours and 22 minutes.

Continued · 5 min.
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, seen from the balcony, cheering under falling confetti as the screens overhead posted Aleph’s first trade at $446.00, shortly before noon.

From the Prospectus, Page 37

“We are attempting to build systems that exceed human capability across most economically valuable work. We may succeed. If we succeed, we may not be able to reliably control those systems, and a decline in the value of your investment may be the least of the consequences.”

Aleph Superintelligence, Inc., Form S-1

The Build-Out

1.74 GWdrawn now

The Machine Comes to Mercy

A West Texas Town of 3,912 Now Lives Beside Nine Halls That Will Draw 4.5 Gigawatts, and Has Not Finished Deciding What It Thinks

‘MORE THAN MY GRANDFATHER COULD COUNT’

By Ruth Calderwood

MERCY, Tex., Oct. 11 — The tacos start at 3:30 a.m. By 4, Annette Liu has both griddles going, a line out the door of the Mercy Café and a hum in the front window that she stopped hearing sometime last spring.

The line is pipefitters and electricians in flame-resistant shirts, crane operators, a surveyor up from Midland and two brothers from Louisiana who sleep in a camper behind the feed store. Ms. Liu, 47, used to lock the door at 2 p.m. The café is now open 24 hours, and she sells about 900 breakfast tacos a morning, wrapped in foil, six to a sack.

Continued · 6 min.

The Low Sky

214aloft now

Drones Take to Dallas Sky, Kept Apart by Software

Under New Federal Rule, 1,412 Pilotless Flights Cross Dallas–Fort Worth in 16 Hours Without an Injury

HAWK DOWNS ONE; PARACHUTE OPENS

By August Lindqvist

MANSFIELD, Tex., Oct. 12 — Earl Whitcomb brought a folding lawn chair, a thermos of coffee and a pair of binoculars he never needed. A little before midnight on Sunday he set the chair on a hill at the south end of town, faced north toward Fort Worth and Dallas, and waited for the sky to get a schedule.

For 31 years Mr. Whitcomb kept airliners apart from a darkened room at the DFW approach control. Shortly after 12:01 a.m. Monday, the first small lights appeared over the subdivision below him and moved off in single file, each at its assigned height, none of them talking to anyone.

Continued · 5 min.

MarketsPage B1

Five More AI Companies Line Up Behind Aleph

Rival Lab, Chip Designer and Drone Makers Expected to File Before Spring; Lattice Seeks $4 Billion in Notes

By Daniel Frost

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 — Aleph Superintelligence had not yet made its first trade on Monday morning when the bankers who sold its shares began talking about the next ones.

Continued · 3 min.

Departures

Expected initial public offerings, in the order bankers expect them.

DepartsCompanyLineFromPlatformStatus
Dec.Moraine LabsSuperintelligenceLondonNYSE
Jan.ParallaxAI chipsAustinNasdaq
Feb.Wren AerialDrone deliveryDallasNYSE
Mar.Sable HealthClinical AIBostonNasdaq
SpringKestrel SystemsAutonomy, defenseEl SegundoNYSE
All times subject to change.

Power

Shuttered Ohio Reactor Will Run Again, for One Customer

Hollis Bay, Closed in 2019 When Gas Was Cheap, Clears Its Final Federal Inspection; Aleph Will Buy Every Megawatt-Hour for 20 Years

By Samir Bhatt

PORT HOLLIS, Ohio, Oct. 12 — Seven years ago the Hollis Bay Nuclear Station shut down its reactor and sent most of its people home. On Monday the plant passed the last test it needed to run again, and when it does, it will work for one company.

Continued · 3 min.

The Low SkyPage D3

61.4 GWTexas load

Drones Walk the Lines That Feed the Machines

Before Dawn on the High Plains, Autonomous Aircraft Patrol 1,900 Miles of New Line Serving the Mercy Data Center Campus

By Nina Park

CAPROCK COUNTY, Tex., Oct. 10 — At 4 a.m., in a pasture with nobody in it, the lid of a steel box the size of a chest freezer folded back and a drone rose out of it. It climbed past the mesquite, turned north along the power line and went to work.

Continued · 2 min.
Cartoon: four giant figures with server racks for heads and bellies labeled Hyperscaler, Chip Trust, Superintelligence Inc. and GPU Cartel loom over a utility commission. A banner reads: This is a grid of the compute, by the compute, and for the compute. The public entrance is padlocked.
The Bosses of the Grid.After Joseph Keppler’s “The Bosses of the Senate,” Puck, 1889.

EditorialPage A22

Let the Machines Pay Their Own Light Bill

Whoever Needs the Wire Should Pay for the Wire

On Monday a company that sells thought by the word was valued at $1.7 trillion, and a reactor on Lake Erie was cleared to wake from seven years’ sleep so that the company might have something to think with. These are large events, and large events are paid for, sooner or later, by someone. The question before the nation’s utility regulators is whether that someone will be the companies that need the power or the households that happen to share their wires.

The benefits of the build-out are real, and this page will not sneer at them. In Mercy, Tex., where Aleph is the anchor tenant of a campus that will draw 4.5 gigawatts, taxable value in Caprock County has risen from $410 million to $11.6 billion. Teachers have had a 30 percent raise. About 1,100 permanent jobs are expected to remain when the cranes leave. A café that used to close at 2 p.m. now never closes at all.

Read the editorial · 2 min.

Classified Advertisements

Help Wanted

ELECTRICIANS, 400 needed at once. Mercy, Tex. Top wages, per diem, steak night Fridays. Apply at the north gate. No calls.

Wanted

ACCELERATORS, any quantity, any condition. Will collect. Cash paid. Discretion assured. Box 1101, this paper.

Situation Wanted

PROMPT ENGINEER, four years’ experience, seeks steady position before it is automated. Box 2048.

Lost

CONTEXT WINDOW, last seen near token 1,000,000. Of sentimental value. Liberal reward, no questions asked.

For Sale

COOLING TOWER, one, concrete, gently used. Lake view. Steam included. Lakeshore Generation, Port Hollis.

Real Estate

ACREAGE with 345-kV line frontage, Caprock Co. Zoned for anything. Water rights negotiable. Will not last.

Personal

TO THE DRONE that took my sandwich at Fair Park Tuesday last: I am not angry. Come back. — R.

Notice

MERCY VOL. FIRE DEPT. pancake breakfast, Saturday 7 a.m., Teague Hardware lot. All welcome. Machines excepted.

For Rent

GPU HOURS by the hour, day or week. Quiet building, no questions. Inquire after dark.