Mira Murati just announced the launch of Thinking Machines Lab alongside a team of scientists, engineers, and builders. The new lab is tackling three areas: helping people adapt AI systems to their specific needs, developing stronger foundations for more capable models, and fostering an open-science culture so the broader community can understand and improve them.
OpenAI is weighing special voting rights for its nonprofit board to fend off hostile takeover bids, including Elon Musk's recent $97.4 billion offer. The mechanism would let the board overrule major backers like Microsoft and SoftBank once it converts into a for-profit company. Why it matters: OpenAI wants to tap commercial capital without ever handing over the wheel.
Elon Musk's investor group just revealed the full terms of its unsolicited $97.4B all-cash bid to buy OpenAI. The offer expires on May 10, 2025, requires complete access to internal records and staff, and promises to withdraw if OpenAI cancels its for-profit conversion. Why it matters: The bid aggressively forces OpenAI to defend its nonprofit assets or face intense public scrutiny.
Meta is reportedly in talks to acquire South Korean chip startup FuriosaAI, with an announcement possible as soon as this month. FuriosaAI builds chips that speed up model serving, including text models like Llama 3. The move highlights Meta's push to cut reliance on Nvidia as its AI budget climbs to $65 billion this year.
Elon Musk just led an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI, aiming to force the ChatGPT maker back into an open-source, safety-focused nonprofit with help from xAI. Sam Altman immediately laughed off the hostile takeover on X, sarcastically offering to buy Twitter back for $9.74 billion instead.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France's AI sector secured 109 billion euros in private investment for the coming years. Backed by UAE funds, North American investors, and local tech firms like Mistral, the push aims to serve as Europe's heavyweight answer to the US Stargate initiative.
Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is reportedly in talks to raise funding at a valuation of at least $20 billion. The pre-revenue startup was valued at $5 billion just last September, quadrupling its valuation as investor hype around top frontier AI researchers shows no signs of slowing down.
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 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.
Anthropic is prepping a two-way voice mode and memory features for Claude to remember past conversations, CEO Dario Amodei just revealed at Davos. Smarter models are also slated for the coming months, though Amodei admits a recent demand surge has completely overwhelmed their compute capacity as the company seeks another $2B in funding.
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.
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.
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.
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.
De-extinction startup Colossal BioSciences just secured $200M in fresh funding, lifting its valuation to a massive $10.2 billion. The company will use the capital to push forward genetic engineering for the woolly mammoth, thylacine, and dodo, with tech aimed at species preservation and human healthcare.
NVIDIA just released its latest retail industry report, revealing that nearly 90% of retailers and CPG brands are now using or testing AI. Over 94% reported cuts in operating costs, with generative AI largely deployed for marketing content and predictive analytics.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just admitted that the company is currently losing money on its $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan because heavy users are running it far more than anticipated. Altman confessed he personally chose the price thinking it would turn a profit, and OpenAI is now reportedly weighing subscription price hikes or usage-based billing.
xAI just closed a massive $6 billion Series C funding round, pushing its valuation to $45 billion. Backed by Nvidia, AMD, and Sequoia, the fresh cash will help double its 100,000-GPU supercluster and accelerate the rollout of its next-generation Grok models.
