money – Teknotum

After huge revenue beat for Q2 earnings, Nvidia buys Hugging Face

Hugging Face had been looking to raise money and was considering a sale lately. (Picture: generated)

Nvidia’s revenues were up 106% to $96.22 billion last quarter, while predicting a 70% increase in the next fiscal year, so agreeing to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion might seem like pocket change.

It is, however, one of Nvidia’s largest acquisitions, Reuters notes, after the buyout was first reported by The Information.

Hugging Face is the «face» of the open source AI movement and maintains a repository of almost all available models, making this a significant infrastructure investment. AI labs treat publishing their weights on it as their official release.

Nvidia is of course not new to Hugging Face or open source, having as good as bought the OSS AI lab Poolside earlier this week to build their own models. They also invested in a $235 million funding round for Hugging Face in 2023 that valued it at $4.5 billion, and tried to invest $500 million in 2025 at a $7 billion valuation, according to The Financial Times.

It appears that Nvidia is somewhat hedging their bets and is increasingly investing in open source, as the frontier AI labs are increasingly developing their own chips, Reuters writes. Nvidia remains a significant investor in closed source providers, though.

Read more: Reuters, The Information (paywalled), and Business Insider. Discussion on r/Singularity and Hacker News.

Nvidia warns of price hikes, moves toward its own frontier, open weight AI

Even a $4 trillion company is not immune from RAMageddon. (Picture: generated)

Nvidia has told its largest customers to expect a price increase for its AI systems of more than 15%, Bloomberg reports.

The hikes come amid soaring prices on memory, components and storage as AI buildouts create unprecedented demand in the market.

The systems involved will be based on both Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell, and prices will depend on both chip and memory configurations. Increases are expected early next year, writes Reuters.

At the same time, Nvidia is pushing harder into making its own AI services, announcing what is «not an acquisition» and «not an acquihire» — before doing both to AI startup Poolside.

Nvidia will be paying $6 billion to the company to license its software, and is concurrently offering jobs to 109 of its staff. On top of that comes a straight-up investment of $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation.

The purpose of the move is to build frontier open source AI, says the WSJ, in a bid to compete with the likes of DeepSeek and Kimi K3 — while indirectly firing shots at some of its largest customers.

Frontier models are struggling to retain users, the Financial Times reports, as open models are catching up to their baseline at much lower costs.

Read more: Bloomberg (paywalled), Reuters, r/Technology. The Next Web, The WSJ (paywalled), r/LocalLLaMA, Financial Times.

Stripe buys OpenRouter, reportedly for $8 billion

OpenRouter says they are vendor neutral and builds on the same principles as Stripe. (Picture: OpenRouter, generated)

OpenRouter will continue as normal after the deal, supporting token- and task-optimized routing between models and keeping their neutrality.

Stripe is a huge fintech darling that routes some $1.9 trillion in payments each year and has a revenue of $5.1 billion from clients like Ford, Spotify, OpenAI and Anthropic. The still privately held company has attracted early investments from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, according to Wikipedia, and they are also trying to buy PayPal, Axios reports.

OpenRouter had raised $164 million in May 2026 at a valuation of $1.3 billion, so the Axios report of an $8 billion price is at a premium as well as highlighting their stellar growth since their establishment in 2023, just as the AI market started emerging.

— Tokens are the central currency for companies building with AI, and it’s clear that the real-world economic potential will depend on making good use of scarce compute resources, says Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe in their press release, hinting at how price-sensitive enterprise AI usage has become.

Earlier this year, Stripe were giddish on AI, declaring that the start of 2026 also marked «the beginning of the singularity,» according to an investor letter published by Eric Newcomer, as they reached customers in 88% of the Forbes AI 50 list, according to Axios.

Read more: Stripe presser, OpenRouter release. Writeups on Axios, CNBC, and TechCrunch. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity

Fable 5 will eat up all your tokens, some users say, as Anthropic resets limits

Fable 5 is the most expensive model from Anthropic, and it uses *a lot* of subagents. (Picture: Anthropic)

Just as people are digging into their allocation of Claude Fable 5 usage on the paid tiers, they are running up to another wall: The model is very expensive and will chew through your alotted tokens in no time at all.

One ML engineer on reddit said it tore through a 5 page research paper while comparing it to a whitepaper with 174 subagents to review the results from 7 original agents and «ate through my max 20x 5 hour limit in ~15 minutes.»

X reactions
User BridgeMind on X said he paid $321 for Opus 4.8 to do all the work, while X user Adam Door posted that it burned through his $200 Max subscription in ~30 minutes, and yet another post says «Fable 5 burned 28% of my weekly limit AND used up my 5 hour limit with two prompts in about 30 minutes.»

Continue reading “Fable 5 will eat up all your tokens, some users say, as Anthropic resets limits”

Meta’s AI fallback plan: Forming a cloud computing company

Meta could soon be renting out excess compute, as it continues to build out capacity. (Picture: Adobe)

Already sitting on one of the world’s largest compute clusters with plans to add some $145 billion worth more just this year — Meta is making contingency plans.

