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An aerial view of the new Apple headquarters on April 28, 2017 in Cupertino, California.
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Apple will delay a return to office by at least a month, rolling back its initial plan to bring workers in three days a week starting in September, Bloomberg reported.

The report will push Apple’s return to office date to October at the earliest, and comes as deadly Covid-19 variants spread nationwide. Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

CEO Tim Cook sent out an email last month asking workers to return to the office Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, with the option to work remotely for up to two weeks a year, The Verge reported.

The move brought major pushback from employees, with some calling the plan a move that has “forced some of our colleagues to quit,” according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge.

Apple’s plan is one of the strictest return to work policies among Big Tech companies. Microsoft announced it would allow employees to work from home half the time, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month full-time employees can work from home if their jobs can be done remotely. Both Twitter and Spotify have touted permanent work from home policies.

Read more about Apple’s return to work plans in Bloomberg.

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Rocket Lab stock jumps 8%, building on strong two-month rally

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Rocket Lab stock jumps 8%, building on strong two-month rally

An Electron rocket launches the Baby Come Back mission from New Zealand on July 17, 2023.

Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab stock soared 8% Monday, building on a strong run fueled by space innovation.

Shares of the space infrastructure company have nearly doubled over the last two months following a slew of successful launches and a deal with the European Union.

The stock is up 63% year to date after surging nearly sixfold in 2024.

Last month, Rocket Lab announced a partnership with the European Space Agency to launch satellites for constellation navigation before December.

Rocket Lab also announced the successful launch of its 66th, 67th and 68th Electron rockets in June. The company successfully deployed two rockets from the same site in 48 hours.

Read more CNBC tech news

Rocket Lab competes with a growing list of companies in a maturing and increasingly competitive space industry with growing demand. Some of the main competitors in the sector include Elon Musk‘s SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace, which filed its prospectus to go public on Friday.

“For Electron, our little rocket, we’ve seen increased demand over the last couple of years and we’re not just launching single spacecraft — these are generally entire constellations for customers,” CEO Peter Beck told CNBC last month.

He said the company is producing a rocket every 15 days.

Beck, a New Zealand-native, founded the company in 2006. Since its debut on the Nasdaq in August 2021 through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, the Long Beach, California-based company’s market value has swelled to more than $19 billion.

WATCH: Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck: One thing I don’t worry about at night is demand

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck: One thing I don't worry about at night is demand

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Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to $200 million for AI work from Defense Department

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Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to 0 million for AI work from Defense Department

A view of the Pentagon on December 13, 2024, in Washington, DC. Home to the US Defense Department, the Pentagon is one of the world’s largest office buildings.

Daniel Slim | Afp | Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said it’s granting contract awards of up to $200 million for artificial intelligence development at Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI.

The DoD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said the awards will help the agency accelerate its adoption of “advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges.” The companies will work to develop AI agents across several mission areas at the agency.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” Doug Matty, the DoD’s chief digital and AI officer, said in a release.

Elon Musk’s xAI also announced Grok for Government on Monday, which is a suite of products that make the company’s models available to U.S. government customers. The products are available through the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule, which allows federal government departments, agencies, or offices to purchase them, according to a post on X.

OpenAI was previously awarded a year-long $200 million contract from the DoD in 2024, shortly after it said it would collaborate with defense technology startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”

In June, the company launched OpenAI for Government for U.S. federal, state, and local government workers.

WATCH: US needs an allied strategy for AI investment in military and defense: Palantir

US needs an allied strategy for AI investment in military and defense: Palantir

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Meta CEO Zuckerberg says first AI data supercluster will come online in 2026

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Meta CEO Zuckerberg says first AI data supercluster will come online in 2026

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday said he plans to invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into artificial intelligence compute infrastructure, and that Meta plans to bring its first supercluster online next year.

A supercluster is a large, complex computing network that’s designed to train advanced AI models and handle their workloads.

“Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “I’m looking forward to working with the top researchers to advance the frontier!”

Zuckerberg said Meta’s first supercluster is called Prometheus, and that the company is building several other multi-gigawatt clusters. One cluster, called Hyperion, will be able to scale up to five gigawatts over several years, he said.

Read more CNBC tech news

Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar AI hiring spree in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. He announced a new organization in June called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers.

Zuckerberg had grown frustrated with Meta’s progress in AI, especially after the release of its Llama 4 AI models in April received a lukewarm response from developers. He is revamping Meta’s approach to better compete with rivals like OpenAI and Google.

“For our superintelligence effort, I’m focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry,” Zuckerberg wrote Monday.

WATCH: Meta announces several multi-gigawatt data centers, first planning to come online in 2026

Meta announces several multi-gigawatt data centers, first planning to come online in 2026

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