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Funding rounds, M&A, regulation, enterprise adoption

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OpenAI proposed donating 5% of its equity to a US sovereign wealth fund
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

OpenAI proposed donating 5% of its equity to a US sovereign wealth fund

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed donating 5% of the company's equity to a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, a move reported by the Financial Times. This initiative aims to secure good relations with the administration and address potential political blowback regarding AI's rapid growth. The proposal aligns with recent discussions involving President Trump about the American public becoming a partner in AI companies. OpenAI has previously outlined similar concepts in a policy paper titled 'Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age,' suggesting returns could be distributed directly to citizens. While similar ideas have been proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, including a 50% tax on AI stock, those legislative efforts have not yet advanced. The current OpenAI proposal remains preliminary and would likely require complex congressional approval to become reality. This development highlights the growing intersection between AI corporate strategy and national economic policy.

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Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung

Anthropic is reportedly in discussions with Samsung to develop a custom AI chip, signaling a serious move towards hardware independence. This potential partnership aims to diversify Anthropic's compute strategy beyond its current reliance on Google, Amazon, and Nvidia. The move comes amidst a broader industry trend where major AI firms seek to reduce dependency on Nvidia's dominant market position. Notably, this development follows OpenAI's recent announcement of its own custom inference processor, 'Jalapeño,' developed with Broadcom. While Anthropic has not yet disclosed specific technical details or use cases for the Samsung collaboration, the strategic alignment highlights the growing importance of specialized hardware. Samsung, already a key Nvidia partner, brings significant manufacturing capabilities to such high-stakes AI infrastructure projects. This shift underscores the competitive race among AI leaders to optimize performance and efficiency through proprietary silicon.

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Microsoft launches its own AI deployment company with $2.5 billion commitment
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

Microsoft launches its own AI deployment company with $2.5 billion commitment

Microsoft has launched a new operating business named Microsoft Frontier, dedicated to facilitating enterprise AI deployments. The initiative is backed by a substantial $2.5 billion investment and leverages 6,000 industry and engineering experts. Microsoft’s Commercial Business CEO Judson Althoff emphasizes that this venture exceeds traditional Forward Deployed Engineering models. This move positions Microsoft directly against competitors like AWS, which recently announced a similar $1 billion commitment. Early partnerships include major entities such as the London Stock Exchange Group, Unilever, and Accenture. The company aims to utilize its existing Fortune 500 client base to accelerate adoption of its AI tools. This strategic shift highlights the growing focus on practical implementation over mere model development.

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OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom
The Verge AI
Business2d ago

OpenAI floats giving Trump administration 5 percent cut of AI boom

OpenAI is reportedly proposing a 5 percent government ownership stake to ease tensions with the Trump administration and mitigate public backlash against AI. CEO Sam Altman pitched this idea early last year, suggesting that a public financial interest would be the best way to share the upside of AI technology. Based on OpenAI's $852 billion valuation, this stake would be worth approximately $42.6 billion. The proposal also involves other US AI companies offering similar stakes to the government, though it remains in early stages. This move comes amid increased regulatory scrutiny, including export controls and supply chain risk designations by the Pentagon. The Trump administration has previously taken stakes in Intel and demanded revenue cuts from Nvidia and AMD. This development highlights a growing trend of governments seeking to capture wealth generated by the AI boom through policy and ownership.

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Cloudflare’s new policy pushes AI companies to pay for publishers’ content
TechCrunch AI
Business3d ago

Cloudflare’s new policy pushes AI companies to pay for publishers’ content

Cloudflare has announced a new policy requiring AI companies to separate web crawlers used for search from those used for AI training and agents. Starting September 15, 2026, default settings will block mixed-use crawlers from pages hosting ads unless site owners adjust their preferences. This move aims to protect publishers' intellectual property and create a sustainable ecosystem where content creators are compensated. Cloudflare co-founder Matthew Prince emphasized the need for faster action as bot traffic now surpasses human traffic online. The company is evolving its Pay Per Crawl tool into Pay Per Use, allowing publishers to charge AI firms based on content value. Google has previously defended its practices, noting that opting out of AI training does not affect search visibility. This policy shift highlights growing tensions between AI developers and content publishers over data usage rights.

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Meta, like SpaceX, looks to turn excess AI compute into cash
TechCrunch AI
Business3d ago

Meta, like SpaceX, looks to turn excess AI compute into cash

Meta is reportedly developing a new cloud infrastructure business to monetize its massive AI compute investments by selling access to data centers and models. This strategic move positions Meta to compete directly with major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. The initiative follows a similar trend where SpaceX's xAI has also begun leasing out excess compute capacity to other AI firms. Meta has committed $182.9 billion to AI infrastructure, including large-scale projects in Louisiana and Ohio, to support its superintelligence goals. Unlike Google and OpenAI, Meta currently lacks significant standalone revenue from its own AI models, prompting this pivot to infrastructure-as-a-service. The new venture, dubbed Meta Compute, aims to generate immediate returns on the company's colossal capital expenditures. This shift highlights a growing industry belief that owning physical AI infrastructure may become more profitable than just building models.

