The Information: Sources: ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming told employees at an all-hands last month that the company will not use model distillation to accelerate capabilities — ByteDance won't resort to distillation as a shortcut to advancing its AI model capabilities, even if that means …
Qianer Liu / The Information: Sources: TSMC is developing advanced AI chip packaging tech, internally called “EMIB-like”, similar to Intel's Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge technique — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is developing an advanced chip-packaging technology similar to what Intel already offers …
The Information: Source: OpenRouter was recently generating ~$140M in annualized revenue, or ~$12M per month, up nearly 3x since April, making Stripe's $10B offer a big premium — If Stripe ends up buying three-year-old startup OpenRouter for close to $10 billion, the payments firm would be paying …
The Information: Sources: Moonshot is seeking access to more Nvidia Blackwell chips to prepare for Kimi K4's development, after training K3 on Nvidia chips, including Blackwell — Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI, flush from the breakout success of its recently released model, Kimi K3 …
The Information: Sources: A Chinese state-backed company has begun manufacturing DUV machines, a key step in Beijing's drive to reduce its reliance on foreign chipmaking tech — A Chinese state-backed company has begun manufacturing one of the key pieces of equipment used in chip manufacturing for the first time …
Aaron Holmes / The Information: Palo Alto Networks says Mythos found 24+ critical bugs, burning $1M+ of tokens, subsidized by Anthropic; some companies say they plan to boost Mythos spending — When Palo Alto Networks earlier this year began testing Anthropic's Claude Mythos to comb through its own source code, it didn't take long to see the future of cybersecurity.
Jyoti Mann / The Information: Internal memo: Meta plans to start testing an AI pendant in 2027, release new AI glasses next month, start a “Wearables for Work” unit for enterprises, and more — Meta Platforms plans to start testing an AI pendant in the next year as part of an ambitious roadmap …
The Information: Sources: ByteDance has partnered with chipmaker InnoStar to develop an AI inference chip modeled after Groq's LPUs, which are built to run AI models at low cost — TikTok owner ByteDance is developing a new chip to run artificial intelligence models as part of an aggressive expansion of its homegrown AI infrastructure.
Aaron Tilley / The Information: Sources: at WWDC, Apple is likely to showcase how 15 years of designing chips gives it an advantage in running AI locally, and will use a distilled Gemini model — At Apple's annual developer conference next month, the star of the show will be a series of long-delayed artificial intelligence upgrades to the iPhone.
Michael Roddan / The Information: Polymarket is making it harder to use VPNs to access its service, blocking some IPs and suspicious accounts, and is asking some customers to identify themselves — In Russia, making bets on Polymarket isn't permitted by the popular online prediction market's rules.
The Information: Sources: Anthropic is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed chips; source: Anthropic has steadily increased its Azure usage since November 2025 — Anthropic is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed AI server chips as it seeks more computing power …
Cory Weinberg / The Information: OpenAI stands to hold ~$2.6B in combined CoreWeave and Cerebras stock that it acquired by committing to buy cloud services and chips, and to lend Cerebras money — Chipmaker Cerebras brought in one of the greatest pitchmen in tech, Sam Altman, to appear in a video to promote its $5.5 billion initial public offering.
The Information: Sources: Kuaishou plans to spin off its Kling AI video unit for an IPO in 2027 and is seeking a $20B valuation in pre-IPO funding talks with potential investors — Chinese social media giant Kuaishou Technology is planning to spin off its Kling AI video business ahead of an initial public offering next year …
The Information: Source: Mistral AI and TML's founding member Devendra Chaplot, who was considered a marquee hire when he joined xAI in March, exited xAI after roughly a month — Cursor is already starting to make its presence known at SpaceX's AI unit, just weeks after Elon Musk's firm got an option to buy the coding startup for $60 billion.
The Information: Sources: DeepSeek seeks to raise ~$7.3B in its first-ever funding round at a $50B+ valuation, with CEO Liang Wenfeng making a personal investment of ~$2.9B — Liang Wenfeng, billionaire founder and CEO of DeepSeek, is planning to write the biggest check for the startup's first-ever funding round …
Juro Osawa / The Information: Sources and memos: Tencent employees used Claude Code to assist them with evaluating and fine-tuning the company's new Hy3 model to improve its performance — Chinese tech giant Tencent's latest AI model has generated positive reviews from developers. But the company probably owes some of that success to Anthropic.
The Information: OpenView: by 2025's end, 79 of 500 tracked software companies, like HubSpot, Adobe, and Salesforce, adopted usage-based AI fees, more than double that of 2024 — Dozens of enterprise software firms have shifted away from charging customers flat, per-user subscription fees as AI threatens their seat-based pricing model.