Bloomberg (paywalled) is reporting that they are now planning to form a cloud computing company to compete with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, aiming to sell «excess capacity» to paying customers.

The idea is a hedge against overcapacity, Axios reports, quoting Zuckerberg as saying in May: «that is an option that we have, and that is partially what gives us confidence in investing in building this out.»

The new unit would offer raw compute to companies looking to train models, or could offer access to models from other AI labs and rent out the infrastructure to power them. This would be similar to services from Amazon and Azure.

SpaceX, now incorporating X.ai, faced a similar problem when their compute power got bigger than their needs, and struck deals with Anthropic and Google to sell excess compute access, Reuters notes.

It is estimated that Meta currently sits on 20 gigawatts of capacity, and it plans to add another 14 GW over the next years, Axios says.

Read more: Bloomberg (paywalled), Axios, Reuters, CNBC, and Engadget.

Report: OpenAI earned $2 billion a month, spent $34 billion in 2025

OpenAI made $2 billion a month by the end of 2025. (Picture: Adobe)

The spending came on a revenue of $13 billion, with a one-time accounting charge of $30 billion, The Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the audited figures.

This charge was related to a change in governance from a non-profit to a Public Benefit Corporation. Previously, the FT explains, investors were paid interest on their capital, and this was accounted for as liabilities. As a PBC, they now pay in equity, and the cost won’t be reoccurring.

The numbers also show that the company spent $19 billion on developing models and research, and around $6 billion on sales and marketing.

At the end of 2025, OpenAI was earning $2 billion in revenue per month, as opposed to $1 billion per quarter in 2024, which the FT says makes it one of the fastest growing companies in history.

Without the one-time accounting charge, OpenAI’s losses for 2025 were «only» $8 billion.

OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO last week, stating that they had not decided on a timeline.

Read more: Original reporting by The Financial Times and raw data by Ed Zitron.

OpenAI confidentially files for IPO

OpenAI has put up a short notice on its website informing of the filing, saying that they haven’t decided on the timing yet:

— It may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company, the message says, and adds: — But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.

This is just the first step of eventually filing publicly and paving the way for a proper market entry, which should give journalists and financial analysts a better look at their books, including risks and opportunities and real revenue numbers.

OpenAI’s most recent fundraise in April valued the company at $852 billion and saw companies such as Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank pour in tens of billions each for a round worth $110 billion.

They said at the time that they had surpassed 900 million weekly users and had 50 million paying subscribers, and 6x the monthly web visits than the next AI app.

Anthropic filed confidentially just last week, and along with SpaceX, it sets up a season of some of the largest market entries ever. All three companies are expected to reach valuations of a trillion dollars or more.

Read more: OpenAI’s message, Reuters, CNBC, Engadget, and TechCrunch.

Anthropic confidentially files paperwork for Initial Public Offering

The company says the filing does not mean it will announce going public any time soon, but some speculate it might come as early as this fall, according to The New York Times.

The documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission detail operations, and typically include potential risks, C-suite compensation «and other financials,» The Verge writes.

The filing of the S-1 form, the public declaration on finances and risks, will come at a later date, Anthropic says, and will be determined by «market conditions and other factors.» They only need to file a prospectus fifteen days before publicly soliciting stocks, CNBC reports.

An actual IPO from Anthropic is expected to be massive, as the recent fundraise at a $965 billion valuation would indicate. The company has an annualized run rate of some $47 billion, but investors are more keen to see the gross margin, which has been kept secret in its entirety since inception, according to Reuters.

OpenAI is also expected to file an IPO in short order, and with SpaceX already filing, it sets up a blockbuster year for market debuts.

Read more: Anthropic’s announcement, The New York Times, CNBC, The Verge, and market comments from Reuters.

Robinhood unleashes stock trading agents for consumer accounts

Major brokerages already use AI, and now it is coming to consumers. (Picture: Robinhood)

The stock trading platform is announcing agent-based accounts that will trade stocks based on different profiles, and also launched a credit card for them to use online.

— Our mission has always been to democratize finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents, CEO Vlad Tenev said, according to CNBC.

The company says the service is designed with a safety-first mindset, meaning you retain control over trades and purchases by requiring approval first, and get notifications for every transaction.

It works by setting up a dedicated trading account for your agent, separate from your main portfolio. Then you can transfer funds and let the agent trade based on strategies you set out.

It is not the first such agentic framework, there are already specialized stock trading agents from public.com and there’s TradingAgents, but it is for a major player.

Read more: Robinhood’s announcement, CNBC, TechCrunch, and The Verge.

OpenAI’s Q1 2026 ended with $5.7 billion in revenue, and a -122% margin

OpenAI is still leading the pack, but is facing increasing headwinds. (Picture: Adobe)

The Information (paywalled) says sources are telling them that OpenAI landed a billion dollars ahead of Anthropic last quarter, but «only» has an annualized run rate of $30 billion versus Anthropic’s $45B.

