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23 May 2026

Zoom's early Anthropic bet delivers $1 billion gain as AI startup eyes $900 billion valuation

Zoom Video Communications has turned a $51 million investment in AI startup Anthropic into a $1.27 billion stake, marking one of the most successful venture bets in recent tech history. The videoconferencing company's early backing of Anthropic in 2023 continues to appreciate as the AI firm prepares for another funding round that could value it at $900 billion.

2 Sources

22 May 2026

Universal Music Group and TikTok renew deal to combat unauthorized AI music on platform

Universal Music Group and TikTok have signed a multi-year strategic licensing agreement that commits both companies to removing unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform while improving artist attribution. The deal marks a significant shift after UMG pulled its catalog in 2024 over royalty disputes and AI concerns, now establishing a framework for how platforms handle AI music and intellectual property rights.

3 Sources

DeepSeek seeks $45 billion valuation while prioritizing AGI over short-term profits

DeepSeek is pursuing a $10 billion funding round that could value the AI startup at $45 billion, with founder Liang Wenfeng telling investors the company will focus on artificial general intelligence rather than commercialization. The Hangzhou-based startup continues to offer open-source AI models and a free chatbot despite generating limited revenue, setting it apart from global AI leaders focused on monetization.

2 Sources

Workday stock soars 10% as AI push drives earnings beat, but analysts warn of pricing pressures

Workday shares surged over 10% after reporting first-quarter earnings of $2.66 per share, beating Wall Street expectations. The software company credited strong demand for its agentic AI offerings, with over 4,000 customers now using AI agents. However, analysts warn that AI could compress Workday's traditional per-seat pricing model as companies reduce headcount through automation.

3 Sources

Zoom Communications raises annual forecasts, banking on AI features to drive enterprise demand

Zoom Communications exceeded first-quarter expectations with $1.24 billion in revenue and raised its full-year guidance, driven by strong adoption of AI features. The company's AI Companion paid users grew 184% year over year, while shares jumped 10.4% following the announcement. Analysts increased their price targets as Zoom positions itself as an AI-first platform for modern work.

2 Sources

Lenovo AI revenue surges 84% as company posts record earnings and targets $100 billion sales

Lenovo delivered its strongest quarter ever with $21.6 billion in Q4 revenue, beating estimates by $2.2 billion. AI revenue surged 84% year-over-year and now represents 38% of total sales, while net profit jumped 479% to $521 million. CEO Yuanqing Yang announced plans to reach $100 billion in annual revenue within two years, driven by booming demand for AI servers and Copilot+ devices.

4 Sources

Walmart's AI-native push delivers 26% e-commerce growth as Sparky users double

Walmart reported a 26% surge in global e-commerce growth, driven by its AI shopping assistant Sparky, which saw weekly active users jump over 100% in one quarter. CEO John Furner highlighted the company's shift to an AI-native approach, with improved fulfillment speeds reaching 36% of deliveries in under three hours. However, the retail giant cut 1,000 corporate employees to streamline its AI and technology operations.

2 Sources

Anthropic makes first acquisition, buying Fractional AI to accelerate enterprise deployment

Anthropic has acquired Fractional AI, a San Francisco-based applied AI services company, marking the AI developer's first-ever acquisition. The deal strengthens a new $1.5 billion AI-native enterprise services firm backed by Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs, designed to help mid-sized businesses deploy Claude AI models across their operations.

2 Sources

21 May 2026

Hark raises $700M Series A for AI hardware as Brett Adcock bets big on consumer AI devices

Hark, an AI lab founded by Brett Adcock, secured $700 million in Series A funding at a $6 billion valuation to develop AI hardware and multi-modal models. The startup plans to launch its first models this summer, followed by consumer devices designed to serve as a universal interface with the digital world, despite revealing few details about its products.

4 Sources

Google commits $15 billion to build massive data center in Missouri next to Amazon's site

Google announced a $15 billion investment to construct a new data center in Montgomery County, Missouri, adjacent to Amazon's $35 billion facility. The move reflects escalating CapEx spending among tech giants racing to secure computing power for AI applications, with Google committing upward of $190 billion this year in infrastructure expansion.

2 Sources

Bloom Energy and Nebius strike $2.6 billion deal to power AI infrastructure with fuel cells

Bloom Energy has partnered with Nebius, a NVIDIA-backed European AI cloud provider, in a $2.6 billion agreement to deploy fuel-cell technology across data centers in Europe. The deal addresses critical power constraints hampering AI infrastructure buildout, with the first phase expected operational this year featuring 328 MW of installed capacity.

2 Sources

WiseTech begins redundancies but removes AI references from emails to Chinese employees

WiseTech has started informing staff about job losses affecting 2,000 workers across 40 countries, citing AI advancements. However, employees discovered that emails sent to Chinese staff omitted all mentions of artificial intelligence, instead using the term 'global transformation.' The change appears linked to a recent Chinese court ruling that awarded compensation to a worker replaced by AI.

2 Sources

Manus founders seek $1 billion to reverse Meta acquisition after Chinese regulatory block

Manus co-founders are exploring a $1 billion funding round to buy back their AI startup from Meta after China ordered the unwinding of the $2 billion-plus acquisition. The move highlights escalating US-China tech tensions and Beijing's willingness to enforce investment rules on companies with Chinese origins, even those relocated to Singapore.

2 Sources

Jamie Dimon signals JPMorgan will hire more AI specialists and fewer traditional bankers

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced the bank will prioritize hiring AI specialists over traditional bankers as automation reshapes the financial industry. Speaking at the bank's China Summit in Shanghai, Dimon said the shift will happen through natural attrition rather than mass layoffs, with the bank's 10% yearly turnover rate providing flexibility to retrain or redeploy workers.

6 Sources

Nvidia Vera Rubin AI systems now cost $7.8 million as memory costs explode 435% to $2 million per rack

Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin AI infrastructure faces a dramatic memory price surge, with a single VR200 NVL72 rack now estimated at $7.8 million. Memory costs have jumped 435% compared to previous systems, now accounting for over $2 million—or 25% of the total system cost. The spike reflects surging demand for HBM4 & LPDDR5X memory and 3D NAND storage as cloud service providers race to deploy cutting-edge AI infrastructure.

3 Sources

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