Eli Rosenberg / The Information: 33% of S&P 500 companies provided security perks for execs in 2025: Jensen Huang's security cost rose from $690K in 2023 to $3.5M in 2025, Zuckerberg spent $22M — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cuts a distinctive image, habitually clad in one of his many leather jackets.
The Information: Sources: Cursor hit $2.7B in annualized sales in March, up ~14x from a year ago, and reported a ~$900M loss in its last fiscal year on $770M in total revenue — Weeks before Cursor agreed to a $60 billion potential takeover from SpaceX, the hot AI coding startup set out to raise billions of dollars.
The Information: Sources: Tencent and Alibaba are in talks to invest in DeepSeek at a $20B+ valuation, partly benchmarked against Moonshot's pending round at an $18B valuation — Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group are in talks to invest in DeepSeek, the AI upstart that recently started fundraising …
The Information: Draft of SpaceX's confidential IPO prospectus: Elon Musk increased his stake in SpaceX last year by purchasing $1.4B of stock from current and former employees — Elon Musk increased his stake in SpaceX last year by purchasing $1.4 billion of stock from current and former employees …
Erin Woo / The Information: Sources: Google has created strike team to improve its coding models; Sergey Brin told DeepMind staffers that they must aggressively pivot to catch up on agents — Google has assembled a strike team of researchers and engineers to improve its AI coding models, according to three people …
The Information: Sources: Polymarket is in talks to raise $400M at a ~$15B post-money valuation, up from $9B in October 2025, but below Kalshi's $22B valuation from March 2026 — The predictions site Polymarket is talking to investors about raising $400 million in funding at a valuation of about $15 billion including …
Qianer Liu / The Information: Sources: Google is in talks with Marvell Technology to develop a memory processing unit that works alongside TPUs, and a new TPU for running AI models — Google is in talks with Marvell Technology to develop two new chips aimed at running AI models more efficiently, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions.
Abram Brown / The Information: A look at Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis, an AI newsletter and research firm that expects $100M+ in 2026 revenue from subscriptions and AI supply chain research — For Dylan Patel, founder of SemiAnalysis, an influential AI industry newsletter and research firm, Nvidia deserves the kind …
Erin Woo / The Information: Sources: Google is negotiating a deal with the US DOD that would let the Pentagon deploy Gemini AI models in classified settings, reversing its previous stance — Google is negotiating an agreement with the Department of Defense that would allow the Pentagon to deploy Google's Gemini AI models …
Michael Roddan / The Information: Polymarket is auditing its Builders Program, which gives up to $2.5M in grants, after concerns that some participating startups are facilitating insider trading — Polymarket was already under pressure to curb insider trading when it launched a program late last year to support startups that sent trades to its prediction market.
Aaron Holmes / The Information: Microsoft says it is “exploring the potential of technologies like OpenClaw in an enterprise context”, including a team of always-on agents within Microsoft 365 — As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing new features …
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Chapter, which uses AI to help seniors enroll in Medicare, raised a $100M Series E, doubling its valuation to $3B and bringing its total funding to $285M — Meta Platforms' Wednesday release of Spark, the first model in its broader Muse model family, doesn't blow other frontier models out of the water …
Sri Muppidi / The Information: Documents: OpenAI expects ads to generate ~$2.4B in revenue in 2026, ~$11B in 2027, and ~$102B in 2030, or 36% of its total revenue for 2030 — OpenAI's advertising effort is so new that the company is still working out the kinks in it. That hasn't stopped it from setting ambitious aims for the business …
The Information: Sources: Sam Altman has excluded OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar from some key financial meetings; Friar began reporting to Fidji Simo instead of the CEO in August 2025 — Sam Altman has committed OpenAI to spend $600 billion in the next five years and privately said he wants to go public as soon …
Katie Roof / The Information: Sources: Supabase is in talks to raise ~$500M at a ~$10B valuation, roughly doubling its October 2025 valuation; GIC is expected to lead the funding round — Singapore's GIC is in talks to lead an investment in database startup Supabase at a valuation of about $10 billion …
The Information: Source: Anthropic has acquired Coefficient Bio, which was developing a platform that enables AI to run biotech tasks such as planning drug research, for ~$400M — Anthropic has acquired AI biotech startup Coefficient Bio for roughly $400 million, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Sources detail Fidji Simo's moves at OpenAI, including spearheading the TBPN acquisition and pushing OpenAI to cut Sora and avoid other social media products — In recent weeks, Fidji Simo has burst into public view as the OpenAI executive bringing much-needed discipline to the AI startup …
Catherine Perloff / The Information: Sources: advertisers that bought ChatGPT's first ad campaigns say the process was low tech and that they haven't received much data showing if their ads worked — As OpenAI prepares to open up ad sales to more marketers next month, it is trying to address what some advertisers say was lacking in the initial ad sales offering.
