Future Technology[Weekly Roundup] Sony killed the disc. Now what?
This Week in Tech
Five stories that moved the needle this week, from an AI chip arms race that is quietly reshaping who controls the internet, to a physics mystery 300 million light years away.
1. Sony just killed the physical PlayStation disc. January 2028 is the date.
Digital downloads already account for 85% of PlayStation game sales. Sony confirmed on July 1 that new releases will be digital-only from January 2028 onwards, ending disc production for anything that ships after that date. The second-hand game market takes a serious hit. So do buyers in regions with slow broadband or tight data caps. If Xbox follows (and the signs point that way), the entire AAA console market goes fully digital within two to three years.
Why it matters: This is not a gradual shift. Sony put a date on it. If you care about game ownership, reselling, or preservation, that date is now circled.
If you are building a digital library, an external SSD is not optional any more. The Samsung T7 Shield 2TB is a solid mid-range pick for multi-console households. (Affiliate link.)
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2. SpaceX is building data centres in orbit. No, really.
SpaceX detailed its AI1 Compute Satellite: a solar-powered server in low Earth orbit delivering 120kW of average compute. The vacuum of space acts as a free heat sink, eliminating the cooling costs that eat up to 40% of a ground data centre budget. SpaceX signed a computing deal with AI startup Reflection worth up to $6.3 billion and filed for a constellation of up to one million such satellites. A startup called Orbital filed separately for 100,000 competing satellites. The orbital AI infrastructure race is now a real thing.
Why it matters: If the economics work, this reshapes where AI processing happens and who controls it. Whoever owns the rockets controls the infrastructure.
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3. OpenAI built its first custom chip. It took nine months.
OpenAI and Broadcom unveiled Jalapeno on June 24, a reticle-sized ASIC designed specifically for LLM inference. Broadcom says the nine-month development cycle may be the fastest ever for a chip of this complexity. OpenAI used its own AI models to help design it. Prototype deployment starts later this year, full capacity in H1 2028. Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon all have custom silicon. Now OpenAI does too.
Why it matters: Every big AI lab building its own chips is a slow bleed on Nvidia at the inference layer. Not immediate, but the direction is set.
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4. South Korea committed $880 billion to chips, AI, and robots.
South Korea announced on June 28 that it will deploy 1,350 trillion won, roughly $880 billion, into semiconductors, AI data centres, and robotics over ten years. Samsung and SK Hynix are anchoring four new fabs in the country southwest. The data centre target is 8.4 gigawatts by 2029. For context, this is more than double the US CHIPS Act and the largest single-country chip investment in history, about 5% of South Korea entire 2024 economic output.
Why it matters: South Korea controls global memory chip supply. Samsung and SK Hynix make the HBM that goes in Nvidia GPUs. This plan bets that memory becomes the defining bottleneck in AI, and whoever controls it controls the supply chain.
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5. A major Notion breach exposed 110 million user records.
A hacker claimed responsibility for a breach of Notion that exposed 110 million user records. Notion is used heavily by tech companies and startups, so the exposed data likely includes internal notes, API keys, and sensitive business information pasted into pages, not just email addresses. June 2026 also saw Oracle PeopleSoft hit across 100 universities and a critical unauthenticated API flaw in ServiceNow. Three major incidents in one month.
Why it matters: If you use Notion, now is a good time to search your workspace for any API keys, passwords, or financial information you may have pasted into pages. Treat that content as compromised.
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One to watch next week
OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5.6 publicly on Thursday July 3 (UTC). Anthropic also just made Claude Fable 5 available to all users. Two major model releases in four days. The AI assistant market just got more crowded at the top end.
Got thoughts on any of these? Hit reply. I read every one.
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Nath, Future Technology
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