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Latest AI News
Databricks Acquires Row Zero to Bring Governed Spreadsheets to Genie
The deal will let business teams analyse live enterprise data, build models and collaborate while keeping permissions, data lineage and agent actions auditable.
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Elon Musk Says He is ‘Optimistic’ About Releasing a GPT-6-Level Model
“We will keep accelerating,” he said.
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White House Asks OpenAI, Anthropic to Hold Models From UK Testers: Report
The request could affect AISI’s longstanding arrangement with leading AI labs, under which the UK institute has received pre-release access to frontier models for safety and security testing.
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Akamai Signs $11.6 Bn Cloud Deal With Anthropic
The seven-year agreement will support Anthropic’s growing CPU workload demand, with the partnership potentially expanding to $20 billion.
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Telangana Targets 5 GW Data Centre Capacity by 2029 as Microsoft Opens Hyderabad Cloud Region
The expansion comes as Hyderabad sees a shift towards AI-scale infrastructure.
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Oracle Moves to Shield Itself From Delays at New Mexico AI Data Centre: Report
However, Oracle said Project Jupiter remains on schedule despite delays and regulatory hurdles affecting its power infrastructure.
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Keystone Enters Bengaluru as AI Blurs the Lines Between Technology, Law & Competition
The Bengaluru team will support firms including Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Goldman Sachs and others—both their global and Indian establishments.
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Sarvam Launches Vision 2.1 With Improved Document Intelligence Across 22 Indian Languages
Sarvam says the updated model delivers stronger table extraction, form field recognition, and handwritten text processing, while reducing hallucinations and inference costs.
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Lightspeed targets $250M for new India fund, focusing on early-stage AI
Lightspeed is sharpening its India strategy around AI, targeting $250 million for a new early-stage fund as the venture firm bets the technology will drive the next wave of startups in one of the world’s largest markets. The Silicon Valley venture firm is already a major investor in AI companies includingAnthropic,xAI, andDatabricks. In India, it has backedSarvam AI, one of the country’s leading large language model developers and a startup selected by the Indian government to help develop sovereign AI models. The new fund, Lightspeed India Partners V, will be half the size of its$500 million predecessor, which was raised in 2022 and has already committed 80% of its capital to startups, according to a letter sent to investors on Thursday and seen by TechCrunch. In late April, Lightspeeddisclosedthe new fund in a U.S. regulatory filing, though the filing did not specify its target size. Indian media had previouslyreportedthat the firm was looking to raise between $300 million and $350 million for the vehicle. Lightspeed plans to begin investing from the new fund within two months and has designed it around an investment period of roughly two and a half years, per the letter. Until then, it will continue making its final investments from the existing fund. A Lightspeed spokesperson declined to comment. Starting with the new fund, Lightspeed is also moving its India funds onto the same fundraising cycle as its global funds for the first time, per the investor letter. The change brings a regional business it established nearly two decades ago more closely in line with the rest of the firm. The move follows a similar shift by rival firm Accel, which in Augustraised its latest $550 million India fundalongside new U.S. and Europe funds and a global growth vehicle as part of a coordinated $3.5 billion fundraising effort. It was the first time Accel had raised all four funds simultaneously. The $250 million fund is sized to match how quickly Lightspeed is currently investing and its shorter investment period, according to the letter. Lightspeed suggested to investors that the smaller size lets it focus on individual deals rather than fund size, and raise its next fund sooner. The new fund also marks a sharper focus on AI for Lightspeed’s early-stage investment strategy in the region. The investment thesis outlined in the letter anticipates AI creating more value in India than the internet did, with the fund seeking out AI companies across India and Southeast Asia. India has yet to produce a major frontier AI model developer on the global stage and hasattracted far less investmentin AI than the U.S. and China. Investors, nonetheless, increasingly see an opportunity for India in the application layer, drawing on the country’s large pool of software developers and its decades-long history as a hub for software and technology services. The new $250 million India vehicle is a fraction of the capital available across Lightspeed’s global platform. The firm, which manages more than $65 billion in assets globally,raised $9 billionacross several new funds last December, the largest fundraising haul in its history. The totalincluded a $980 millionearly-stage venture fund. Lightspeed’s dedicated India and Southeast Asia funds represent only part of the capital the firm has put to work in the region. Those funds have deployed roughly $900 million, while Lightspeed’s global funds have invested another $1.6 billion to support companies from the regional portfolio, according to the investor letter. The decision to dedicate its newest regional fund entirely to AI also marks a sharper thematic focus for Lightspeed in a market where it has historically invested across sectors. Its India portfolio spans businesses including quick commerce, consumer internet, software, and household services. Lightspeed’s bets in India have included companies such as quick-commerce startupZepto, audio platformPocket FM, house-help startupSnabbit, rooftop solar startupSolarSquare, and a range of enterprise software businesses. The same team that led Lightspeed’s previous four India funds will manage the new fund, per the letter.