Aaron Tilley / The Information: CEO of Halide-maker Lux Optics, Ben Sandofsky, sues his co-founder Sebastiaan de With, now on Apple's design team, alleging improper use of funds and stolen IP — Last summer, Apple held talks to acquire Lux Optics, a tiny startup that makes Halide, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed camera apps in the App Store.
The Information: Sources: Apple stops vibe coding apps from pushing updates, citing rules on running code; Replit thinks Apple may approve opening AI-generated apps in a browser — Apple has quietly prevented AI vibe coding apps such as Replit and Vibecode, which help people create games and other applications …
The Information: Sources: ByteDance suspended the global launch of Seedance 2.0 amid copyright disputes with Hollywood studios and streamers; it was launched in China last month — ByteDance has put on hold the global launch of its latest video-generation model, Seedance 2., due to a string of copyright disputes …
The Information: Sources: Tencent is developing a top-secret AI agent for WeChat, and has tested using models from Zhipu, Alibaba, and DeepSeek, to compete with Qwen and Doubao — Tencent Holdings is secretly building a new AI agent for its hugely popular WeChat messaging app, in hopes of leapfrogging rivals …
Cory Weinberg / The Information: Financial figures shared with prospective investors: Anduril expects its revenue to grow 100% in 2026 to ~$4.3B, and its operating loss to rise by ~50% to $1.2B — Weapons maker Anduril expects to roughly double revenue this year to about $4.3 billion, while its operating loss would rise …
The Information: Sources: online DTC luxury brand Quince is in talks to raise funding at a $10B+ valuation, up from $4.5B in July; its annualized revenue run rate has hit ~$2B — Online retailer Quince is in talks with investors to raise a funding round that would value the company at above $10 billion after the investment …
Anissa Gardizy / The Information: How OpenAI scrambled for compute as Stargate stalled amid clashes with SoftBank; sources say OpenAI building its own data centers is not its near-term priority — When President Donald Trump announced the $500 billion Stargate AI data center project in January 2025, the three companies charged …
The Information: Sources: Grafana Labs, which makes cloud and AI monitoring tools, is in talks to raise at a $9B valuation, up from $6.6B in 2024; its ARR hit $400M in Sept. — Grafana Labs, a software startup that helps companies monitor cloud and AI activity and spending, is finalizing a new funding round …
Martin Peers / The Information: This year's projected capex ramp-up will all but wipe out free cash flow for Amazon, Google, and Meta, potentially forcing stock buyback cuts or more borrowing — Big tech's dramatic ramp-up in projected capital expenditures this year will all but wipe out free cash flow for Amazon, Google and Meta Platforms.
The Information: Sources: ByteDance and Alibaba both plan to release flagship AI models around China's mid-February Lunar New Year holiday, including ByteDance's Doubao 2.0 — The battle for AI dominance in China is reaching new heights. Tech giants ByteDance and Alibaba Group are both poised to release …
The Information: Source: OpenAI mulls new tools to help business users understand the financial benefits of using its products and has made changes to its sales force strategy — Some of OpenAI's most attention-grabbing efforts over the past year have involved products for consumers, from a social app …
The Information: Source: Greenoaks, one of Brex's top investors, will return twice its investment after Capital One's Brex acquisition for $5.15B in a half-cash, half-stock deal — Brex's $5.15 billion agreement to sell to Capital One isn't the kind of exit employees or investors would have dreamed of four years ago …
The Information: Sources: OpenAI begins offering its chatbot ads to dozens of advertisers, initially charging per ad view, not per ad click, and asks them for <$1M commitments — OpenAI has started offering its new chatbot ads to dozens of advertisers, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The Information: Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researchers quit via Slack during an all-hands — The timing couldn't have been more awkward for Thinking Machines Lab. — On Wednesday, during an all-hands meeting at the AI startup …
The Information: Source: Lambda, which rents access to AI chips and is backed by Nvidia, is in talks to raise $350M+ led by Mubadala Capital, ahead of an IPO planned for H2 2026 — Lambda, an upstart cloud provider that rents out Nvidia AI chips—and whose biggest customer was recently Nvidia itself …