Good morning. It's Sunday, March 15th, 2026. Let's get into it.

**Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could cut 20 percent or more of its workforce** — Reuters broke the story Friday night, with three sources confirming the company is looking to shed roughly 16,000 jobs. That's the headline number, but the real story is the why: Meta is pouring billions into AI infrastructure — data centers, chips, model training — and the math isn't working without corresponding cuts elsewhere. This is a pattern worth watching. The companies betting biggest on AI aren't just building — they're restructuring their entire workforce around the assumption that AI replaces headcount. For Meta specifically, this would be the largest single layoff in company history, dwarfing the 2022 cuts. Expect an announcement sometime in the next few weeks.

**NVIDIA made a major pre-GTC move yesterday, announcing a multiyear strategic partnership with Thinking Machines Lab** — a commitment to deploy at least one gigawatt of next-generation Vera Rubin systems for frontier model training. If you're not familiar with Thinking Machines, they're building open-source, customizable models — and NVIDIA just made a significant investment in them alongside this deal. NVIDIA also confirmed it invested in Cursor's 2.3 billion dollar Series D. Both companies will be onstage with Jensen Huang tomorrow at GTC. Speaking of which — Jensen's keynote kicks off Monday at 11 AM Pacific, streaming free at nvidia.com. Expect Vera Rubin details, a Feynman architecture preview, Groq integration specifics, and possibly laptop chips under the N1 and N1X codenames. If you want to catch it live, set a reminder now.

**India's space agency scored a key propulsion milestone this week** — ISRO successfully completed a hot-fire test of the CE-20 cryogenic engine at 22-tonne thrust, pushing the engine to its maximum rated output. What makes this notable: it's the 20th hot test of a single engine, demonstrating reliability and enabling several critical technologies including in-flight restart capability without a startup system — something essential for Gaganyaan, India's first crewed spaceflight program. The first uncrewed orbital test is still targeting 2026, with a human mission to follow in 2027. It's easy to overlook ISRO in the noise of Starship and Artemis, but they're building toward a genuine independent human spaceflight capability on their own timeline and budget. This engine test is a solid step forward.

That's your Sunday morning briefing. GTC tomorrow — it's going to be a busy week for hardware news.