Insights

Nscale committed $3.5 billion to Figure AI, taking an equity stake as the humanoid robotics company plans a massive supercomputer to train its robots.

Source: mikekalil.com

Nscale and humanoid robotics firm Figure AI signed a strategic partnership worth about $3.5 billion covering up to 100,000 GPUs on NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform, with Nscale also taking an equity stake in Figure.

Source: Figure

Job postings show Anthropic is evaluating building billing, fraud detection and other payments infrastructure in-house rather than relying on outside providers like Stripe, as token-based pricing complicates collections.

Source: The Information

Revolut has received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter, a major step toward launching full banking services in the US, with stablecoin plans flagged for 2027.

Source: Reuters

Oura appointed four new directors, including veterans of Netflix and Robinhood, strengthening its board and governance as it moves closer to a public listing.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Canva announced more than 100 upgrades to its Visual Suite, deepening its bet on productivity tools beyond design. Coverage notes the productivity push is gaining traction, particularly on mobile in Southeast Asia.

Source: Morningstar

Nvidia has agreed to buy AI model platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, the latest step by the chip giant to use its financial heft to exert greater control in the AI ecosystem.Nvidia’s announcement confirms The Information’s report last week that Nvidia and Hugging Face had agreed to a deal for $12.9 billion. The acquisition of Hugging Face puts Nvidia in charge of a key distribution channel for millions of models in the race among open-source model developers to catch up to closed-source AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI.Hugging Face will remain an open platform, Nvidia said in a press release. Nvidia is paying $11.9 billion and setting up a $1 billion equity retention program for Hugging Face employees who join Nvidia, according to a securities filing.

Source: TheInformation

Thinking Machines, the AI lab founded early last year by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is in discussions to raise $1 billion at a valuation of at least $40 billion, The Information reported Thursday. Existing backer Accel is in talks to lead the fundraise, according to our source and The Information’s reporting.The new round, if it is completed, would value the company below the $50 billion valuation that Thinking Machines reportedly sought to secure late last year.Thinking Machines’ annual revenue run rate stands at over $100 million, according to a source with knowledge of the company’s financials. At that revenue figure, a $40 billion valuation reflects an extraordinarily high revenue multiple.

Source: TechCrunch

Broadcom guided to roughly $230 billion in AI revenue by 2028, with analysts attributing the bonanza largely to custom chip demand from OpenAI and Anthropic, while flagging unresolved concentration risks.

Source: Yahoo Finance

ElevenLabs is moving to establish local data residency in South Korea as part of a push to attract enterprise voice AI clients with compliance requirements.

Source: 디지털투데이

Waymo is tapping Pimco and Blackstone to raise about $3 billion in its first-ever debt deal, providing fresh capital to fund robotaxi fleet and infrastructure expansion.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Anthropic launched prebuilt AI agent blueprints aimed at retailers, targeting shopping, customer service and merchandising workflows before the holiday shopping rush.

Source: Reuters

ClickHouse has acquired security analytics startup RunReveal, adding security data analytics capabilities to its real-time analytics database platform.

Source: ChannelLife Australia

Sierra Space announced it has secured national security and commercial payload contracts to fly on the inaugural mission of its Dream Chaser spaceplane.

Source: SpaceNews

Nscale said its contracted revenue has roughly doubled to about $103 billion following the Anthropic compute deal, a figure disclosed as the company weighs a potential IPO.

Source: The Information

Starcloud's founders outlined a $15 million mission concept targeting Alpha Centauri, extending the startup's ambitions beyond orbital data centers.

Source: SpaceNews

Rippling is highlighted as using Databricks' Genie to drive an AI-powered go-to-market motion, applying conversational analytics to its sales and marketing data.

Source: Databricks

Stripe has acquired Clerky, an online legal services firm specializing in startup incorporation and formation paperwork. The deal expands Stripe's Atlas-adjacent offering into legal tech for founders.

Source: Artificial Lawyer

Anthropic has agreed to a roughly $35 billion cloud computing contract with Nvidia-backed AI cloud provider Lambda, a landmark deal for the neocloud ahead of its expected IPO.

Source: Reuters

Blue Origin has been selected for a Mars relay/communications network contract, with its infrastructure plan cited as a key factor in the award.

Source: Investing.com