IBM Just Had the Worst Day of Its 115-Year Life · 5-min read
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
One of the oldest names in computing lost a quarter of its value in a single day. On the same day, one American state did something no state has ever done to the AI boom. In Taiwan, a chip maker quietly printed money. In Tokyo, thousands of taxis stopped answering the phone. And in London, police finally named the people behind millions of fake bank calls. One question ties them together: who is actually paying for the AI boom? (We opened every source ourselves first.)
Table of Contents
1. IBM Just Had the Worst Day in Its History
New York, USA
IBM is 115 years old. It has lived through the Great Depression, world wars and the dot-com crash. On Tuesday it had the single worst day of its entire life. The stock fell 25.2 percent. That is worse than Black Monday in 1987. About 67 billion dollars (roughly Rs 5.8 lakh crore) of value vanished in a few hours. What happened? IBM told investors early that its results would miss. CEO Arvind Krishna wrote that in the last few weeks of June, clients suddenly moved their spending toward servers, storage and memory chips to lock in supply before prices rise. So the money that was meant for IBM’s software and mainframes went to AI hardware instead. Krishna admitted the company “faltered” and that big deals did not close on time. Here is why you should care. This is the same memory shortage pushing up phone and laptop prices. It is now strong enough to break a giant. Every IT services company, including the big Indian ones, is watching this closely.
2. A US State Just Told AI to Stop Building
Albany, USA
For three years, politicians begged AI companies to build in their state. On Tuesday, New York did the opposite. Governor Kathy Hochul signed an order that blocks the building of new hyperscale data centers (huge buildings full of computers that run AI) for up to one year. It is the first ban of its kind by any US state. The rule covers any project needing 50 megawatts of power or more, which is roughly what a small city uses. Why the sudden turn? Electricity bills. The state says average home electricity prices in New York have gone up almost 68 percent since 2019. Data centers also drink enormous amounts of fresh water for cooling. A local poll found more than twice as many people back the pause as oppose it, across both parties. This matters far beyond America. India is building data centers fast too. If voters everywhere start linking their power bill to AI, this one-year pause could become a global template.
Source: Office of Governor Hochul · Fortune
3. The Company Quietly Winning Everything
Hsinchu, Taiwan
While IBM was losing 67 billion dollars, one company was counting record cash. TSMC makes chips for other companies. On Monday it reported June revenue of about 13.8 billion dollars (roughly Rs 1.2 lakh crore), up 68 percent from last June. That is one month. Its first-half revenue crossed 75 billion dollars (about Rs 6.5 lakh crore). TSMC holds roughly 73 percent of the world market for made-to-order chips. Nvidia, Apple and AMD all queue up at its door, and its most advanced production lines are fully booked. Here is the twist most people miss. Making the chips is no longer the hard part. The bottleneck has moved to packaging (joining the chip and its memory into one finished part). Nvidia has reportedly reserved around 60 percent of TSMC’s advanced packaging capacity. So when your next phone costs more, this is the reason. One island, one company, and the whole world waiting in line behind it.
Source: CNBC · TSMC Filing
4. Tokyo’s Taxis Stopped Answering the Phone
Tokyo, Japan
Imagine calling for a cab and nobody picks up. Not because they are busy, but because hackers got in. Early on Saturday, Nihon Kotsu, Japan’s largest taxi and hire car operator, found malware (harmful software that breaks into systems) inside its network. It shut its own systems down to stop the spread. Days later the phone dispatch service, the web booking system and the reservation system were still offline. This is not a small firm. It runs 8,558 taxis, employs over 18,000 people and earns about 1 billion dollars (roughly Rs 8,700 crore) a year. The saddest detail is the “labour taxi” service, which rushes pregnant women to hospital, was suspended in Tokyo, Yokohama and other cities. No group has claimed the attack. No data theft is confirmed yet. The lesson is uncomfortable and simple. A cyberattack is no longer only about stolen passwords. It can stop a pregnant woman from reaching a hospital.
Source: BleepingComputer · TechRadar
5. The Machine Behind Those Fake Bank Calls
London, UK
You know that call. Your bank’s real number flashes on your screen. A calm voice says your account is at risk and you must move your money now. Ever wondered how they fake the number? On Monday, Britain’s National Crime Agency charged five people from London over a service called Russian Coms. It let criminals show any number they liked on your phone, usually a bank, a telecom company or the police. It started in 2020 as a special handset and later became a website. Criminals paid between 1,200 and 1,400 pounds (roughly Rs 1.4 to 1.6 lakh) in cryptocurrency for six months of use. The scale is frightening. Over 1.8 million scam calls. Victims in 107 countries. An estimated 170,000 people hit and tens of millions lost. The five appear in court on August 14. Remember one thing today. The number on your screen proves nothing. Cut the call. Ring your bank back on the number printed on your card.
Source: National Crime Agency · Infosecurity Magazine
The Big Picture
The AI bill has arrived, and everybody is paying a share of it. IBM paid with the worst day of its life because its customers spent the money on AI hardware instead. New Yorkers are paying through their electricity bills, so their state pressed pause. TSMC is collecting, because everything runs through its factories. And while the world stares at AI, plain old criminals stopped a taxi fleet and faked a million bank calls. The boom is real. So is the cost. Knowing where that cost lands is the difference between watching the story and being in it.
ORSLEN – Signal over Noise!