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Bessemer Venture Partners announced it has closed $5.75 billion across two new funds aimed at investing across the AI stack, splitting the capital into $1.75 billion for seed and early-stage deals and $4 billion for growth-stage startups. The firm says it has already deployed $3 billion into more than 260 AI-native companies since 2022, spanning compute, infrastructure, foundation models, dev tools and agentic technology.
MIT Technology Review reports that smart glasses are enabling covert recording, non-consensual image sharing and police surveillance in India, with experts warning such incidents will grow as the devices go mainstream. Separately, the outlet cites University of Pennsylvania finance professor Jessica Wachter's analysis showing hyperscalers are on track to spend nearly $1.1 trillion on AI data centers through 2027, requiring extraordinary earnings growth to break even by 2030.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Foxconn have unveiled Ceer, the kingdom's first domestic car brand, showcasing an Exobot sedan and SUV built with falcon-style 'Shahin Wing' doors. The company plans to release seven vehicles, including hybrids, by 2030, initially targeting the Gulf Cooperation Council market before considering wider expansion.
Meta's Threads platform has been flooded with posts using nearly identical wording, in which users claim they and their spouses work at major companies like PepsiCo, JPMorgan, Fidelity, or IBM before pivoting to promote investment advice or opportunities. The repetitive phrasing across accounts suggests coordinated or automated activity rather than genuine personal testimonials.
In a discussion on WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast, hosts Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger debated the growing focus on 'recursive self-improvement' (RSI), the idea of AI systems autonomously building successive, increasingly uncontrollable AI models. Schiffer argued that RSI appears to be replacing AGI as the industry's go-to buzzword once AGI began to seem less achievable, serving more as a marketing and geopolitical narrative than a rigorous technical concern.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul's administration released a Community Investment Framework advising local governments on negotiating with data center developers. The guide recommends towns demand roughly $1 million per megawatt of power demand in community investment, alongside plans covering long-term maintenance, site abandonment, and phased funding timelines.
Al Gore, speaking with TechCrunch alongside Generation Investment Management's Lila Preston, argued that AI data centers' emissions are far smaller than critics claim, comparing them to landfill emissions and global air conditioning use. He said what worries him more are warnings emerging from within the AI industry itself.
French pharmaceutical company Ipsen is evaluating whether to establish a production facility in the United States. The move would place Ipsen among a growing group of European drugmakers weighing similar U.S.-based investment decisions.
Rogo, an AI company already deployed at major investment banks, has closed a new round of strategic investments and is now pushing into the wealth management sector. The funding signals growing confidence from Wall Street backers in Rogo's ability to extend its tools beyond dealmaking desks.
Google announced plans to invest $15 billion in AI infrastructure in Finland, expanding its data center footprint in the country. The move adds to a wave of similar large-scale investments by U.S. tech companies aiming to grow AI computing capacity outside the United States.
Google announced a 13 billion euro ($15.1 billion) investment to build out AI infrastructure in Finland, making it the company's largest single investment ever made in Europe. The move underscores Finland's growing appeal to hyperscalers seeking abundant land and power resources that are increasingly scarce elsewhere on the continent.
A new PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis, cited by Bloomberg, projects that worldwide spending on data centers could reach $31.6 trillion by 2050, with more than $15 trillion of that total in the United States alone. Under a more optimistic scenario involving faster AI adoption, PwC estimates spending could climb as high as $50 trillion over the next 25 years.