The Information

Art by Mike Sullivan

How SpaceX’s AI Unit Turned Itself Into an AI Cloud Firm

By Grace Kay · Oct 1, 2026 6:01am PDT · 1 comment

SpaceX’s AI unit held talks over the summer about leasing computing capacity to Microsoft, say people familiar with the matter, a sign of how fully Elon Musk has embraced the neocloud business after his initial reluctance. Selling computing power has quickly become one of SpaceX’s most lucrative businesses, generating billions of dollars a month... SpaceX’s AI unit held talks over the summer about leasing computing capacity to Microsoft, say...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Cracks Emerge in AI’s Debt-Fueled Data Center Boom

By Dakin Campbell · Sep 30, 2026 11:53am PDT · 1 comment

Bond markets are getting tough for lower-rated borrowers. One example: CleanSpark, which is developing a data center for Meta Platforms, had to offer investors big concessions to land financing earlier this month. That deal is among the clearest signs yet that financing the data center boom is getting expensive across the board, and investors... Bond markets are getting tough for lower-rated borrowers. One example: CleanSpark, which is...

Zhang Xiangyi/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images.

Alibaba’s AliExpress Tests Membership Program in Challenge to Amazon

By Juro Osawa · Sep 30, 2026 12:00am PDT · 1 comment

AliExpress, Alibaba Group’s international e-commerce site, is testing a new VIP membership program in some markets, as it tries to attract and retain high-spending customers in a challenge to Amazon, according to a person with direct knowledge of the efforts. The VIP program, called Elite, is available on an invitation-only basis to customers... AliExpress, Alibaba Group’s international e-commerce site, is testing a new VIP membership...

Art by Clark Miller.

Google Is Paying About 100 Digital Publishers for AI Overviews

By Alix Coutures and Catherine Perloff · Sep 29, 2026 4:09pm PDT

Art by Clark Miller.

Google Is Paying About 100 Digital Publishers for AI Overviews

By Alix Coutures and Catherine Perloff · Sep 29, 2026 4:09pm PDT

Google has been paying roughly 100 digital publishers for how much their content contributes to AI-powered answers to search and other products, according to people familiar with tests. The pilot program signals a further shift by the company toward paying publishers for content that shows up in its powerful search engine. Google has... Google has been paying roughly 100 digital publishers for how much their content contributes to...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Anthropic Moves to Cut Off Discounts When Customers Hit Their Cap

By Kevin McLaughlin · Sep 28, 2026 6:00am PDT

Anthropic is flexing its muscle with enterprise customers by taking a hard line on discounts once those customers use up all the tokens they purchased. That’s created an opening for OpenAI to take a more flexible approach. While both Anthropic and archrival OpenAI provide discounts to customers that commit to spending millions of dollars a year... Anthropic is flexing its muscle with enterprise customers by taking a hard line on discounts once...

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. Photo by David Paul Morris / Getty Images.

China Weighs Allowing Purchases of New Nvidia Chips by ByteDance, Alibaba

By Qianer Liu · Sep 27, 2026 8:00am PDT

China’s government has signaled it could allow some domestic companies to buy a new Nvidia chip built for high-end professional computers, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the country’s AI firms strain for enough computing power to run their chatbots and agents. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which... China’s government has signaled it could allow some domestic companies to buy a new Nvidia chip...

Fal AI co-founders Gorkem Yurtseven and Burkay Gur. Getty Images.

Fireworks, Fal Consider New Rounds as Inference Demand Soars

By Valida Pau, Stephanie Palazzolo and Aaron Holmes · Sep 25, 2026 3:59pm PDT

Startups such as Fal and Fireworks AI that sell access to AI models and servers have been ringing up sales as developers use them to run models quickly, sparking a new investor rush to pour money into them. Fal, which specializes in providing such inference services for video and image generation models such as Google’s Nano Banana models, has... Startups such as Fal and Fireworks AI that sell access to AI models and servers have been ringing...

