Databricks has reached a valuation of $188 billion in a new funding round, extending its position as a leading AI infrastructure company. The data and AI platform, which has repositioned itself as an AI company after its origins in data engineering, has published research demonstrating the cost savings of open-weight AI models for coding tasks. Source
Apple has filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging a pattern of misconduct that reaches up to OpenAI's chief hardware officer. The complaint claims more than 400 former Apple employees now work at the company. The timing complicates OpenAI's reportedly imminent initial public offering. Source
Meta is in talks to lease computing power to Anthropic in a potential deal valued at $10 billion. The arrangement would underscore the scarcity of computational resources for AI development and could create a new business line for Meta. Source
San Francisco's City Attorney has sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google ordering them to remove 13 "face-swap" AI apps from their app stores. The tools, which generate nude images and are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls, have generated millions in fees for the two companies. Source
Patreon has begun blocking bots that scrape creators' content to train AI models without permission, working with Cloudflare to strengthen its defenses. The move marks a shift from passive reliance on robots.txt files toward active suppression of unauthorized AI training activity. Source