The Information

Sam Altman, Left, and Larry Ellison. Photos via Getty, art by Clark Miller

Pressure Rises on Oracle to Finish OpenAI Data Center

By Anissa Gardizy · Apr 7, 2025 6:00am PDT

Oracle is building a data center in Abilene, Texas, the size of 17 football fields for OpenAI. Currently, it’s empty and incomplete. If it stays that way much longer, OpenAI can walk away from the deal, which could cost Oracle billions of dollars, according to two people working with the company on the project. While it’s unlikely OpenAI would... Oracle is building a data center in Abilene, Texas, the size of 17 football fields for OpenAI....

Sam Altman, left and Jony Ive. Photos via Getty

OpenAI Has Discussed Buying Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s AI Device Startup

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 6, 2025 3:02pm PDT · 3 comments

OpenAI in recent weeks discussed acquiring a startup its CEO Sam Altman has been working on with ex-Apple designer Jony Ive’s studio to develop an artificial intelligence-powered personal device, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal talks. They are also discussing partnership options beyond a full acquisition, one of the... OpenAI in recent weeks discussed acquiring a startup its CEO Sam Altman has been working on with...

David Sacks. Photo via Getty

David Sacks’ Craft Ventures Lays Off Staff, Co-Founder Steps Back

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Erin Woo · Apr 5, 2025 4:27pm PDT

Craft Ventures, the eight-year-old venture firm co-founded by White House adviser David Sacks, last week laid off half a dozen employees who were largely involved in recruiting professionals for startups it backs, a spokesperson confirmed. It made the changes as the firm’s investors have shifted their focus to later-stage investments from very... Craft Ventures, the eight-year-old venture firm co-founded by White House adviser David Sacks,...

Glean CEO Arvind Jain. Photo by Erin Beach.

Enterprise Search App Glean in Funding Talks After Passing $100 Million Revenue Pace

By Sri Muppidi · Apr 4, 2025 5:34pm PDT

Glean CEO Arvind Jain. Photo by Erin Beach.

Enterprise Search App Glean in Funding Talks After Passing $100 Million Revenue Pace

By Sri Muppidi · Apr 4, 2025 5:34pm PDT

Glean, a developer of search chatbots for businesses, is in talks with investors to potentially raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new financing, including money to buy out employee shares in a tender offer, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The six-year-old startup’s potential valuation in the deal couldn’t be... Glean, a developer of search chatbots for businesses, is in talks with investors to potentially...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Meta Nears Release of New AI Model After Performance Hiccups

By Kalley Huang · Apr 4, 2025 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Last spring, Meta Platforms was on a tear. It had just released Llama 3, a new generation of its large language model, to much praise from developers and independent reviewers. Almost a year later, though, that model’s successor, Llama 4, is running behind schedule. Meta has pushed back the release date of Llama 4 at least twice and could do so... Last spring, Meta Platforms was on a tear. It had just released Llama 3, a new generation of its...

Photos via Getty

Intel, TSMC Recently Discussed Agreement to Form Chipmaking Joint Venture

By Qianer Liu · Apr 3, 2025 11:48am PDT · 3 comments

Intel’s financial crisis may be over—with support from its biggest rival. Executives from Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. recently discussed a preliminary agreement to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s chipmaking facilities, with TSMC taking a 20% stake in the new company, according to two people involved in some of... Intel’s financial crisis may be over—with support from its biggest rival. Executives from...

Google campus photo by Getty. Art by Mike Sullivan.

Google in Advanced Talks to Rent Nvidia AI Servers From CoreWeave

By Aaron Holmes, Stephanie Palazzolo and Anissa Gardizy · Apr 2, 2025 12:32pm PDT · 1 comment

Google is in advanced talks to rent state-of-the-art Nvidia Blackwell chips for running artificial intelligence from CoreWeave, an upstart cloud provider, according to two people briefed about the situation. The potential deal shows how major Nvidia customers like Google are struggling to get enough of its chips to meet rising demand from... Google is in advanced talks to rent state-of-the-art Nvidia Blackwell chips for running...

Photo by Getty

Trump to Outline TikTok Deal Proposal, With ByteDance Retaining Stake

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 2, 2025 12:12pm PDT · 1 comment

Photo by Getty

Trump to Outline TikTok Deal Proposal, With ByteDance Retaining Stake

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 2, 2025 12:12pm PDT · 1 comment

President Donald Trump plans to announce later on Wednesday his plan for a new company called TikTok America, part of his efforts to broker a deal to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., according to a person close to the discussions. It’s unclear whether the Trump administration has approval for the proposed structure from the Chinese... President Donald Trump plans to announce later on Wednesday his plan for a new company called...

Paul Kotas, senior vice president of Amazon Ads, in 2024. Photo via Getty

Why Amazon’s Biggest Ad Business Could Be Maxing Out

By Catherine Perloff and Theo Wayt · Apr 2, 2025 11:43am PDT · 1 comment

Over the last several years, advertisements have seemingly begun creeping into nearly every crevice on Amazon. They populate carousels of products promising to show shoppers what other “customers frequently viewed” on search results. They also appear on pages where shoppers can find deals on Amazon. And they pop up on the checkout page when a... Over the last several years, advertisements have seemingly begun creeping into nearly every...

