Global venture funding skyrockets to a staggering $113 billion in Q1 2025, fueled by OpenAI's record-breaking $40 billion raise and Google's planned $32 billion Wiz acquisition, signaling a resurgence in startup exits.
Major tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are strategically pausing or slowing down their data center expansion plans, signaling a shift in spending priorities amidst economic headwinds and potential cost-cutting measures within the industry.
Elon Musk's AI venture xAI enters the market with the launch of Grok 3 API, offering a large language model and a smaller version at competitive pricing, though with a reduced context window.
Africa is witnessing an AI revolution, fueled by governments crafting policies to attract investment and nurture talent, and tech giants like Cassava and Huawei establishing AI hubs, as exemplified by a major summit in Rwanda bringing together over 1,000 stakeholders.
OpenAI secures a staggering $40 billion funding at $300 billion valuation led by SoftBank, Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive, with $18 billion earmarked for Stargate AI data center infrastructure across the U.S.
CoreWeave, a tech company initially eyeing a $30 billion IPO valuation, has scaled back its ambitions, now targeting a valuation closer to its $23 billion private market level and slashing its planned fundraising by half to $1.5 billion.
In a blockbuster $113 billion deal, Elon Musk's AI firm xAI has acquired the social media giant X (formerly Twitter), valuing xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, with Musk claiming the merger will 'unlock immense potential' by fusing AI with X's global reach.
In a groundbreaking move, Nvidia has teamed up with Cassava Technologies to establish Africa's pioneering AI factory, offering 'AI as a service' across the continent by harnessing fiber-optic networks and energy-efficient data centers, addressing the region's computing power shortage and fostering its participation in the AI revolution.
DuckDB unveils preview support for connecting to Apache Iceberg REST Catalogs, unlocking access to Amazon S3 Tables and SageMaker Lakehouse, allowing users to query Iceberg tables while handling schema evolution.
Google and Amazon are pouring billions into AI startup Anthropic, with Google owning a 14% stake and committing over $3 billion, while Amazon has agreed to invest up to $8 billion, raising antitrust concerns about the startup's independence from Big Tech.