The Information

The Ant Group station at a conference in Shanghai. Getty Images.

Ant Builds a Mobile Payment Network as an Alternative to Visa, Mastercard

By Jing Yang · Jan 7, 2026 6:00am PST

Five years after the Chinese government quashed Ant Group’s plans for what would have been the world’s largest initial public offering, the Chinese fintech giant has built a fast-growing international business. That offshoot runs a global payment network for digital wallets that could one day be a formidable alternative to Visa or Mastercard. ... Five years after the Chinese government quashed Ant Group’s plans for what would have been the...

Anastasios Angelopoulos, co-founder of LMArena.

AI Evaluation Startup LMArena Valued at $1.7 Billion in New Funding Round

By Katie Roof and Rocket Drew · Jan 6, 2026 6:59am PST · 2 comments

LMArena, a startup that operates a widely cited ranking of AI models based on their performance, has raised $150 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion, including the new money, according to the company. That’s nearly triple the valuation of its seed funding round, announced in May 2025. The funding round, co-led by existing investors... LMArena, a startup that operates a widely cited ranking of AI models based on their...

Julian Stratenschulte/Picture Alliance/Getty Images.

Amazon Tries to Move Beyond AI Basics

By Catherine Perloff · Jan 6, 2026 6:00am PST

After nearly three years of building its own version of cutting-edge large language models, Amazon has come up with models that offer a reliable, cheap alternative to the flashiest ones made by rivals but don’t fully replace them. That’s true even in Amazon’s own products: Amazon’s Rufus shopping assistant uses a mix of its in-house Nova models... After nearly three years of building its own version of cutting-edge large language models,...

Art by Clark Miller

Nvidia’s Big Ambitions to Solve Manufacturing Shows Slow Returns So Far

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Jan 5, 2026 6:00am PST · 3 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Nvidia’s Big Ambitions to Solve Manufacturing Shows Slow Returns So Far

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Jan 5, 2026 6:00am PST · 3 comments

In the past two years, Nvidia’s business of selling chips for AI has rocketed into the stratosphere, lifting the company’s revenue to nearly $148 billion in the nine months through October, up from $27.5 billion for the same period in 2023. But CEO Jensen Huang isn’t satisfied. Perpetually worried about threats to his business, Huang has been... In the past two years, Nvidia’s business of selling chips for AI has rocketed into the...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo via YouTube/OpenAI

OpenAI Ramps Up Audio AI Efforts Ahead of Device

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jan 1, 2026 7:00am PST · 2 comments

OpenAI is taking steps to improve its audio AI models, in preparation for its eventual release of an AI-powered personal device, said a person with knowledge of the effort. The device is expected to be largely audio-based, said three people with knowledge of it. When people speak to ChatGPT, the chatbot can talk back but the large language model... OpenAI is taking steps to improve its audio AI models, in preparation for its eventual release of...

Getty Images.

Uber Considers Deal for Parking App SpotHero

By Valida Pau and Cory Weinberg · Dec 31, 2025 7:58am PST · 1 comment

Uber has been in talks to acquire parking app SpotHero, a popular service that allows drivers to reserve parking spaces, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Founded in 2011, SpotHero connects drivers looking to reserve and pay for parking spaces with parking lots, parking garages and valet services. SpotHero raised more than... Uber has been in talks to acquire parking app SpotHero, a popular service that allows drivers to...

Sikander Rashid, Brookfield Asset Management's global head of AI infrastructure. Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Brookfield to Start Cloud Business to Lower Cost of AI

By Miles Kruppa · Dec 31, 2025 6:00am PST

Private-equity firm Brookfield is starting its own cloud business, going up against tech giants like Amazon by arguing it can bring down the costs of developing AI. The firm, which has long invested in infrastructure and energy, is becoming the first major investment firm to try to lease chips inside data centers directly to developers, rather... Private-equity firm Brookfield is starting its own cloud business, going up against tech giants...

Art by Clark Miller

Elon Musk’s xAI Buys Building for Third Supersized Data Center

By Theo Wayt · Dec 30, 2025 10:56am PST · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller

Elon Musk’s xAI Buys Building for Third Supersized Data Center

By Theo Wayt · Dec 30, 2025 10:56am PST · 1 comment

Elon Musk’s xAI has bought a building for a third supersized data center it’s planning outside Memphis, Tennessee, in pursuit of the company’s goal of getting 1 million chips online to power its artificial intelligence models, according to property records and a person with direct knowledge of the project. The expansion plan shows xAI is... Elon Musk’s xAI has bought a building for a third supersized data center it’s planning outside...

Federico Parra/Getty Images

Stablecoin Startups Spark Trouble for JPMorgan

By Michael Roddan and Yueqi Yang · Dec 26, 2025 6:00am PST

JPMorgan Chase in recent months has frozen accounts used by at least two fast-growing stablecoin startups, highlighting the risk that cryptocurrency transactions pose for banks, which are required to know the people they do business with and the source of their cash. The stablecoin startups did business in Venezuela and other places that posed... JPMorgan Chase in recent months has frozen accounts used by at least two fast-growing stablecoin...

Art by Clark Miller.

OpenAI’s Ads Push Starts Taking Shape

By Sri Muppidi and Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 24, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

OpenAI executives have kept a tight lid on how the company could show advertisements to users of its popular ChatGPT chatbot, leaving the broader digital ad industry eager for clues. Behind the scenes, staff are working through key details. Employees have discussed ways for AI models to prioritize sponsored information in ChatGPT’s responses... OpenAI executives have kept a tight lid on how the company could show advertisements to users of...

Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Snowflake in Talks to Buy App Monitoring Startup Observe Inc. For Around $1 Billion

By Valida Pau, Kevin McLaughlin and Katie Roof · Dec 23, 2025 4:12pm PST

Snowflake is in talks to buy app monitoring startup Observe Inc. for around $1 billion, which would likely be the biggest deal in Snowflake’s history, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Observe, based in San Mateo, Calif., sells so-called observability tools that help developers to understand how their applications are... Snowflake is in talks to buy app monitoring startup Observe Inc. for around $1 billion, which...

Photo by An Rong Xu/Getty Images

Nvidia Restructures Cloud Team After Retreating From AWS Competition

By Anissa Gardizy and Wayne Ma · Dec 22, 2025 12:40pm PST · 1 comment

Photo by An Rong Xu/Getty Images

Nvidia Restructures Cloud Team After Retreating From AWS Competition

By Anissa Gardizy and Wayne Ma · Dec 22, 2025 12:40pm PST · 1 comment

More than two years after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared his vision to develop a cloud service that could rival Amazon Web Services, he has backed away from competing with such firms and last week reorganized his company’s cloud team, according to several people with knowledge of the organizational change and an internal memo about it. The... More than two years after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared his vision to develop a cloud service...

Art by Mike Sullivan/Getty Images

Microsoft’s Nadella Pressures Deputies to Accelerate Copilot Improvements

By Aaron Holmes, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Dec 22, 2025 6:00am PST · 4 comments

A few weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email to engineering leaders at the company who were working on a consumer version of Copilot, the AI-powered assistant inside several Microsoft products. A Microsoft manager on the email thread noted that Google’s Gemini chatbot had recently gotten better at connecting with Google Drive for... A few weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email to engineering leaders at the company...

Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Salesforce Executives Say Trust in Large Language Models Has Declined

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 19, 2025 7:54am PST · 6 comments

Over the past year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has touted his company’s main AI product, Agentforce, as a money saver for businesses looking to automate work using the power of large language models. More recently, though, Salesforce executives have delivered a different message to customers: Agentforce sometimes works better when it doesn’t... Over the past year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has touted his company’s main AI product,...

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Photo by Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images

Inside the Balancing Act Over Google’s Compute Crunch

By Erin Woo · Dec 19, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Earlier this year, Google convened a group of its top executives to address what some staffers see as an existential problem: the company doesn’t have enough computer chips for everyone who wants them. A shortage of computing capacity was creating internal tensions, as leaders of Google’s varied product areas struggled to agree on where Google... Earlier this year, Google convened a group of its top executives to address what some staffers...

OpenAI executives Fidji Simo, Sam Altman and Mark Chen. Images via Getty. Art by Clark Miller.

How OpenAI’s Organizational Problems Hurt ChatGPT

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Sri Muppidi and Amir Efrati · Dec 18, 2025 6:00am PST · 8 comments

OpenAI executives Fidji Simo, Sam Altman and Mark Chen. Images via Getty. Art by Clark Miller.

How OpenAI’s Organizational Problems Hurt ChatGPT

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Sri Muppidi and Amir Efrati · Dec 18, 2025 6:00am PST · 8 comments

Over the past year, some OpenAI staffers noticed a concerning change in the way people who used ChatGPT were reacting to improvements in the chatbot. In prior years, every time OpenAI made a big upgrade to the artificial intelligence that powers the chatbot, usage surged as people easily found ways to get useful responses out of it, one employee... Over the past year, some OpenAI staffers noticed a concerning change in the way people who used...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Art by Clark Miller; Getty Images.

OpenAI Has Discussed Raising Tens of Billions at Valuation Around $750 Billion

By Sri Muppidi and Katie Roof · Dec 17, 2025 4:15pm PST · 11 comments

OpenAI has held preliminary discussions with some investors about raising new funding at a valuation of around $750 billion, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. It could raise tens of billions of dollars, and as much as $100 billion, according to two of the people. Talks are early and nothing has been finalized. A... OpenAI has held preliminary discussions with some investors about raising new funding at a...

Sam Altman. Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/ Getty Images

OpenAI, Anthropic Discuss Data Deals With Biotech and Other Companies

By Valida Pau and Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 17, 2025 6:30am PST

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have been on the prowl for specialized data to train their AI models, discussing deals with startups and public companies to license datasets on topics such as genomics. In the last several months, for instance, staff at OpenAI spoke to life sciences diagnostics vendor Revvity, accounting software firm Xero and... OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have been on the prowl for specialized data to train their AI...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Banks Pitching Mega IPOs Like SpaceX Seek to Limit Mass Selling

By Cory Weinberg and Valida Pau · Dec 17, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Wall Street is gearing up for three potentially record-setting initial public offerings over the next 18 months. The talk among bankers is not about what SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI will do on their big days but about what happens after that, when the companies’ existing shareholders try to unload their multibillion-dollar stakes. Each of the... Wall Street is gearing up for three potentially record-setting initial public offerings over the...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, left and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy via Getty. Collage by Clark Miller.

OpenAI in Talks to Raise At Least $10 Billion From Amazon and Use Its AI Chips

By Anissa Gardizy, Sri Muppidi, Cory Weinberg and Amir Efrati · Dec 16, 2025 6:19pm PST · 1 comment

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, left and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy via Getty. Collage by Clark Miller.

OpenAI in Talks to Raise At Least $10 Billion From Amazon and Use Its AI Chips

By Anissa Gardizy, Sri Muppidi, Cory Weinberg and Amir Efrati · Dec 16, 2025 6:19pm PST · 1 comment

Amazon is in talks to invest $10 billion or more in OpenAI, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The valuation would be higher than $500 billion, one of the people said. The Amazon investment would help OpenAI afford some of the commitments it has made to rent servers from cloud providers, including from Amazon Web Services.... Amazon is in talks to invest $10 billion or more in OpenAI, according to three people familiar...