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The US Central Intelligence Agency said it will embed “AI co-workers” directly into its analytics platforms to assist analysts with detecting spies and anticipating hostile moves by foreign adversaries.

“Within the next couple of years, we will have AI co-workers built into all of the agency’s analytic platforms — a kind of classified version of generative AI that will help our analysts with basic tasks,” CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis reportedly said on Thursday during an event hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington, DC.

According to Politico, Ellis said the AI co-workers would assist intelligence officers with drafting key judgments, testing analytical conclusions and identifying trends in intelligence that the agency gathers from abroad.

However, he said humans would continue to make the “key decisions.”

Michael Ellis (right) speaking with Anthony Pompliano (left) about Bitcoin and AI’s role in US national security in May: Source: Anthony Pompliano

The CIA’s AI plans come amid a feud between the US Department of Defense and AI firm Anthropic. Despite having a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, Anthropic prevented the use of its flagship AI product, Claude, for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

US President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic's technology in March, while the Department of Defense declared Anthropic a supply chain risk.

The parties remain locked in a legal dispute over the designation, with a US appeals court on Wednesday denying Anthropic’s emergency request to temporarily pause the label.

While Ellis didn’t point out Anthropic, he said the CIA “cannot allow the whims of a single company” to constrain its capabilities.

The CIA has already adopted AI for other intelligence tasks, having tested about 300 AI projects last year to “bring new capabilities to our mission,” such as processing large data sets and language translation, Ellis said.

Ellis also noted that the CIA recently created its first intelligence report with AI while predicting that AI’s role in the agency’s work would continue to grow.

A major motivation for the CIA is to stay ahead of China, Ellis said, noting that the once-large gap between the US and China has narrowed significantly.

“Five to ten years ago, China was nowhere near America, in terms of technological innovation,” Ellis said. “That’s just not true today.”

Ellis likes the transparency of Bitcoin, crypto

In May, Ellis said Bitcoin and crypto were matters of national security, adding that the agency reviews blockchain data to support its counterintelligence operations.

“It’s another area of technological competition where we need to make sure the United States is well-positioned against China and other adversaries.”

The latest snapshot of the global PC market, from International Data Corporation's first-quarter shipment tracker, shows units rising 2.5% year over year to 65.6 million.

"Despite deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and memory shortage issues, the PC market recorded another quarter of positive growth," IDC wrote in the report published on Thursday morning.

IDC said last quarter's growth was "mostly fueled by the anticipation of rising component prices, Windows 10 migration, and new product introductions."

Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice president at IDC, noted, "The strength of every PC vendor's supply chain and ability to access core components, such as memory, will be tested," adding, "IDC believes that demand will be met by PC vendors who have best secured access to memory and have a device portfolio capable of addressing all price tiers of the market."

Here are the key 1Q26 numbers on global PC shipments:

1Q26 Regional Shipments:

• IDC estimates industry PC shipments of 65.6 mn grew +2.5% year over year. Global growth was driven by EMEA (+7.4% year over year) and Asia/Pacific (+4.3% year over year), while Americas was down (-3.3% year over year v. +4% in C4Q25). IDC PC unit shipments also include workstations.

1Q26 Vendor Market Share:

• IDC estimates that Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and ASUS grew ahead of the market, while HP lagged. Specifically, Lenovo shipments grew 8.6% (25% share), Dell shipments grew +7.7% (16% share), Apple shipments grew +9% (9.5% share), and ASUS shipments grew 17% (7% share), while HP units declined -4.9% (18.5% share).

IDC estimates 1Q26 PC shipments (via Goldman): 

Goldman analyst Katherine Murphy commented on IDC's report and agreed that much of the PC growth in the first quarter was attributed to "a pull-forward ahead of anticipated price increases."

The pull-forward in PC shipments comes as little surprise, given that industry insiders warned consumers in late January to buy devices heavily dependent on memory before the shortage worsened. However, in recent weeks, "Google's DeepSeek moment" appears to have forced memory stick hoarders to dump supply onto the market, pushing prices lower.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on X that the agency will vote late this month on an order aimed at "supercharging" internet access by scrapping outdated power limits on satellite broadband, unlocking faster speeds, greater capacity, and more reliable service.

On April 30, the FCC will vote on "Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband," which would "promote efficient spectrum sharing between geostationary and non-geostationary satellite systems" and, in the FCC's own words, would "unlock more than $32 billion in economic benefits for the American people and up to seven-fold more capacity for space-based broadband services." 

NEWS: On April 30th, the FCC will vote to overhaul decades-old rules to “supercharge” satellite internet speeds for SpaceX’s @Starlink and Amazon's LEO.

