EU & Vietnam Forge Alliance; Zuckerberg's AI Arrives in '26

The European Union and Vietnam elevated their relationship to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" on Thursday, January 29, 2026, placing the EU in the same diplomatic tier as the United States, China, and Russia, according to Euronews. The move signals Brussels' ambition amid growing concerns over global trade disruptions and escalating tariffs from Washington.

This upgrade represents Hanoi's highest level of foreign ties, Euronews reported. The partnership aims to strengthen cooperation between the EU and Vietnam on various fronts.

In other tech news, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta users can expect to see new AI models and products rolled out in the coming months. Zuckerberg stated on an investor call Wednesday that Meta rebuilt the foundations of its AI program in 2025, and he anticipates "steadily push[ing] the frontier over the course of the new year," according to TechCrunch. He highlighted AI-driven commerce as a particular area of focus for Meta. "New agentic shopping tools will allow people to find just the right set of products from the businesses in our catalog," Zuckerberg said, as reported by TechCrunch.

Meanwhile, Upwind Security, a cloud security startup, announced a $250 million Series B funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion, TechCrunch reported. The company, which counts Siemens, Peloton, Roku, Wix, Nextdoor, and Nubank among its clients, focuses on "runtime" cloud security. Despite its apparent success, co-founder and CEO Amiram Shachar told TechCrunch that the journey has been challenging. "Three years ago, we would spend hours asking ourselves if we were heading in the right direction, and 80% of the time, it felt like we weren’t," Shachar said. He added that at the beginning, they constantly questioned whether the market needed their solution and whether it would be too difficult to integrate into larger systems.

In China, a new brain-computer interface (BCI) company called Gestala is aiming to access the brain without invasive implants, Wired reported. Founded in Chengdu with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Gestala plans to use ultrasound technology to stimulate and eventually read from the brain, according to CEO and co-founder Phoenix Peng. This follows OpenAI's recent investment in Merge Labs, another BCI startup co-founded by CEO Sam Altman, highlighting the growing interest in non-invasive BCI technology.