🎯 **YC's Summer 2026 Requests for Startups: AI as Infrastructure, Not a Feature**
Y Combinator published its Summer 2026 Requests for Startups, listing 15 categories spanning AI-native service companies, personalized medicine, defense, agriculture, semiconductors, and space, each framed around AI as the core operating layer rather than an add-on feature. YC is investing $500,000 in every company accepted into the batch, which runs July through September in San Francisco.

**Why it matters:** The list gives an early signal of where YC expects founder and capital concentration over the next accelerator cycle, often preceding the categories that attract later-stage venture funding.
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