If approved, capacity increases of 100% to 700% using the same number of satellites could be possible, the FCC said.… pic.twitter.com/4asX90lSXw

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) April 9, 2026

FCC explained more:

Drawing from the state-of-the-art in satellite technology, the FCC's new technical rules would revise the decades-old framework for how Geostationary Orbit (GSO) and Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) systems share spectrum. That 1990s-era framework predates the revolutionary changes in spectrum sharing technology that have been developed in the decades since.

The FCC's new framework will enable faster speeds, lower costs, and greater reliability, representing another step to ensure that consumers benefit from competitive and affordable Internet options.

The move to modernize satellite internet is a big win for consumers, as it will hopefully increase upload and download speeds while lowering access costs.

Beyond consumers, the major winner is SpaceX's Starlink internet company, which has more than 10 million customers worldwide, nearly 4 million of whom are in North America (the US, Canada, and Mexico, with the US making up the vast majority).

The FCC is moving fast to unleash affordable, high-speed Internet. By discarding last century's satellite regulations, we could see billions of dollars in benefits for the American economy and broadband speeds many times faster than what is available today," Carr wrote in a statement. 

He continued, "This overdue rethinking of space spectrum sharing rules will bring greater competition to the broadband marketplace and reduce the number of satellites needed to serve a given area."

Great timing on modernizing space internet ahead of the SpaceX IPO, which is currently in nonpublic review with the SEC and slated for a public market listing in June.

Remember when the Biden-Harris regime tried to modernize broadband by spending $42 billion and connecting zero people. 

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Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely limited, with transits over the past 24 hours consisting almost exclusively of ships "friendly" to Iran, including Chinese and Russian vessels. Meanwhile, those expecting the ceasefire to unblock Hormuz have actually seen the opposite: traffic through the strait, which ticked up at the weekend, has since slowed further. 

Several fully-laden supertankers have moved toward the waterway in the past two days, but haven’t made the crossing out of the Persian Gulf, despite a US-Iran ceasefire taking effect this week.

Unless anything changes, this weekend's ceasefire negotiations will be very short: the US has said the truce is conditional on Iran unblocking Hormuz. Yet since Thursday morning, just nine ships out of the roughly 800 vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf, have been observed passing through the strait, with five heading out of the gulf and four going in the opposite direction.

Among the most important was the Suezmax oil tanker Tour 2, hauling about 1 million barrels of Iranian crude out of the waterway. The Russian flagged supertanker Arhimeda moved in the opposite direction toward Iran’s export terminal at Kharg Island.

In a sign of some modest optimism, several oil tankers inside the Persian Gulf are anchoring near the approach to the strait, likely in order to be among the first to get underway as soon as the waterway opens up. Yet even as the ceasefire has pushed shipowners to begin considering options, most say conditions are still too unclear to attempt an exit.

Two Japanese oil tankers - itching with anticipation to get the hell out - left the waters off Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura on Thursday to move closer to the strait. The Mayasan and Yakumosan, both very-large carriers each hauling around 2 million barrels of crude, began sailing east late Thursday from waters off Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, where they have been since mid-March. The Sea Condor, a Greek-flagged products tanker that loaded in Kuwait, was also moving east in the direction of Hormuz.

Mayasan sailed into the gulf a few days before war broke out on Feb. 28, ship-tracking data show. It picked up crude from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in late February. It is indicating Tomakomai, a port in northern Japan, as its destination. Yakumosan entered the gulf in late February, and picked up a cargo of Qatari crude from a floating storage vessel in early March. It then soon took another load from Saudi Arabia’s Juaymah, before idling for a few weeks off Ras Tanura. It is signaling a mustering point off Das Island in the United Arab Emirates as its destination.

The Japanese ships sailing east on Friday have links to Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., a major Japanese shipowner and key energy player. While the company extracted at least one vessel from the gulf before this week’s truce, President Jotaro Tamura said on Thursday the group would now need to scrutinize details and the implementation of the ceasefire before allowing its tankers to test the Strait of Hormuz. 

Mitsui owns Mayasan, while Yakumosan’s owner Phoenix Ocean Corp. shares MOL’s address. MOL said it could not comment on “the navigation status or operational measures of individual vessels,” adding its priority was the safety of seafarers, cargo, and vessels. 

The Japanese tankers follow a similar move by three fully-laden Chinese ships. On Thursday, the three Chinese VLCCs clustered at a spot approaching Iran’s Qeshm, the island that now serves as a gateway for Hormuz transits. Two of the ships are linked to China’s Cosco Shipping Corp., a giant and prudent state-owned player.

The Cospearl Lake, a very-large crude carrier linked to China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping Corp., and He Rong Hai, owned by a smaller entity, appeared to be traveling east early on Thursday morning at near-top speeds, according to ship-tracking data, before coming to a virtual halt. Another Cosco-linked VLCC, the Yuan Hua Hu, began its eastward journey a few hours later. All three are signaling Chinese ownership on their tracking systems, a move typically done for safety during Iran-approved transits (and in this case they aren't lying).

