Company news, funding rounds, strategy, and the organisations driving AI development.
Anthropic eyes Nasdaq listing as a second profitable quarter aims to win over investors ahead of a mega-IPO
Anthropic projects profitability for a second consecutive quarter, a milestone the AI safety startup is using to prepare investors for an anticipated …
Nscale adds former OpenAI exec Fidji Simo to its board ahead of potential IPO
Nscale, a data infrastructure startup building tools for enterprise AI workloads, has added Fidji Simo to its board of directors. Simo, who served as …
Jensen Huang explains why Nvidia will grow an astounding 70% next year
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang projects the company will grow 70% next year, banking on its dominant position across AI infrastructure, data center chips, an…
Kimi-maker Moonshot AI targets $2B in annual revenue
# Moonshot AI Chases $2 Billion Revenue Target as Kimi Model Sees Heavy Usage Moonshot AI, the Chinese AI startup behind the Kimi model, is targeting…
OpenAI’s Sam Altman says it would be ‘ill-advised’ to go public in 2026
OpenAI will not pursue a public listing in 2026, CEO Sam Altman announced, describing such a move as "ill-advised" at this stage. The statement comes …
I spent $4,000 on a robot dog from China
# A $4,000 Robot Dog Reveals Why China's Unitree Dominates Hardware Innovation Unitree, a Chinese robotics firm, has emerged as a formidable player i…
Nvidia wants to pour up to $10 billion into Anthropic's record-breaking IPO
Nvidia is negotiating to invest up to $10 billion into Anthropic's initial public offering, according to Reuters. The deal would value Anthropic at $2…
Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
Mecka AI, a startup focused on robot training data, is closing in on a $500 million valuation in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital. The investmen…
Top AI spenders cut per-employee costs by nearly 10 percent in August
Major US corporations are cutting their per-employee AI spending costs as model prices plummet and companies shift purchasing habits away from expensi…
AI research startup Listen Labs scrubbed a $1.5B funding round for Salesforce talks
Listen Labs terminated a $1.5 billion Series C funding round from Menlo Ventures to pursue acquisition discussions with Salesforce, according to multi…
OpenAI researcher allegedly pressured mathematician to drop Anthropic co-author from math breakthrough paper
An OpenAI researcher allegedly pressured mathematician Tristan Buckmaster to remove an Anthropic co-author from a paper documenting progress on the Na…
Cognition hits $48B valuation, signaling investors believe AI coding is far from a winner-take-all market
Cognition AI closed a funding round that valued the company at $48 billion, a remarkable figure that underscores investor confidence in the AI coding …
OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician
OpenAI researchers allegedly engaged in unethical conduct while competing to solve one of mathematics' most infamous unsolved problems, according to a…
ASML locks in TSMC, Samsung, and Intel while Huawei races to break its grip
ASML has secured commitments from the three largest semiconductor manufacturers to adopt high-NA EUV photomasks, a move that consolidates its dominanc…
Meta drops AI usage from engineer performance reviews after "tokenmaxxing" backfires
Meta has reversed course on a performance metric that backfired spectacularly. The company will stop measuring engineer productivity based on AI tool …
Mistral AI raises 3 billion euros in Europe's largest-ever tech funding round despite lagging behind rivals
Mistral AI has secured 3 billion euros in Series D funding, establishing the largest technology funding round ever completed in Europe. The French AI …
The Download: our 35 Innovators Under 35 this year
MIT Technology Review has announced its 2026 class of 35 Innovators Under 35, a recognition program that identifies and celebrates early-career scient…
This AI entrepreneur is developing agents that can plan ahead for the unexpected
Danijar Hafner, a machine learning researcher who previously worked at Google Brain, has launched a stealth-mode startup in San Francisco focused on b…
Anthropic reportedly signs $517 billion in compute deals after Dario Amodei warned rivals about reckless risk
Anthropic has committed to compute infrastructure deals valued at up to $517 billion over eleven months, according to reports. This aggressive spendin…
ChatGPT claws back web traffic share to 55.5 percent as Gemini's brief comeback fades
ChatGPT has reasserted dominance in AI chatbot web traffic, capturing 55.5 percent of visits according to Similarweb data. The recovery marks a revers…
At UBS, AI skills are now a condition for landing a job
UBS is raising its hiring bar for entry-level talent. Starting in 2027, the Swiss banking giant will require all graduates and interns joining its Glo…
German company becomes first in Europe to launch fully commercial orbital rocket
# German Company Breaks European Launch Monopoly with First Commercial Orbital Rocket Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a German aerospace startup, has …
Apple’s Ternus era begins as Nvidia bets on the whole AI stack
John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO this week, replacing Tim Cook after 14 years at the helm. Cook remains as Executive Chairman, shifting focus to po…
XDOF, just three months out of stealth, is in talks for a Series B at a $1.2B valuation
XDOF, a robot data startup, is in advanced talks to raise a Series B funding round at a $1.2 billion valuation. The company emerged from stealth only …
AI compute provider Nscale is looking for $3.5B in pre-IPO financing
Nscale, an AI compute infrastructure provider, is pursuing $3.5 billion in pre-IPO financing as it prepares for a public market debut. The company rec…
What will Apple’s John Ternus era look like?