Tesla Bot Optimus 3. Photo by Chen Yuyu/Getty Images

Tesla’s Optimus Hits Snags in Hands, Suppliers as Scale-Up Begins

By Qianer Liu and Grace Kay · Sep 25, 2026 6:01am PDT · 6 comments

Tesla Bot Optimus 3. Photo by Chen Yuyu/Getty Images

Tesla’s Optimus Hits Snags in Hands, Suppliers as Scale-Up Begins

By Qianer Liu and Grace Kay · Sep 25, 2026 6:01am PDT · 6 comments

Tesla has ramped up production of its Optimus humanoid robot roughly tenfold in recent months, but the company is still struggling to manufacture the machines reliably at scale. Its production lines are grappling with problems involving the robot’s intricate hands, automated equipment and supplier constraints, according to people familiar with... Tesla has ramped up production of its Optimus humanoid robot roughly tenfold in recent months,...

Art by Clark Miller.

Startup Founded by ex-Tesla Dojo Leaders Nears $10 Billion Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Phoebe Liu and Valida Pau · Sep 24, 2026 7:40pm PDT · 1 comment

DensityAI, an AI chip startup founded just a year ago by former leaders of Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer program, is in advanced talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a round that would value it at $10 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The valuation is high for a company whose chips appear to be early... DensityAI, an AI chip startup founded just a year ago by former leaders of Tesla’s Dojo...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images .

Anthropic Seeks Palantir-Style Voting Control for Seven Co-Founders Ahead of IPO

By Cory Weinberg, Valida Pau and Julia Hornstein · Sep 24, 2026 2:53pm PDT · 3 comments

Anthropic is asking shareholders to approve a new corporate structure that would award CEO Dario Amodei and his six cofounders a special class of shares giving them collective voting control in most corporate matters, according to people familiar with the planning. The new arrangement, which emulates a founder-control structure at Palantir,... Anthropic is asking shareholders to approve a new corporate structure that would award CEO...

Tether Holdings CEO Paolo Ardoino. Getty Images.

One of Tether’s Bank Partners Caught Up in Assets Seizure

By Yueqi Yang and Michael Roddan · Sep 24, 2026 10:52am PDT

On the surface, Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world, might appear to be a formidable force in global finance. It owns more than $100 billion in U.S. Treasury bills, mostly held at Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment bank formerly led by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. But a U.S. government seizure of bank accounts held in... On the surface, Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world, might appear to be a...

Photos via Getty Images; art by Mike Sullivan

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic AI Safety Group Takes Shape

By Leo Schwartz and Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 24, 2026 6:00am PDT

Photos via Getty Images; art by Mike Sullivan

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic AI Safety Group Takes Shape

By Leo Schwartz and Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 24, 2026 6:00am PDT

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing forward with a plan to create a new AI safety-focused standards body on their own, without government oversight, in hopes of launching it by the end of the year or early in 2027, according to people familiar with the matter. The three companies tentatively plan to name the self-regulatory organization the... Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing forward with a plan to create a new AI safety-focused...

Photo by Matthias Balk/Getty Images

DeepSeek’s Annualized Revenue Hits $1 Billion as Startup Finalizes $7.5 Billion Fundraising

By Juro Osawa and Qianer Liu · Sep 23, 2026 11:20pm PDT

DeepSeek’s annualized revenue run rate has hit $1 billion, more than double the rate of a few months ago, buoyed by a recent price hike as well as continued popularity of its models, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The latest revenue figure, shared by CEO Liang Wenfeng in a recent meeting with investors, could boost... DeepSeek’s annualized revenue run rate has hit $1 billion, more than double the rate of a few...

Photo by Erin Beach

Google Nears Release of Flagship Gemini 4 AI Model

By Laura Bratton · Sep 23, 2026 7:15pm PDT

Google is nearing the release of its newest flagship model, Gemini 4, the head of its DeepMind division said Wednesday, a long-awaited development after the tech giant fell behind rivals Anthropic and OpenAI in the AI model race. Speaking at The Information’s AI Agenda Live Summit, in his first media appearance as the new leader of Google... Google is nearing the release of its newest flagship model, Gemini 4, the head of its DeepMind...

