Stargate

Good morning,

Here are the most important things that happened this week in tech…

Top 5 hits

• Microsoft and OpenAI execs are planning to build a US-based data center containing a supercomputer that’s made up of millions of AI chips called ‘Stargate’ that would cost up to $100B.

• Apple, Google, and Meta were probed by the EU under the Digital Market Act for their supposed monopoly. Violations risk fines of up to 10% of worldwide sales; 20% for repeat infringements, or companies can be broken up.

• Amazon has invested another $2.75B in AI startup Anthropic. It’s invested a total of $4B in the startup over the last 6 months. It’s the largest outside investment in Amazon’s history.

• Robinhood, eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for $95 million, launches a new gold credit card to go after Apple Card. JP Morgan Chase allowed it to increase its borrowing capacity to $2.25B with an additional increase of $1.125B (under certain conditions) to fund this.

• Google hints that Apple is set to roll out Rich Communication Services (RCS) support for iPhones this fall in the upcoming iOS 18 update.

Other news

• The first batch of Humane’s AI Pins started leaving the factory this week.

• Snap tells employees they have 60 days to either come back to the office or leave the company. It’s also rescinding many remote-work exceptions.

• AT&T has reset millions of customer account passcodes after a huge cache of data containing AT&T customer records was dumped online earlier this month.

• Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and former CEO of FTX is sentenced to 25 years in prison by Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan.

• Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer releases a new photo-sharing app called Shine and the design looks like it’s from the Stone Age.

• Google is rolling out an update to its Search Generative Experience (SGE) that will let you use AI to build travel itineraries for your vacations.

• Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon traffic in an initiative called “Project Ghostbusters” back in 2016.

• Government-backed nonprofit organization Mitre opens a lab to test the US Government’s artificial intelligence to discover and fix security flaws.

• Adam Neumann makes a $500M bid for WeWork that could reach $900M if financing and diligence firm up.

• FTX will sell two-thirds of its 8% stake in AI startup Anthropic in a series of sales worth $884M; Mubadala unit ATIC Third International Investment will buy ~$500M worth of shares alongside Jane Street, Fidelity Management and Research, VC HOF Capital and 20 other buyers

• OpenAI heads to Hollywood to pitch its revolutionary text-to-video generator Sora.

• EV startup Fisker trading is suspended on the NYSE and will be taken off the stock exchange. This comes after it spent more than 30 days trading below $1.

• Maju Kuruvilla is out as CEO of the one-click checkout startup Bolt.

• Instagram and Threads will stop recommending political content from accounts users don’t follow.

• Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and other top execs step down amid its ongoing safety crises.

• Dating giant Match Group adds Instacart’s CMO Laura Jones and Zillow’s cofounder and former CEO Spencer Rascoff to its board.

Deal flow

• Scale AI is in talks with Accel Ventures to raise a new funding round expected to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal that would boost the startup’s valuation by 80% to $13B.

• Hume AI raises a $50M Series B round and launches the world’s first Empathic Voice Interface, enabling developers to integrate an emotionally intelligent AI voice into different vertical applications.

• Former Nextdoor exec raises $25M for PipeDream, a startup rolling up HVAC companies.

• Celestial AI raises $175M Series C round led by Innovative Technology Fund to build out its Photonic Fabric optical interconnect platform.

• Data observability platform Observe raises a $115M Series B that values the company between $400M–$500M.

• Nourish, a New York-based telenutrition platform, raises a $35M Series A round led by Index Ventures. It’s looking to expand access to personalized nutrition care and this new funding round will go toward expanding its network of registered dietitians.

• NewRetirement raises $20M Series A to transform financial planning for consumers and enterprises.

• Gather AI raises $17M to grow its computer vision and AI-powered warehouse inventory monitoring solutions.

• Lucid Motors, the struggling luxury EV maker, gets a $1B lifeline from its majority stockholder, Ayar Third Investment Company. Ayar is purchasing $1B of a newly created series of convertible preferred stock via private placement.

• Goalsetter secures $9.6M in Series A extension funding to help American families learn to save, spend, invest, and build wealth.

• Cash back rewards app Ibotta files to go public in a $100M stock offering. American shoppers have earned a total of $1.8B back through it.

• Consumer banking startup Chime plans to IPO in 2025. It was last valued at $25B in 2021.

• Nvidia-backed CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider, is in talks to raise funding at a $16B valuation

• Bankrupt commercial EV startup Arrival has sold some of its assets, including advanced manufacturing equipment to Canoo, another struggling startup trying to build and sell electric vehicles.

• Eliyan raises $60M in Series B funding for its chiplet interconnect technology that speeds up the processing for AI chips.

Interesting gems

• Zuck posts a picture with Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang where they swap jackets.

• Apple’s SVP Greg “Joz” Joswiak posted on X announcing the company’s World Wide Developer Conference is set for June 10–14. This is no doubt a nod to its AI ambitions, Joswiak promises the event is going to be “Absolutely Incredible!”

• Tesla produced its 6 millionth car and posted a quick video about it on X.

• A product designer at Instagram redesigns Marissa Mayer’s new photo-sharing app to feel more modern (and utilize IG’s UI components).

• Webflow employee creates a beautiful art book that tells and illustrates the story of Google’s first 25 years.

Was this forwarded to you?

That’s it for this week. Let me know what you think!

🌜 Loryn from Dark Mode Digest