Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Inside ZaiNar, the secretive startup hoping to power the physical AI era • Policy: Meet the Trump official who wants to deliver a win to prediction markets • Plus, Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “Expanse: The Nannup Four,” “The Infinity Machine” and “Beef”Watching the Elon Musk versus OpenAI trial from inside the courtroom gave me a front-row seat to the AI boom’s... Read more ›
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It’s a no-brainer these days to say AI is driving tech mergers. As I wrote earlier this month, big AI deals and a deal-friendly presidential administration have pushed the value of U.S. announced tech mergers to more than $543 billion this year, the highest level since 2021. To Morgan Stanley bankers, the deals this year and over the next several years will be driven by one fundamental thesis: Companies are... Read more ›
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Brett Adcock, the CEO of robotics startup Figure AI, has started a new AI lab called Hark, which will be funded by $100 million of his personal capital, according to a copy of a memo Adcock sent to Figure employees and investors on Thursday seen by The Information. The AI lab will be focused on ... Read more ›
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Universities grappling with slowing enrollment and imperiled federal funding are looking for new ways to cut costs. How much will artificial intelligence help? The management school at the University of California, Los Angeles has been developing AI applications for its 500 faculty and staff members, including tools that might automate the work of teaching assistants that help professors handle large classes. Read more ›
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Thinking Machines Lab, the AI lab co-founded by former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, is planning to release its own in-house models next year, co-founder and Chief Scientist John Schulman said on a podcast. So far, Thinking Machines has released Tinker, an application programming ... Read more ›
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OpenAI has a problem and, unfortunately for it, that problem is also how it makes most of its money: ChatGPT.In this story that Sri, Amir and I published this morning, we revealed that over the past year OpenAI staffers had noticed that improvements to the company’s models weren’t necessarily lifting ChatGPT usage. Their quandary is that focusing too much on increasing the chatbot’s appeal could draw away resources from the... Read more ›
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Over the past this year, some OpenAI staffers noticed a concerning change in the way people who used ChatGPT were reacting to improvements in the chatbot. In prior years, every time OpenAI made a big upgrade to the artificial intelligence that powers the chatbot, usage surged as people easily found ways to get useful responses out of it, one employee said. But even as ChatGPT attracted more users this year,... Read more ›
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China has built a prototype of a critical lithography machine for manufacturing semiconductors, as the country steps up its effort to produce advanced chips without relying on Western technology suppliers, Reuters reported. The prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine that etches ... Read more ›
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Talk about an endorsement! For all the talk about OpenAI falling behind Google, the ChatGPT maker doesn’t seem to be having any problems attracting big backers. Last week it was Disney, putting in $1 billion, and soon it’s likely to be Amazon, judging from The Information’s scoop on Tuesday night that Amazon was in talks to invest more than $10 billion in OpenAI. On top of that, tonight we scooped... Read more ›
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YouTube has struck a five-year exclusive deal to broadcast the Oscars, starting in 2029, YouTube and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday. The deal, which will end ABC’s exclusive run broadcasting the Oscars, which began in 1976, highlights the growing strength ... Read more ›
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OpenAI has held preliminary discussions with some investors about raising at a valuation of around $750 billion, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. It could raise tens of billions of dollars, and as much as $100 billion, according to two of the people. Talks are early and nothing has been finalized. A valuation at that level would be 50% higher than OpenAI’s last share sale in October... Read more ›
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Coinbase said Wednesday it’s launching stock trading, prediction markets, stablecoin issuance, and other new features in payments and wealth advisory, in its bid to become an “everything exchange.” The move represents its biggest product shakeup in years and puts it in direct competition with ... Read more ›
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Salesforce has struck an agreement to acquire Qualified, a seven-year-old startup that helps Salesforce customers generate sales leads from their websites. Terms weren’t disclosed, but Salesforce is paying between $1 billion and $1.5 billion for Qualified, according to a person with direct ... Read more ›
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Memory chip-maker Micron’s shares climbed 8% after it reported 57% growth in revenue of $13.64 billion for its first fiscal quarter, ended Nov. 27, well above its September projection that it would bring in as much as $12.8 billion in revenue. Executives also forecast Micron’s revenue growth to ... Read more ›
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Amazon reorganized its AI development team, it said on Wednesday, by expanding it to also include quantum computing and silicon development, which includes development of Trainium chips. Those organizations were previously part of Amazon Web Services. Amazon’s AI team, which developed its Nova ... Read more ›
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Anthropic will get up to 2.3 gigawatts of computing power from data centers being developed by Hut 8, a bitcoin mining company with close ties to the Trump family. Hut 8 and cloud startup Fluidstack will develop a data center campus in Louisiana with an initial 245 megawatts of power and the ... Read more ›
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Oracle shares fell 5% Wednesday morning after the Financial Times reported that data center investor Blue Owl would not participate in a $10 billion financing for one of Oracle’s artificial intelligence data centers being built for OpenAI in Michigan. Blue Owl decided not to invest because the ... Read more ›
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Online education platform Coursera said on Wednesday it would buy rival Udemy for about $950 million in stock, giving the two companies more scale to compete as AI threatens their businesses. The companies are two of the largest US-based online learning providers but their growth has slowed ... Read more ›
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Scarcity creates value in everything from precious metals to giant private tech companies. That accounts for some portion of the stunning prices investors are paying to get into SpaceX, OpenAI and other companies while they are still private. An army of wealth managers, fund executives and other go-betweens have made a lucrative living touting their access to coveted deals in these companies. Some of their clients have done well, at... Read more ›
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When Micron Technology reports its fiscal first-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon, investors will be listening for the memory chip maker’s outlook in the next few quarters. Micron is one of three companies, along with Samsung and SK Hynix, that make high-bandwidth memory, a key component of AI chips. Surging demand for AI chips has lifted memory chip revenues for all three companies in the past year or so. That in... Read more ›
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Last night The Information broke the news that Amazon was in talks to invest at least $10 billion in OpenAI at a valuation of more than $500 billion. As part of the deal under discussion, OpenAI would agree to use Amazon’s Trainium chips, we reported. It's the latest in a string of deals OpenAI has done to raise the money it needs to pay for its costly AI development. We’ll... Read more ›
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09.05.2026 01:47
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