John Ternus officially takes over as Apple CEO this week, replacing Tim Cook after nearly a decade in the top role. Cook transitions to Executive Chai…
Crusoe reportedly raises $3B at a $30B valuation
Crusoe Energy, the compute infrastructure company specializing in mobile and modular data centers, has raised $3 billion in a funding round that value…
Accel reportedly in talks to lead $1B round for Thinking Machines at $40B valuation
Accel Partners is in advanced negotiations to lead a $1 billion funding round for Thinking Machines, valuing the AI infrastructure company at $40 bill…
Nvidia buys the front door to open AI as closed labs increasingly design their own silicon
Nvidia announced plans to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $12.9 billion, securing control of the dominant open-source AI model repository used …
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of "unsustainable silliness" in compute buildout
Sam Altman has publicly criticized the artificial intelligence industry's data center expansion strategy, calling it "unsustainable silliness" and war…
Google Deepmind's new chief says frontier AI leadership is the only thing that matters
Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google Deepmind's chief, has made a stark declaration about the company's AI strategy: frontier model leadership is the only metric…
Open-weight AI companies are the Valley’s hottest acquisition targets
# Open-Weight AI Companies Become Valley's Hottest Acquisition Targets Silicon Valley acquisition activity has shifted toward open-weight AI startups…
Meta executive leaves for OpenAI as the social media giant faces growing scrutiny in India
Meta's India operations have lost a key executive to a rival AI powerhouse. Sandhya Devanathan, who led Meta's India division and played a central rol…
Anthropic and OpenAI are joining the AI stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
# Anthropic and OpenAI Set to Lead AI Conversation at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will feature a dedicated AI Stage hosting discu…
Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder ousted before joining OpenAI, is now at Google
Barret Zoph has landed at Google following a turbulent period that saw him co-found Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati, then exit before eventuall…
“We’re not doing 30 bets a year”: Vijay Pande on betting small after running $4 billion at a16z
Vijay Pande made a deliberate choice to walk away from scale. After running Andreessen Horowitz's $4 billion biotech practice, he launched VZVC last y…
OpenAI cuts off Cursor after SpaceX acquisition, citing Musk's history of breaking contracts
OpenAI severed access to its models for Cursor, the AI-powered code editor, following SpaceX's acquisition of the startup. The decision stems from Ope…
Neocloud Lambda secures $1B in debt to buy more chips
Neocloud Lambda, an infrastructure startup focused on AI chip leasing, has secured $1 billion in private debt financing. The company plans to deploy t…
The Download: a secretive antiaging drug and joining virtual power plants
# A Secretive Antiaging Drug Emerges, and Virtual Power Plants Gain Traction A startup called Generation Lab is pushing an antiaging drug candidate i…
Anthropic locks in 45-billion-dollar compute deal with Nscale ahead of IPO
Anthropic has secured a compute infrastructure deal valued at approximately 45 billion dollars with Nscale, a British cloud startup, according to Bloo…
Anthropic sees a market opportunity of more than $30 trillion ahead of its IPO
Anthropic is preparing for an initial public offering by pitching investors on an enormous addressable market worth more than $30 trillion. The AI saf…
Employee revolt and failing agents forced Meta to scrap its AI layoff plan
Meta shelved an ambitious plan to replace a significant portion of its workforce with AI agents after internal rebellion and technical failures derail…
Chinese Moonshot AI negotiates hosting deals with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google
Moonshot AI, a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, is in advanced negotiations to host its models on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Go…
A new stamp on cyberfraud prevention
Rupert Young's journey from cataloging his grandfather's stamp collection to leading cybersecurity strategy reveals how early attention to detail tran…
Nvidia in talks to invest in Perplexity at $30 billion-plus valuation
Nvidia is in active negotiations to invest in Perplexity, the AI-powered search startup, at a valuation exceeding $30 billion. This marks a 50 percent…
AI Weekly Issue #525: Nvidia may buy into Perplexity above $30B before Wednesday's earnings
Nvidia is in talks to invest equity in Perplexity at a valuation exceeding $30 billion, according to The Information. The investment could close befor…
Thomson Reuters bets $40M on owning its AI instead of renting from OpenAI or Anthropic
Thomson Reuters is investing $40 million over two years to build and deploy its own large language model rather than licensing technology from OpenAI,…
How China's gray market sells Claude tokens at a fraction of the price
# China's Gray Market Undercuts Claude Pricing Through Systematic Geofence Bypass Anthropic's Claude API faces wholesale circumvention in China throu…
Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash
# Flock Safety CEO Pushes 'Compromise' as Surveillance Backlash Intensifies Flock Safety, the automated license plate reader company that has expande…
Meta spends hundreds of millions on Microsoft's AI services
