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OpenAI has reached an agreement with the Defense Department to deploy its models in the agency's network, company chief Sam Altman has revealed on X. In his post, he said two of OpenAI's most important safety principles are "prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems." Altman claimed the company put those principles in its agreement with the agency, which he called by the government's preferred name of Department of War (DoW), and that it had agreed to honor them.
The agency has closed the deal with OpenAI, shortly after President Donald Trump ordered all government agencies to stop using Claude and any other Anthropic services. If you'll recall, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously threatened to label Anthropic "supply chain risk" if it continues refusing to remove the guardrails on its AI, which are preventing the technology to be used for mass surveillance against Americans and in fully autonomous weapons.
It's unclear why the government agreed to team up with OpenAI if its models also have the same guardrails, but Altman said it's asking the government to offer the same terms to all the AI companies it works with. Jeremy Lewin, the Senior Official Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, said on X that DoW "references certain existing legal authorities and includes certain mutually agreed upon safety mechanisms" in its contracts. Both OpenAI and xAI, which had also previously signed a
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 MWC 2026 officially gets underway on March 2 and will continue through March 5, but the announcements are already coming ahead of its start. We can always count on the annual tech event to bring tons of new phones, laptops and tablets, and we're expecting to see some robots and other gadgets too — plus plenty of AI news, of course. In addition to the announcements, MWC is our chance to get hands-on time with some of the most interesting new devices, like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
We'll be updating this story as the week goes on to keep you in the loop on everything that caught our attention, so keep checking back here for the latest MWC news.
Xiaomi x LeicaXiaomi kicked off MWC this year by announcing the global launch of its 17 Ultra smartphone, which debuted first in China back in December. It's unclear if the phone will ever come to the US, but it's now rolling out in Europe. Xiaomi teamed up again with Leica to make a photography-focused smartphone, and the 17 Ultra sports a 1-inch 50-megapixel camera sensor with a f/1.67 lens, a telephoto setup with a 200MP 1/1.4-inch sensor, and a 50MP ultrawide camera. There's also a manual zoom ring around the camera.
Check out our hands on for our first impressions of what it's like shooting with the
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The deal came hours after President Trump had ordered federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, an OpenAI rival.
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 Starting on Monday, we're going to get our first major product announcements of 2026. Apple CEO Tim Cook teased a "big week ahead" with an "Apple Launch" hashtag, plus Apple has media events scheduled in New York, Shanghai, and London on Wednesday, March 4. We're expecting the iPhone 17e, an all-new low-cost MacBook, and minor refreshes to the Mac and iPad lines.
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 Tecno just unveiled a rather intriguing modular smartphone concept design at MWC 2026. The standout feature here is likely the size. Most modular smartphone concepts start bulky and only get bulkier once attaching accessories. Tecno's base smartphone is just 4.9mm thin, which is significantly thinner than a pencil and the iPhone Air.
Of course, the size increases with each attached module. However, snapping on the power bank module makes the thickness comparable to a standard modern smartphone. Another key feature here is how these various modular components stick together. Tecno has developed new interconnection technology that uses both magnets and pin connectors. This should make it easy to both attach and remove components.
The company says this phone has been designed to grow with the user through hardware expansion. To that end, Tecno has developed 10 modules. There are various camera lenses and something that looks like a dedicated gaming controller.
Tecno
While the magnets are for attaching, the pin connectors assist with power delivery. Data transmission between the phone and the modules is handled wirelessly, with the ability to switch between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mmWave depending on
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