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Meta’s Muse Charm looks like a Tamagotchi, but it’s tapping into a much newer trend
Is Meta’sjust-announced Muse Charma playful device that will make AI more approachable to everyday consumers, or will it be yet another flop in a long list of AI hardware gadgets that didn’t take off, like the Ai Pin, Rabbit, or Friend pendant? Reactions, so far, have been mixed. What the Charm is, however, is on-trend. Like it or not, the form factor could potentially appeal to Gen Z consumers who, in this post-Labubuera, have already been into various dangling items from keychains and bags. It’s all part of a broader kitschy, retro-inspired shift in their approach to fashion and technology. Already, Gen Z has created a market for things that dangle, with everything from lip glosses to hand sanitizers to sunblocks to fragrances and more turned intobag charms, primarily targeted at women. View this post on InstagramA post shared by Kristina Rodulfo (@kristinarodulfo) A post shared by Kristina Rodulfo (@kristinarodulfo) Hailey Bieber’s viral Rhode lip case, which stuck thelip gloss onto a phone case, had a big influence on this idea that beauty products could also be fashion accessories, as did itsother beauty-focused bag charms. (The brand saw $212 million in annual net sales from a lineup of roughly 10 products,Vogue notedlast year, as the company announced its billion-dollar exit to Elf Beauty.) Then there was theLabubu craze, which saw sales of the so-ugly-it’s-cute fuzzy monster bag charm explode, growing Pop Mart’s (the Chinese retailer behind the product)revenue to $1.8 billion in 2024, a 7x jump from 2019. While demand for the Labubu itself has since faded, the concept of the decorative bag charm has not. One analyst firm estimates the global bag charm market willgrow to over $1 billion by 2030. Today, bag charms can be characters, bedazzled beauty products, or other whimsical designs or objects, like Coach’s covetedcherry charms, aGen Z favorite. They’ve proven popular because they’re a means of expressing your personality, just as humans have done for ages through their fashion choices, makeup, and jewelry. Similarly, Meta’s Muse is a customizable character; you design your own avatar, which makes the AI agent a reflection of you, too. And, as many have pointed out, Muse Charm’s form factor recalls a Tamagotchi, the pocket-sized digital virtual pet that became a major toy fad in the late 90s and again in the mid-2000s. However, the Tamagotchi is not the most current reference. It seems the Muse Charm is actually a twist on what some young people are already doing with their Apple Watch. Often meant as a way torepurpose an older device, the concept of the Apple Watch keychain or charm has been growing in popularity, fueled by TikTok videos showing different ways to use the watch when not on your wrist. never even used it for years! About to use it everyday now 🤓#applewatch#applewatchhacks#applewatchtips#apple#lvwallet On retailers likeAmazonand Walmart, and marketplaces like eBay andEtsy, there are thousands of Apple Watch keychains, straps, pendants, lanyards, clips, and bag charm cases now available in nearly every style you can think of. As you might expect, these keychain watches are often being adopted by younger women as a fashion accessory first, rather than a piece of technology. I’m obsessed 💕#applewatch#teacher#teachersoftiktok#girly#cute This all then intersects withthe broader retro-tech trend, which has seen older tech like digital cameras, flip phones, iPods,CDs, cassette tapes,home phones, and wired earbuds making a quiet comeback. This vibe shift in tech comes as young peopledescribethe addictive, algorithm-driven feeds and “soulness” nature of technology as making them feel more disconnected, which has also fed into this trend of wanting tech they can touch and feel. (One startup, Clicks, is even bringing back the physical phone keyboard ina BlackBerry-inspired device, for instance.) For Gen Z, these physical objects help them feel more connected with the technology they’re using and offer a sense of control over a world where technology has become so deeply integrated into our lives that it no longer feels like a choice to use it. Young women, again,have been at the forefrontof this trend, with some evencraftingtheir ownportable, mini computers, “cyberdecks,” which they fit inside clamshell purses or custom cases, and bedazzle with jewels, flowers, stickers, pearls, and other items to make them feel more personal. That brings us back to the Muse Charm. While it’s clearly designed with the tech-as-fashion-accessory trend in mind, that doesn’t mean it will be a hit. Meta has abused consumer trust over the years to such an extent that it may never fully recover. To name just a few examples: The tech giant had tosettle with the