Business — page 32
Google DeepMind signs national AI partnership with the Republic of Korea
The deal makes South Korea one of the first governments to formalize a country-level collaboration with DeepMind on AI research and adoption.
Cohere absorbs Aleph Alpha with €500M backing from Lidl owner Schwarz Group
The Canadian-German tie-up targets a $20B valuation and pitches sovereign AI to European enterprises wary of US providers.
John Ternus inherits a $4T Apple with a hardware-first AI mandate
The longtime hardware chief takes over from Tim Cook later this year as Apple weighs foldables, smart glasses, and home robotics.
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 lands TechCrunch as media partner with a Disrupt fast-track
The April 27–29 event at Tokyo Big Sight will send one SusHi Tech Challenge winner to Disrupt's Startup Battlefield 200 in San Francisco.
Google pledges up to $40B to Anthropic as compute crunch deepens
The deal lands days after Amazon's $5B injection and values Anthropic at $350B, with both investors tying further capital to performance targets.
ComfyUI raises $30M at $500M valuation as creators reject prompt-only tools
Craft Ventures led the round for the node-based workflow tool, which now claims more than 4 million users across visual effects, animation, and ad work.
Thinking Machines Lab raids Meta for talent as it lands Google Cloud deal
Weiyao Wang, an 8-year Meta veteran, is the latest researcher to defect to the $12B startup, which now counts roughly 140 employees.
Anthropic puts $100M into Claude Partner Network as Accenture trains 30,000 staff
The program adds a technical certification, dedicated engineers, and co-marketing dollars for Accenture, Deloitte, Cognizant and Infosys.
OpenAI Taps Infosys to Carry ChatGPT and Codex Into 60-Plus Markets
The partnership routes OpenAI's enterprise tools through Infosys's Topaz platform, opening fortune-tier accounts where Microsoft's Azure channel does not always prevail.
Neocognition Exits Stealth With $40M to Build Self-Specializing AI Agents
The Ohio State-linked research lab wants agents that learn new domains on their own, backed by Intel's CEO and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica.
10xScience Raises $4.8M to Attack Drug Candidate Triage Bottleneck
The Stanford spinout from Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi's lab is building AI tools to sort through thousands of drug candidates faster than mass spectrometry.
Anthropic and Amazon expand pact for up to 5GW of compute and $25B more investment
Anthropic commits over $100B to AWS over ten years as Amazon pours another $5B in, with up to $20B to follow.
Anthropic commits to keeping Claude ad-free, rejects the search and social playbook
The company says advertising incentives conflict with being genuinely helpful, and will stick to enterprise contracts and subscriptions for revenue.
Anthropic and NEC deploy Claude to 30,000 employees to build Japan's largest AI engineering team
NEC becomes Anthropic's first Japan-based global partner, rolling Claude Code and Claude Cowork across its workforce and customer products.
Anthropic expands Google and Broadcom pact for multi-gigawatt TPUs as revenue hits $30B
Anthropic's run-rate revenue more than tripled from $9B at the end of 2025 to over $30B, driving its largest compute commitment yet.
Anthropic signs AI safety MOU with Australia, pledges AUD$3M in Claude credits
Dario Amodei met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra to formalize safety cooperation and fund research partnerships at four Australian institutions.
Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust appoints Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan to board
The appointment gives Trust-selected directors a majority of Anthropic's seven-person board as the company scales its public benefit governance.
Google's AI Strategy Shifts Industry Landscape
Google unveils new TPU chips, Chrome AI coworker features, and a multi-billion dollar compute deal at Cloud Next conference.
Trump signals Anthropic-Pentagon deal is back on the table
Seven weeks after labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk, the White House says talks are 'productive' following a Dario Amodei visit.
OpenAI buys TBPN, its first media acquisition
A nine-figure deal for Silicon Valley's buzziest talk show signals that AI giants now want to own the narrative, not just power it.
Anthropic passes OpenAI in revenue at $30B ARR
The Claude maker hit its run-rate while spending roughly a quarter of what its rival spends on training. OpenAI investors are nervous.
Startup funding shatters every record at $300B in Q1
Four of the five largest venture rounds in history closed in a single quarter. AI captured 80% of the capital.
OpenAI acquires Hiro, a consumer finance AI startup
A second 2026 acquisition — OpenAI is moving from model provider to vertical operator.
Shield AI raises $1.5B at a $12.7B valuation
The defense-autonomy company closes a Series G inside a broader $2.25B capital package, the largest pure-play autonomy round to date.
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