Meta has emerged as one of Microsoft's largest AI customers, spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on the tech giant's cloud and artificia…
Waymo builds its own chip for its robotaxis, cutting its reliance on Nvidia
Waymo has developed custom silicon for its autonomous vehicle fleet, reducing dependence on Nvidia's processors for its robotaxi operations. The move …
Stripe declares we're living in the singularity and uses it as a reason not to IPO
Stripe rejected going public by invoking the technological singularity. In an investor letter, the payments company declared January 1 the "beginning …
China lets Nvidia's H200 chips trickle onto the mainland to help its AI firms keep pace with the US
China has begun permitting limited shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips to enter the mainland, easing restrictions on advanced AI hardware to help domesti…
When Your Buyer Is an AI Agent
Maersk deployed autonomous AI agents from startup Pactum in 2021 to negotiate freight contracts directly with carrier suppliers, marking a shift from …
Stripe didn’t really buy OpenRouter because of the ‘singularity’
Stripe's acquisition of OpenRouter has little to do with existential AI fears and everything to do with practical business strategy. The payments plat…
OpenAI seeks to one-up Anthropic with new customer privacy protections
OpenAI is rolling out enhanced privacy protections to compete with Anthropic's data handling practices for enterprise customers. The move reflects gro…
OpenAI launches a ChatGPT version built for teens
OpenAI has released a version of ChatGPT specifically designed for users aged 13 to 17, marking the company's first formal move into the teen market. …
Etched’s valuation doubles to $21B in a month
Etched, an AI chip startup, has doubled its valuation to $21 billion in just one month following Jane Street's deployment of its first shipped AI clus…
Stripe is reportedly acquiring AI startup OpenRouter for more than $7 billion
Stripe is acquiring OpenRouter, an AI model marketplace, for more than $7 billion, according to Bloomberg. The deal values the startup more than five …
AI automation startup Relay shuts down, staff joins Google’s Chrome team
Relay, an AI automation startup, has shut down operations with its team joining Google's Chrome division. Founder and CEO Jacob Bank announced the mov…
Groq raises $350M to fuel its pivot from AI chips to neocloud
Groq closed a $350 million funding round at a $3.5 billion valuation, marking a strategic shift away from its original focus on designing custom AI ch…
Nvidia investing $1.5B in SoftBank data center developer behind OpenAI project
Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in a SoftBank-backed data center developer, securing a major chip supply deal that will power an OpenAI infrastructur…
Nvidia discloses $21B stake in SpaceX
Nvidia has disclosed a $21 billion stake in SpaceX, according to a regulatory filing. The investment comes after Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would…
OpenAI signs record Ohio data center lease with Nvidia backing up to $105 billion
OpenAI locked in a 20-year lease for an 8-gigawatt data center in Ohio, with Nvidia providing financial backing worth up to $105 billion for the facil…
AI video market has bounced back from Sora's false start
OpenAI's Sora initially captured headlines as a breakthrough in AI video generation, but the technology failed to deliver the immediate disruption man…
Stripe will reportedly acquire AI gateway startup OpenRouter for $7B+
Stripe is acquiring OpenRouter, an AI gateway platform, in a deal valued at over $7 billion, according to reports. The acquisition marks Stripe's larg…
Databricks wanted to raise $1B, investors wanted $15B. It settled on $5B at a $190B valuation.
Databricks closed a $5 billion Series H funding round at a $190 billion valuation, more than triple its previous valuation from just over a year ago. …
VisionQuest trailer kicks off Disney's D23 fan event
Disney used its D23 fan event to unveil major entertainment projects spanning film, television, and streaming platforms. The studio released a trailer…
Why Open Source Matters for AI
The battle between Netscape and Microsoft in the 1990s offers a direct parallel to today's AI landscape. Both companies fought for platform dominance,…
Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is ‘fundamentally a crisis of trust’
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei frames current skepticism toward artificial intelligence not as justified caution but as a breakdown in confidence between …
SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition
SpaceX has officially completed its acquisition of Cursor, an AI-powered code editor that helps developers write and debug software using artificial i…
Kog is going deeper to squeeze more inference out of GPUs
French startup Kog challenges a widespread assumption in AI infrastructure. The company argues that GPUs are not fundamentally mismatched for agentic …
Novo Nordisk and AWS bring agentic AI into drug discovery
Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant behind blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, is embedding AWS artificial intelligence tools deep in…
Investor pressure forces Nvidia to shrink its OpenAI bet just as Anthropic's numbers defy bubble warnings
Nvidia has significantly reduced its financial commitment to OpenAI's Ohio data center project following investor pressure about capital allocation ri…