FTC over charges that it deceived consumersby making users’ private information public without their consent, and has beenpenalizedby the FTC fornumerousprivacy-related violations. In 2023,the FTC charged Meta with violating a privacy orderthat was filed after the 2019 settlement. It’s also beenrepeatedlyhauledbefore Congress over its harms to minors, haslostorsettledmultiple lawsuits over the same topics, and hasseenvariouswhistleblowersouting its abuses. These careless privacy practices could ultimately see Meta lose the battle to be the consumer AI of choice… unless, of course, consumers decide that the “devil you know” is better than the one you don’t. (Especially when the latter are those warningAI could put an end to the human race.) Meta’s end game, after all, is highly-targeted, highly-personalized ads. If that’s the privacy tradeoff in gaining access to free AI — Meta said it willmonetize Muse by taking a small fee from transactions— consumers could be willing to take the risk.
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Oracle sends force majeure notice on its New Mexico Stargate data center
Oracle has sent a force majeure notice to the developer of Project Jupiter, a Stargate data center campus in New Mexico,Bloomberg first reportedThursday. Force majeure clauses, common in energy and commodities contracts, excuse a party from contractual obligations when events outside its control get in the way. Oracle is not seeking to exit as the campus’s main tenant, according to Bloomberg’s sources. Instead, the notice would allow the company to delay payments should the facility miss its 2028 target to come online. The notice also comes as AI data center construction faces growing scrutiny nationally, and as developers take on steep costs to build capacity for customers like OpenAI. Oracle maintains that it does not expect a delay. “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” Oracle said in astatement to CNBC. “We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.” Blue Owl Capital, whose unit received the notice, said in its own statement to CNBC that “this notice does not change the financial commitments to this multi-year project.” Neither Oracle nor Blue Owl immediately responded to TechCrunch’s requests for comment. Still, the notice follows a string of setbacks at the site, many of them tied to its energy supply. The campus, designed to handle 2.45 gigawatts, is meant to run on gas-powered fuel cells from Bloom Energy, which makes a reliable gas supply central to its timeline. An Energy Transfer pipeline intended to deliver gas to the site has also been delayed nearly six months, to February 1, 2027, after regulators repeatedly denied permits for the line. In August,Bloomberg reportedthat the pipeline’s route had been changed following those rejections. A separate air-quality permit for the fuel cell system that would power the campus is also pending. The state’s environment department faces a November 23 deadline to decide. Project Jupiter is one of the flagship sites of Stargate, the AI infrastructure initiative Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank announced with President Donald Trump early in his second term. The campus has drawn opposition from residents and environmental groups and has become a political flashpoint ahead of the midterm elections. Oracle has responded with a public outreach campaign in the state aimed at winning over the project’s critics, according to Bloomberg.
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PrismML brings its tiny LLMs to Qualcomm-powered smart glasses
The AI LabPrismML— founded by Caltech researchers and advised by UC Berkeley’s Ion Stoica — has created a version of its tiny language models for smart glasses running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. On Wednesday, at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit, the chipmaker showcased PrismML’s 1-bit Bonsai LLM, which can be run locally on AI smart glasses built on the Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 Platform. As TechCrunch previously reported,PrismML’s claim to fameis that it shrinks larger models substantially (in this case, by 4x), while retaining almost all of their performance on standard benchmarks. The smart glasses version is a 2-billion-parameter model tuned for vision and language, so wearers can ask what they’re looking at in real time. Prism’s larger goal is open-weight AI that runs on devices and makes better use of the computing power they already have. The startup pitches this as an alternative to depending on the privacy promises of proprietary AI labs and their insatiable need for more compute. Releasing a model for Qualcomm’s chip is a step toward that vision. But no smart glasses running PrismML have been announced yet.
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