The AI lab estimates that its adjusted income margin was at -122%, meaning it lost $1.22 for every dollar earned, driven by high investment costs for infrastructure and compute.

The growth was driven mainly by Codex and enterprise customers, the report said — although ChatGPT growth stalled at about 905 million weekly users in the latest quarter.

OpenAI is said to reveal its IPO plans «within weeks,» Reuters reports, and possibly as soon as «this Friday,» according to CNBC.

Its most recent funding round valued the company at $852 billion, just short of Anthropic’s $900 billion — but their funding round came a little later.

Read more: The Information (paywalled), Ed Zitron on X.

Anthropic aims for first profitable quarter in Q2, with $559 million in the green

Anthropic is reaching for profits, but compute costs might be a damper. (Picture: Shutterstock)

Last quarter ending in March saw an 80-fold growth for Anthropic and a revenue of $4.8 billion, a record for the AI lab.

Next quarter will be even better, sources are telling Reuters and WSJ — projecting a revenue growth of 130% and landing at $10.9 billion, more than double their previous number.

That should land them an operating profit of $559 million, Reuters reports.

This unprecedented growth underscores how Claude has boomed in the new year for coders and enterprises alike, that OpenAI is racing to catch up to.

The Wall Street Journal does however warn that this growth in subscribers also translates to higher computing costs, that might put a significant dent in their yearly profits.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to file for IPOs in the near future, and OpenAI might file in the coming weeks.

Read more: Reuters, WSJ, and TechCrunch.

Anthropic approves $30 billion in funding at a $900 billion valuation

The huge funding haul would surpass OpenAI’s record valuation of some $852B in April, and comes hot on the heels of Anthropic rebuffing bids at a mere $800B valuation recently.

Their last funding round was at a $380 billion valuation in February, which is less than half of todays numbers just three months ago.

The news was first reported by The Financial Times, who says the round is co-led by Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter Capital, all offering $2B each, while Anthropic is in talks with «additional investors.»

Anthropic has been on a tear lately, growing its user base 80-fold last quarter, and struggling with the compute power needed, but this is now largely solved.

They are also expected to pass $45 billion in annualized revenue «shortly,» which is five times what they had at the end of last year, Investing.com writes.

Read more: Financial Times (paywalled), The Information (paywalled), and Investing.com.

OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman reveals $30 billion stake

ChatGPT has been a lucrative endeavor for those at the top. (Picture: Shutterstock)

«The compensation was certainly secondary to the mission,» Brockman said in court yesterday, according to NBC News.

He was being questioned at the Musk trial by lawyer Steven Molo, asking «You just happen to be $30 billion richer?»

The OpenAI President also holds a stake in Sam Altman’s family fund and chip company Cerebras, which is a significant supplier to OpenAI, Reuters reports.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI in a California court, arguing the startup he co-founded has abandoned its altruistic non-profit mission and going on an «enrichment spree» on a for-profit basis. He seeks to paint the executives as greedy.

OpenAI counters that Musk is driven by resentment of their success and an obsession to control the company. The trial is ongoing.

Read more: Trial notes by NBC News, Reuters, Business Insider, and Wired.

Google to invest up to $40 billion in rival/partner Anthropic

Google and Anthropic are rivals in the chatbot arena, but partners in compute. (Picture: Anthropic)

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has reached an agreement to initially invest $10 billion in Anthropic, increasing to $40 billion on reaching «performance targets,» Reuters reports.

The deal comes hot on the heels of Amazon’s investment of $25 billion this week, also contingent on «commercial milestones.»

Google’s investment comes as Anthropic is seeking to expand its compute capacity after several reports of throttling and downtime for its Claude service, amid rising popularity.

Earlier this month, Google and Broadcom secured a «partnership» with significant compute for Anthropic, as the company announced it had hit a $30 billion annualized run-rate revenue.

Read more: Reuters, CNBC, and TechCrunch.

Anthropic rebuffs «preemptive» investor offers at $800 billion valuations

Catching up to OpenAI? Sources claim Anthropic doubling in value in latest bids. (Picture: Shutterstock)

With explosive growth and a claimed yearly run-rate of $30 billion, Anthropic is turning out to be a hot stock in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Business Insider is now reporting that the AI lab has received «multiple offers» at valuations of $800 billion, citing anonymous sources.

That would put it closer to OpenAI’s already stellar valuation at $852 billion — signifying peak interest in the AI sector at large and Anthropic specifically.

Anthropic just finished a $30 billion funding round in February at a valuation of $380 billion, meaning the latest offers would more than double the company’s value.

Anthropic then said that their revenue had grown 10x each year since inception, and said in April that customers spending $1 million or more had doubled since that.

It is common for «buzzy startups» to be on the receiving end of «preemptive offers,» Business Insider notes.

Read more: Business Insider, Reuters.