AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
Elon Musk just questioned the massive Stargate AI project, claiming SoftBank and OpenAI don't actually have the money and SoftBank has secured well under $10B. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired back, saying what is great for the country isn't always optimal for Musk's companies.
Google has reportedly invested another $1 billion into Anthropic, pushing the tech giant's total stake to roughly $3 billion. The fresh cash arrives as Anthropic eyes a massive $60 billion valuation and preps an ambitious 2025 roadmap, which includes voice chat for Claude and a PC-controlling "Virtual Collaborator" agent.
Microsoft just launched an AI for Good Grants initiative in Washington state to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Local nonprofits, startups, and academic groups can apply to receive Azure compute resources, direct collaboration with Microsoft data scientists, and hands-on mentorship to tackle local challenges in healthcare, climate, and education.
Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S25 lineup at Unpacked 2025, turning the hardware into a vehicle for a new integrated AI platform powered by Gemini. A long-press of the power button lets the assistant run tasks across Samsung and Google apps, while adding features like video audio erasing. Why it matters: Phone AI is finally moving past chatbots to actually doing multi-step chores across your phone.
Microsoft just announced an evolution of its strategic partnership with OpenAI, locking in core terms through 2030 and teaming up on the Stargate supercomputer project. While Microsoft keeps Copilot IP rights and Azure API exclusivity, it loosened its capacity lock to a right of first refusal, clearing OpenAI to build additional training compute.
X Games just partnered with Google Cloud to test experimental AI judging at the Aspen 2025 Superpipe competition. Powered by Vertex AI, the system analyzes video footage to calculate airtime and execution difficulty while generating multi-language commentary. Human judges still decide the podium, but live fans will get to see how the AI scores stack up against human eyes.
OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX just launched The Stargate Project, an ambitious venture planning to pour $500 billion into U.S. AI infrastructure over the next four years. With $100 billion deployed immediately starting in Texas, SoftBank handles the money while OpenAI runs operations alongside tech partners like NVIDIA and Microsoft.
Meta is preparing a major wearables push for 2025, working on sports-focused Oakley smart glasses and a high-end pair with a built-in lens display dubbed Hypernova. The company is also exploring camera-equipped earbuds and smartwatches, aiming to weave its AI into more everyday hardware.
Mistral cofounder and CEO Arthur Mensch just shut down buyout rumors at Davos, stating the European AI champion is firmly "not for sale" and plans to pursue an IPO instead. Amid industry chatter about startup consolidation, the company is also opening a Singapore office and continuing its aggressive expansion across the US and Europe.
President Donald Trump just rescinded Biden's 2023 executive order on AI, immediately dismantling federal mandates that required developers to share safety test results before releasing advanced models. The new administration claims those guardrails handcuffed American innovation, and it has tasked AI adviser David Sacks with delivering a replacement action plan within 180 days.
Enterprise venture capitalists are moving their checkbooks past foundation models and into specialized applications. A TechCrunch survey of 20 enterprise investors reveals that the smart money in 2025 is hunting for task-specific agentic workflows, resilience tools, and AI infrastructure, while steering clear of single-feature startups.
Epoch AI just drew sharp criticism after revealing OpenAI funded its math benchmark FrontierMath while keeping contributors in the dark. OpenAI had early access to problems before demoing its flagship o3 model, sparking serious concerns over conflicts of interest and benchmark integrity.
OpenAI and other leading AI labs are preparing to unveil Ph.D.-level "super-agents" capable of independently tackling messy, multilayered human jobs, according to Axios. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even scheduled a closed-door briefing with U.S. government officials on Jan. 30. Why it matters: If these autonomous agents can overcome nagging hallucination issues, generative AI moves from an assistant to a real replacement for mid-level knowledge workers.
Perplexity AI just submitted an official bid to ByteDance to merge its AI search engine with TikTok's U.S. operations and new capital partners. The proposed deal would let ByteDance's existing investors keep their stakes while funneling short-form video into Perplexity's engine. Sources value the potential deal well north of $50 billion.
Perplexity just acquired Read.cv, a LinkedIn alternative known for clean portfolio designs. The Read.cv team will join Perplexity's design and engineering group, while its existing platform winds down with user data exports open until May 16. It marks Perplexity's third acquisition to date.
Mistral just partnered with global news agency AFP to plug up-to-date journalism directly into its Le Chat assistant. The multi-year deal gives the bot access to AFP's archives dating back to 1983 alongside 2,300 daily stories across six languages, excluding photos and videos. It marks Mistral's first media pact as it pushes beyond raw models to take on ChatGPT.
Mark Zuckerberg used YouTube's fight against piracy to justify Meta's use of copyrighted datasets during a deposition in an ongoing AI copyright lawsuit. Newly unsealed court filings allege Meta trained its Llama models on pirated e-book repositories like LibGen and Z-Library despite internal legal warnings.
Google just struck a deal with The Associated Press to integrate a real-time information feed directly into Gemini. The move aims to boost up-to-date answers for news queries, though Google hasn't revealed when the feature will launch or which regions get it first.
Scammers just used AI-generated photos and deepfake news broadcasts of actor Brad Pitt to con a woman in France out of €830,000. The scammers sent AI hospital selfies and generated news anchors to keep the romance scheme going for over a year. Why it matters: The case shows how accessible generative AI tools are supercharging romance scams, making it harder for ordinary people to spot synthetic deception.
Cisco just launched Cisco AI Defense, an end-to-end security suite designed to protect enterprises building and using AI. Built directly into the network fabric, it automates model red-teaming, detects shadow AI tools, and guards against prompt injections in real time. It rolls out this March.
