The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

London-based Xapien, which uses AI for background checks and due diligence, raised a $56M Series B led by Spectrum Equity (Lucinda Shen/Axios) [57d]
Sources: the Pentagon is in talks to lend roughly $5B to neocloud Fluidstack; Fluidstack is being advised on its loan application by Palmer Luckey's Erebor Bank (Wall Street Journal) [57d]
Sources: Microsoft plans to expand its data center capacity from 12 GW today to 38+ GW by 2032, with about a third of the 38 GW centered on AI-specific chips (Bloomberg) [57d]
Adobe reports Q3 revenue up 13% YoY to $6.76B, vs. $6.7B est., AI-first annual recurring revenue up 150% YoY, and forecasts Q4 revenue slightly below estimates (Anzar Mehraj/Reuters) [57d]
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills restricting "addictive" social media features for under-16s and limiting minors' interactions with chatbots (Colin Lecher/CalMatters) [57d]
Oracle reports Q1 revenue up 30% YoY to $19.35B, vs. $19.14B est., cloud infrastructure revenue up 121% to $7.4B, vs. $7.09B est.; ORCL jumps 6%+ after hours (Jordan Novet/CNBC) [57d]
Sources: Altera is preparing to confidentially file for an IPO in the coming weeks; the offering could raise over $2B, with a listing as early as this year (Reuters) [57d]
ID verification service IDScan confirms that a data breach involved the theft of driver's licenses from its systems after hackers offered 153M licenses for sale (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch) [57d]
OpenAI says it will pause new $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscriptions amid "unprecedented" Astra demand; existing accounts, other plans, and API are unaffected (Tibo/@thsottiaux) [57d]
Universal Music Group partners with ElevenLabs to launch a new AI-powered platform that will let users create song remixes, mashups, and more from its catalog (Emma Roth/The Verge) [57d]
OpenAI unveils ChatGPT for Financial Services, a version of ChatGPT Work made with "design partners" Morgan Stanley and Evercore to research like an analyst (CNBC) [57d]
Anthropic details distillation efforts by Chinese companies, like Moonshot and DeepSeek, sending user queries to Claude via "transfer stations" outside China (Wall Street Journal) [57d]
Anthropic says it disrupted several potential plots this year by scientists using its models for research that could have helped develop biological weapons (Dustin Volz/New York Times) [57d]
Anthropic publishes a threat intelligence report on how it disrupted efforts to misuse Claude for cyberattacks, influence operations, surveillance, and more (Anthropic) [57d]
Sources: PIF is considering combining EA with Savvy Games to better coordinate its gaming assets, but not before Savvy closes its $6B Moonton acquisition (Bloomberg) [57d]
Interview with mathematician Tristan Buckmaster on being drawn into the OpenAI-Anthropic fight; OpenAI says it made progress on another Millennium Prize problem (Kenneth Chang/New York Times) [57d]
Sources: SpaceX shifts its data center strategy to redesign existing facilities and prioritize power and cooling redundancy, potentially slowing new build-outs (Grace Kay/The Information) [57d]
Maven Robotics, whose wheeled robots travel up to 10 mph and lift up to 30kg using two arms, emerges from stealth after raising $100M (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch) [57d]
TAR, which builds off-grid power systems for data centers, raised a $120M Series A led by Spark Capital at a ~$1B valuation (Mark Chediak/Bloomberg) [57d]
Positron, which is designing an AI processor called Asimov with a "memory-first architecture" and up to 2.3TB of memory, raised $875M at a $5B valuation (Robbie Whelan/Wall Street Journal) [57d]
Amazon partners with OpenAI to let users of Amazon's DSP run ads in ChatGPT in a pilot program limited to the US; ChatGPT Ads hit $1B in ARR last month (Peter Adams/Marketing Dive) [57d]
Mach Industries, which makes unmanned military vehicles and weapons, raised $600M in an extension to its $300M Series C, doubling its valuation to $3.7B (Julie Bort/TechCrunch) [58d]
Bending Spoons agrees to acquire Miro in an all-cash transaction valuing the workplace-collaboration platform at $1.36B (Sonia Sirletti/Bloomberg) [58d]