Agility Robotics' Digit folds laundry at Web Summit 2024. Photo via Getty

Humanoid Robotics Startup Agility is Raising $400 Million

By Rocket Drew · Mar 31, 2025 9:04am PDT · 1 comment

Agility Robotics, a humanoid robot maker led by former Microsoft executive Peggy Johnson, is raising $400 million at a pre-investment valuation of $1.75 billion, according to a person who has seen the term sheet. The financing demonstrates how advances in artificial intelligence have sparked intensifying interest in the sector from... Agility Robotics, a humanoid robot maker led by former Microsoft executive Peggy Johnson, is...

Art by Clark Miller

Some Musk Government Recruits Quietly Return to His Companies

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Mar 31, 2025 6:00am PDT

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, employees from SpaceX, Tesla and his other companies followed him there temporarily to help shake up the operations of the social media company. It wouldn’t be surprising, then, to see Musk employees who have decamped to Washington to assist his Department of Government Efficiency eventually go back to... When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, employees from SpaceX, Tesla and his other companies...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Some Large Cloud Customers Slow Down AI Spending as Prices Drop

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 29, 2025 9:13am PDT · 5 comments

Art by Mike Sullivan

Some Large Cloud Customers Slow Down AI Spending as Prices Drop

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 29, 2025 9:13am PDT · 5 comments

Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks last year started adding artificial intelligence chatbots to its products to help customers get answers about their network security. The tools originally relied on state-of-the-art models from OpenAI and other firms. But Palo Alto Networks recently found that open-source models from DeepSeek, a Chinese... Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks last year started adding artificial intelligence chatbots...

Art via Clark Miller

Andreessen, Sequoia Recently Discussed Funding Voice AI Startup Sesame

By Sri Muppidi, Jon Victor and Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 28, 2025 6:26pm PDT

Sesame, a startup developing artificial intelligence voice assistants and wearable devices, is in talks to raise a new funding round, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Northstar.vc, a four-year-old investment firm that has backed messaging app Discord, recently discussed investing in... Sesame, a startup developing artificial intelligence voice assistants and wearable devices, is in...

Art by Clark Miller

Cybersecurity Startups’ Revenue Surges on AI Threats

By Sri Muppidi · Mar 27, 2025 6:10am PDT · 1 comment

Just as artificial intelligence has helped programmers slash the time it takes to write code, hackers are also finding it’s a productivity boon. The increased number of threats, along with risks from companies’ adoption of AI, has helped some cybersecurity startups grow more quickly. Take Chainguard, a startup developing software to detect... Just as artificial intelligence has helped programmers slash the time it takes to write code,...

Nvidia Nears Deal to Buy GPU Reseller for Several Hundred Million Dollars

By Kevin McLaughlin and Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 26, 2025 10:06am PDT · 4 comments

Nvidia is in advanced talks to buy Lepton AI, a two-year-old startup that rents out servers powered by Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips, in a deal worth several hundred million dollars, according to a person close to the company. The move is part of Nvidia’s push into the cloud and enterprise software market, in competition with major... Nvidia is in advanced talks to buy Lepton AI, a two-year-old startup that rents out servers...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo via Getty

OpenAI Discusses Building Its First Data Center for Storage

By Anissa Gardizy · Mar 26, 2025 6:30am PDT

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo via Getty

OpenAI Discusses Building Its First Data Center for Storage

By Anissa Gardizy · Mar 26, 2025 6:30am PDT

OpenAI recently discussed purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of data storage hardware and software, according to three people involved in the private discussions. To house the hardware, the company has considered building its own data center for the first time, two of these people said. Such a deal would make OpenAI one of the world’s biggest... OpenAI recently discussed purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of data storage hardware and...

Patrick Collison,CEO of Stripe. Photo by Getty

Stripe Minted More Than $2 Billion in Cash Last Year. Why Go Public?

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 26, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Stripe is putting up the kind of numbers that would send its stock soaring, if it had public stock. The payments processing firm doubled its free cash flow last year to about $2.2 billion and grew revenues about 28% to $5.1 billion, according to financial figures obtained by The Information. This year’s tech initial public offering parade is... Stripe is putting up the kind of numbers that would send its stock soaring, if it had public...

Photo by Getty

Google Strips DEI Language From Some Internal Research Studies

By Erin Woo · Mar 25, 2025 6:00am PDT

Google employees have told staffers doing user research around Google devices to remove language related to diversity, equity and inclusion from their work or else lock down access to their documents, according to a person with direct knowledge of the instructions. Employees working on internal research studies for building new products and... Google employees have told staffers doing user research around Google devices to remove language...

From left, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photos via Getty

OpenAI and Meta Seek AI Alliance With India’s Reliance

By Sri Muppidi and Amir Efrati · Mar 22, 2025 9:18am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI executives in recent months have spoken multiple times with their counterparts at Reliance Industries, which owns the world’s largest oil refinery, India’s top wireless carrier and numerous retailers, about a potential product and sales partnership, according to two people who spoke to executives at both companies. OpenAI wants Reliance... OpenAI executives in recent months have spoken multiple times with their counterparts at Reliance...

CoreWeave Faces Reality Check on Bullish Growth Forecasts

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 20, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

CoreWeave Faces Reality Check on Bullish Growth Forecasts

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 20, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Last fall, artificial intelligence star CoreWeave shared astounding financial projections with private investors. It projected that revenue would quadruple to $8 billion in 2025 and cash burn would shrink by more than one-third to $4 billion, according to confidential investor documents. Those expectations appear a lot more sober now, as the... Last fall, artificial intelligence star CoreWeave shared astounding financial projections with...