The Chinese ships are already notable for their cargoes. Two are carrying Iraqi crude, and the other Saudi. While Iran has referred to “brotherly” Iraq, most other transits have been granted to friendly nations. Iraq has told traders and refiners that vessels carrying the country’s oil are now able to transit the Strait of Hormuz thanks to an Iranian exemption.

Cospearl Lake’s and Yuan Hua Hu’s passages would also mark the first such attempt by a Cosco oil tanker in the six-week war. The company, like other large shipping firms, tends to be conservative, and its crude carriers have been trapped since US and Israeli strikes on Iran began, prompting Iran to all but close Hormuz in retaliation

Sea Condor, the Greek-flagged ship, also moved into the gulf at around the same time and picked up Kuwaiti fuels in early March. Its owner is Turandot Marine Co. which shares the same contact details as its manager, Pantheon Tankers Management, in Athens. 

The tankers are part of a growing armada amassing at the entrance to the strait, off the United Arab Emirates. A Saudi Arabian-flagged VLCC, the Jaham, has moved east toward a nearby holding area off Dubai. They join other ships including two Indian-flagged, fully-laden supertankers that have been in the area since late March - the Desh Vibhor, which is off Ras Al Khaimah, and the Desh Vaibhav, which is near Dubai.

Shipowners are not only concerned about the safety of crew and cargo, but also about the need to manage Iranian demands to secure safe passage, including payments which could expose companies to sanctions risks. Trump, who announced a complete opening of Hormuz along with the ceasefire earlier this week, said on Thursday he was optimistic, only to then chastise Iran for doing a “very poor” job of allowing oil through.

Meanwhile, all transits observed in the past day passed through a narrow northern corridor of the Strait between the Iranian islands of Larak and Qeshm, which is the only passage permitted by Iran's military. 

Observed Transits

According to Bloomberg, since Thursday morning, two Iran-linked oil tankers, two bulkers and a single container ship have been observed leaving the Persian Gulf. The Greek oil tanker Serengeti, which appeared on automated tracking systems off Sri Lanka on Thursday, is estimated to have made the outbound crossing on April 1.

From the other side, two tankers sanctioned by the US for their involvement in the Iranian oil trade - one of which was the Arhimeda - were observed entering the Gulf on Thursday. A small bulk carrier also made the inbound transit. On Friday morning, the only vessel seen heading into the Persian Gulf was a Chinese-linked bulk carrier.

President Trump has made clear that American forces will still be "hanging around" the Persian Gulf area with an eye on Iran, while demanding that the Strait of Hormuz be opened to global energy transit once again. 

Trump has vowed to keep troops positioned for a fight "until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with." As direct US-Iran talks are set for Islamabad Saturday morning, there's been an avalanche of speculation that the ceasefire could be 'cover' for a greater Pentagon force build-up and bigger impending operation.

Some pundits say that Washington needed more time to get large contingencies of Marines and Airborne units in place, possibly for some kind of risky island campaign towards reopening the strait.

This could be the case, as it's also very evident to all that the demands of each side remain far apart, which means the chances for a breakthrough deal which finally ends the war are distant.

With a two week timeline in place to reach a deal, is this interim period merely for rearming and regrouping of forces on each side?

Clearly, the US wasn't prepared for the fierce, sustained Iranian counter-attack on American regional bases and Gulf allies.

Open-source data of military logistics flights between the US, Europe, and the Mideast region suggests there is indeed an ongoing build-up and posturing of forces happening on the eve of the Pakistan summit.

Still, it's clear that Trump needs an offramp, or else face the kind of endless military quagmire which would likely inevitably lead to the GOP getting decimated in next fall's midterm Congressional elections.

Case in point: More than 70 transport planes landed in the Middle East within 24 hours of the ceasefire taking effect. That scale suggests possible preparation for a ground offensive, solidifying suspicion that Trump is using the truce to regroup: https://t.co/MHlFQjz1Tk pic.twitter.com/S3DzRMgOo2

— Bashkarma?????????? (@Karmabash) April 9, 2026

A bigger longer war, or ground conflict, would also damage the chances of a future Vance presidency.

As for Vance, the Associated Press writes, "But the arrival of Vance for negotiations marks a rare moment of high-level U.S. government engagement with the Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the most direct contact had been when President Barack Obama in September 2013 called newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Iran’s nuclear program."

A Pentagon build-up in the region might also be Trump's way of signaling powerful leverage for more potential major attacks on Iran to come, in order to gain more from negotiations. As yet, Iran holds the key economic leverage given its de fact Hormuz control.

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