Daily Tech & GNSS News Digest - February 4, 2026

AI disruption fears triggered the biggest software selloff since 2008 after Anthropic’s new legal automation tool rattled enterprise software markets, wiping $285 billion off global stocks. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang pushed back, calling the panic “the most illogical thing in the world.” Meanwhile, Europe escalated its tech confrontation with raids on X’s Paris offices and proposals to ban minors from social media.

Tech News

Anthropic Legal Plugin Sparks $285 Billion Global Software Rout

Anthropic’s release of a legal automation plugin for its Claude Cowork platform triggered the worst software selloff since the 2008 financial crisis, erasing $285 billion in market value across software, financial services, and asset management sectors. Thomson Reuters, RELX, and Wolters Kluwer—the big three of legal data and analytics—plunged 16%, 14%, and 13% respectively on Tuesday.

The plugin automates core legal workflows including contract review, NDA triage, compliance checks, and templated responses. Commands like /review-contract perform clause-by-clause analysis against configured playbooks, returning red/yellow/green flags and redline suggestions. Anthropic explicitly frames the tool as assistance rather than legal advice, requiring licensed attorneys to review outputs.

The selloff spread globally. ServiceNow tumbled nearly 7%, pushing its year-to-date losses to 28%. Salesforce dropped about 7%, now down almost 26% for 2026. Intuit fell nearly 11%, down more than 34% year to date. The S&P North American software index posted a three-week losing streak with a 15% January decline—its biggest monthly drop since October 2008.

Jensen Huang Calls Software Selloff ‘Most Illogical Thing in the World’

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back hard against AI disruption fears driving the software rout. “It’s the most illogical thing in the world,” Huang said at a Cisco Systems AI conference in San Francisco, arguing that software products are tools that AI will use, not replace.

Huang pointed to Nvidia’s own experience, noting the company has extensively adopted AI tools, freeing employees to focus on core strengths in semiconductor and computer systems design. He described the next phase of AI as “agentic,” enabling faster task completion and expanded capabilities—a complement to existing software rather than a replacement.

JPMorgan’s Head of U.S. Enterprise Software Research Mark Murphy agreed, calling it “an illogical leap” to assume an LLM plugin would “replace every layer of mission-critical enterprise software.” UBP analysts advised clients to favor infrastructure software where AI disruption risk is low, plus cybersecurity where pricing power and AI-driven upsell opportunities exist.

French prosecutors raided X’s Paris offices Tuesday as part of an expanded criminal investigation that now includes allegations the platform’s Grok AI chatbot generated sexualized deepfakes. Paris Public Prosecutor Laure Beccuau conducted the search alongside Europol and French cybercrime police. Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino were asked to attend “voluntary interviews” on April 20.

X responded that the raid was “staged” and the allegations “baseless,” calling the investigation a distortion of French law that “endangers free speech.” The U.S. House Judiciary Committee released a 160-page report titled “The Foreign Censorship Threat,” accusing Europe of weaponizing regulations against American companies.

Separately, Spain’s Prime Minister Sánchez announced legislative proposals to ban under-16s from social media and hold platform executives accountable for failing to police hateful content. The Australian-style policy is spreading across Europe, threatening to cut off millions of young users from Meta, Snap, TikTok, X, and YouTube. Musk responded by calling Sánchez a “tyrant.”

Additional Headlines

Gold Breaks $5,000: Gold surged past $5,000 per ounce on Wednesday after its biggest daily gain since 2008, as dip buyers stepped in following last week’s record $5,600 high and subsequent two-day plunge.
Asian Software Stocks Hammered: Japanese software firm TIS plunged 16%, while India’s NIFTY IT index fell 6.3% and Infosys dropped 7.3% as AI disruption fears spread globally.
UK Warns Against EU Protectionism: Britain’s government is lobbying Brussels against “Made in Europe” policies that could exclude UK firms from supply chains in cars, tech, and green sectors.
Nvidia Nearing OpenAI Investment: Bloomberg reports Nvidia is close to investing in OpenAI’s latest funding round, which seeks up to $100 billion.

GNSS News

Baltic and North Sea States Demand Action on Russian GNSS Jamming

Fourteen coastal nations including Germany, France, the UK, and all Nordic and Baltic states issued an open letter declaring they will no longer tolerate Russia’s systematic GNSS jamming in the Baltic and North Sea regions. The signatories—Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the UK—cited threats to maritime safety as the “last straw.”

Lithuania’s representative reported hundreds of GNSS interference incidents weekly—roughly 20 times higher than 2024 levels. The Royal Institute of Navigation documented at least two collisions and groundings in 2025 linked to GNSS disruption, with “hundreds of vessels” affected daily. Two hotspots dominate: Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and the St. Petersburg area, both hosting electronic warfare divisions operating the “Tobol” jamming system capable of disrupting GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and even Starlink signals.

The states are calling for joint development of terrestrial radionavigation systems as satellite backup. Germany’s DLR is leading a project to provide pre-operational monitoring services to national maritime authorities by 2026, while the European Commission announced anti-spoofing authentication and interference detection services scheduled for implementation this year.

Space Force Cancels Resilient GPS Smallsat Program

The U.S. Space Force has terminated Resilient GPS (R-GPS), an experimental program to deploy smaller, lower-cost navigation satellites supplementing the core GPS constellation. The program began in 2024 with three industry teams developing designs and prototypes, receiving $40 million through Pentagon “quick start” authority.

Congressional pushback on an additional $77 million request cited doubts about whether the smallsat layer would meaningfully improve GPS resiliency, along with concerns about ground terminal fielding plans. The Space Force’s fiscal 2026 budget request formally defunded the effort.

Core GPS modernization continues unaffected. The ninth GPS III satellite launched in January, with the final GPS III scheduled for March. Lockheed Martin’s more capable GPS IIIF follow-on—22 satellites total—begins delivery next year. The Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) and upgraded user equipment programs also proceed as planned.

Key Takeaways

AI Disruption Reality Check: Anthropic’s legal plugin exposed market anxiety about AI displacing enterprise software, but industry leaders like Jensen Huang argue AI will augment rather than replace existing tools—the selloff may present buying opportunities in oversold names.
Trans-Atlantic Tech War Escalates: Europe’s X raid and social media ban proposals signal deepening confrontation with U.S. tech giants, while Washington accuses the EU of weaponizing regulation—setting up prolonged friction between the world’s two largest tech regulatory regimes.
Navigation Resilience Becomes Urgent: With Baltic GNSS jamming incidents up 20x year-over-year and the U.S. canceling its R-GPS backup program, the gap between satellite navigation vulnerability and available countermeasures continues widening—making investments in inertial systems and LEO alternatives increasingly strategic.