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Venice AI becomes a unicorn with $65M Series A as its privacy-first AI platform takes off
TechCrunch AI
Business3d ago

Venice AI becomes a unicorn with $65M Series A as its privacy-first AI platform takes off

Venice AI has achieved unicorn status with a $65 million Series A funding round, valuing the company at $1 billion. The privacy-first platform allows users to access over 200 AI models while maintaining strict data confidentiality through client-side encryption and external proxies. With 3 million active users and an annualized revenue run-rate exceeding $70 million, the startup demonstrates significant market traction just two years after its inception. The investment was led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, highlighting strong interest from the crypto community. CEO Erik Voorhees, known for his background in Bitcoin and ShapeShift, positions the service as a neutral tool akin to the Bitcoin protocol. This funding underscores the growing demand for AI solutions that prioritize user privacy and unrestricted access over traditional safety guardrails.

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Trump drops restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models
TechCrunch AI
Business3d ago

Trump drops restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models

The US government has lifted export restrictions on Anthropic's advanced Mythos and Fable AI models, allowing public access to resume on July 1. This reversal follows weeks of negotiations where Anthropic agreed to proactive security risk detection and collaboration with federal protocols. The initial ban, imposed in June, had effectively cut off foreign access to these top-tier models due to compliance difficulties. Cybersecurity experts previously viewed the restrictions as political leverage rather than genuine security measures, citing Anthropic's existing voluntary safety pledges. The decision appears driven by competitive pressure from Asian AI firms releasing similarly capable models. Consequently, the Trump administration is now easing controls to ensure American AI maintains its global leadership position. This move highlights the ongoing tension between national security concerns and commercial competitiveness in the AI sector.

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Anthropic’s long-sidelined Fable 5 is greenlit to return
The Verge AI
Business3d ago

Anthropic’s long-sidelined Fable 5 is greenlit to return

Anthropic has received government approval to restore access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models after weeks of negotiations with the Trump administration. The Department of Commerce lifted export controls that previously barred foreign nationals, including many employees and enterprise clients, from using these models. This decision follows a similar staggered rollout strategy for OpenAI's GPT-5.6, limiting initial access to pre-approved organizations and government departments. The models were originally sidelined in early June due to concerns over potential jailbreaks and supply chain risks. Anthropic is currently preparing for an IPO and has been in a prolonged dispute with the government over regulatory designations. The restoration of access marks a significant step in resolving these regulatory hurdles and allowing broader usage of their latest technology. This development highlights the increasing intersection of AI development and federal export control policies.

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Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses
The Verge AI
Business3d ago

Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses

Meta is introducing a monthly usage limit for the Conversation Focus feature on its smart glasses, restricting free users to three hours. To exceed this limit, users must subscribe to Meta One Premium for $19.99 a month, which raises the cap to 15 hours. Critics argue this rate limit is unjustified because the feature runs entirely on-device without using Meta's servers or requiring an internet connection. The move comes as Meta faces financial pressure, including recent layoffs and cost-cutting measures like removing the Ray-Ban branding from its glasses. This strategy marks a shift toward monetizing hardware features that were previously considered core, free functionalities. The decision has sparked backlash, with many viewing it as an unnecessary paywall for a feature that does not incur server costs for the company. Meta has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the rationale behind this specific limitation.

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The DeepMind trio who built a poker AI are now making money for quant hedge funds
TechCrunch AI
Business4d ago

The DeepMind trio who built a poker AI are now making money for quant hedge funds

Three former DeepMind researchers have launched EquiLibre Technologies, a Prague-based AI lab valued at $500 million after securing a Series A led by Creandum. The firm applies reinforcement learning, the same technique used to build DeepStack for poker, to algorithmic trading for quant hedge funds like Tower Research Capital. EquiLibre's agents have maintained a perfect record of zero negative months since launching on crypto markets in 2025 and expanding to stock exchanges. The company is explicitly defined as a lab rather than a finance firm, driven by the founders' excitement about building novel AI systems. Creandum's vice president noted this was the largest single investment the firm has ever made in one company. The founders were visiting PhD students at Google's now-shut-down Edmonton AI research office when they created their initial poker AI. This deal highlights the continued high demand for frontier AI capabilities from DeepMind alumni in the financial sector.

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Tidal won’t pay royalties on AI-generated music but isn’t banning it outright
The Verge AI
Business4d ago

Tidal won’t pay royalties on AI-generated music but isn’t banning it outright

Tidal announced new policies regarding AI-generated music, choosing not to ban it outright but instead demonetizing it starting today. Tracks identified as 100 percent AI-generated will no longer receive royalties, with Tidal prioritizing payments for works produced by people. Starting July 15th, the platform will label these tracks with an icon to inform listeners about their origin. Tidal plans to expand this labeling to 'substantially AI-generated' content as detection tools improve. The company also warns that content distributors share responsibility for labeling AI music and will block tracks associated with fraudulent activity. This move mirrors similar actions by competitors like Spotify, which introduced verification badges, and Deezer, which developed detection tools. The policy aims to protect original artists while informing listeners about the increasing presence of AI-generated content on streaming platforms.

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