Joey Krug, partner at Founders Fund. Photo by Joseph Nair/Getty Images

Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures Visit China as Country’s AI Prowess Rises

By Julia Hornstein, Jing Yang, Juro Osawa and Rocket Drew · Sep 23, 2026 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

U.S. venture capitalists have slashed investments in Chinese startups in recent years as relations between the two superpowers have soured. But behind the scenes, plenty are taking weekslong trips to meet with the country’s tech founders—a sign of the influence Chinese startups like DeepSeek wield in the hottest parts of tech. Last month,... U.S. venture capitalists have slashed investments in Chinese startups in recent years as...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Anthropic in Talks for 1-Gigawatt Data Center Lease With Apollo-Backed Developer

By Valida Pau and Amir Efrati · Sep 22, 2026 7:21pm PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Anthropic in Talks for 1-Gigawatt Data Center Lease With Apollo-Backed Developer

By Valida Pau and Amir Efrati · Sep 22, 2026 7:21pm PDT

Anthropic is in early talks to lease up to 1 gigawatt in compute capacity from a data center developer majority-owned by Apollo Global Management, part of a major effort by the AI company to reduce its reliance on cloud providers. The maker of Claude has discussed signing on as a direct tenant of sites developed by Stream Data Centers, a... Anthropic is in early talks to lease up to 1 gigawatt in compute capacity from a data center...

Art by Shutterstock; Mike Sullivan

Wall Street’s GPU Futures Push Stalls at the CFTC

By Dakin Campbell · Sep 22, 2026 1:58pm PDT

The launch of futures for rental prices on Nvidia GPUs, which are seen as important to make AI compute an investable asset class, is hitting a snag. CME Group had hoped to launch contracts as soon as early October, but it won’t have regulatory approval by then. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates the futures market, is... The launch of futures for rental prices on Nvidia GPUs, which are seen as important to make AI...

Palmer Luckey photo via Getty Images; art by Mike Sullivan

Luckey’s Erebor Bank Plots Syria Expansion

By Michael Roddan · Sep 22, 2026 9:00am PDT

Erebor Bank, fresh from becoming a vital new financial bridge between the U.S. and Venezuela, is eyeing a new foreign foray: expanding into Syria. The bank, founded by Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey, has told staff and some investors it could help the war-torn Middle Eastern country reconnect to the global financial system,... Erebor Bank, fresh from becoming a vital new financial bridge between the U.S. and Venezuela, is...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Software Firms Discount AI to Keep Customers From Anthropic, OpenAI

By Laura Bratton, Aaron Holmes and Catherine Perloff · Sep 22, 2026 6:01am PDT

Software firms and cloud providers including Amazon, Microsoft, Figma and Workday are dangling new discounts on AI products to clients and consulting partners exhausted by shifts in pricing. The special offers come as customers get choosier about which tools they purchase after they increased budgets for products like Anthropic’s Claude Code and... Software firms and cloud providers including Amazon, Microsoft, Figma and Workday are dangling...

Art via Getty Images; Mike Sullivan

China Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Potential Data Leaks to Anthropic

By Qianer Liu and Jing Yang · Sep 22, 2026 4:18am PDT

Art via Getty Images; Mike Sullivan

China Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Potential Data Leaks to Anthropic

By Qianer Liu and Jing Yang · Sep 22, 2026 4:18am PDT

China’s internet regulator is investigating DeepSeek and Moonshot AI after Anthropic alleged both companies had been routing sensitive user data to Claude models, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In a 154-page report published on Sept. 10, Anthropic detailed how seven Chinese companies were using Claude illicitly on a widespread... China’s internet regulator is investigating DeepSeek and Moonshot AI after Anthropic alleged both...