#Funding/M&A

AIOpenAI has made GPT-6 available to all ChatGPT free and paid users worldwide, replacing GPT-5.6 SOL and GPT-5.6 LUNA. The model integrates Astra safety improvements that strengthen safeguards against misuse in cyber, biological, and violent domains.

AIShares of Chinese optical chipmakers fell for a second straight session on Friday amid fears of potential US trade curbs on next-generation optical transceivers for data centres. China's CSI 300 Index slid 1.3 per cent by midday to its lowest level since August last year, with upstream laser chip suppliers falling more steeply than downstream transceiver makers.

AITom Watson, now a senior vice-president at Palantir, warned UK ministers against letting "mob rule" dictate public procurement, saying they could get "in a lot of trouble" if they do. The former Labour deputy leader's comments come as Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces pressure to drop Palantir from government contracts, including a £330m NHS software deal.

AIManus parent Butterfly Effect announced funding of over $500M led by Boyu Capital and IDG, with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund returning, its first disclosed raise since resuming independent operations. The reported $4B post-money valuation was not confirmed. Manus also launched version 2.0 and the personal agent Cue on September 29, and is building a China-focused product team and partnerships with domestic model developers.

AIShenzhen-based Krinwave (鲲为科技) has completed a new 400 million yuan round with new investors XVC and Sequoia China, and existing investors Shell Capital and Tencent adding to their positions. The company says its low-frequency ultrasound can image brain structures and blood flow through the skull in real time, and plans to supply hardware and its kOS platform to brain-computer interface labs and NeuroAI model companies.

AIChina's tech hardware shares are falling rapidly after strong gains earlier this year, as doubts over the global AI trade make high-valuation names especially vulnerable. The selloff reflects growing valuation concerns in the sector.

AISoftBank Group Corp. is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion from Gulf investors to expand its AI investments, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report did not specify the timing or terms of the proposed fundraising.

AIXPENG has named its robotaxi business XPENG YOYO and launched a ride-hailing mini program that lets invited members of the public test the service. The company says its first production robotaxi, based on the flagship GX model, rolled off the line in May 2026, and it has completed more than 2,000 internal test rides in Guangzhou. XPENG says YOYO uses four in-house Turing AI chips delivering 3,000 TOPS, a second-generation VLA model, and a vision-based approach without high-definition maps or LiDAR.

AIOpenAI's most senior Asia-Pacific public policy executive is leaving after six months in the role, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departure comes as the ChatGPT maker faces regulatory scrutiny in the region.

AIOpenAI expects to reach or exceed $70 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026, according to people familiar with the matter. The growth is driven largely by its enterprise business.

AIGoogle Cloud unveiled Gemini Agent at its Gemini at Work 2026 event, a general-purpose work agent for enterprise customers that works across Gemini Enterprise and Workspace. Currently the agent supports Gemini and Claude models, with an API planned so developers can integrate it into third-party applications.

AIFactory has appointed Connor Maloney as Head of Federal to lead its expansion into the public sector. Maloney previously served as Vice President of Federal at Rubrik and began his career as a Program Manager at the Department of War. Factory also recently announced a partnership with Carahsoft and says it can run in managed, private cloud, on-premises, or fully air-gapped deployments.

AIJerry Liu is preparing for the Agent Economy Gala, which has reached its 400-guest capacity and is organized by @imaanxsultan. The source says attendees include 203 founders with over $1B raised combined, 67 founding operators, 58 investors, 23 creators, and 295 guests building agent applications or infrastructure.

AISnyk moved its internal support agent, Snyk Assist, into the core Snyk product in September 2026, giving every paying customer access. Built on LangChain and LangGraph with observability in LangSmith, the agent answers questions in plain language and can open support cases or log feature requests. It runs as a single agent behind Slack, web and API surfaces, with tools attached per user permissions.

AIAustralian AI data center operator Firmus, backed by Nvidia, has withdrawn its planned initial public offering, citing market volatility and conditions. Its board concluded the proposed terms did not adequately reflect the company's business strength and long-term growth outlook. Firmus said it will now pursue private market capital and consider other public and private options.

AIMicbot says a procurement dispute with a Zhejiang customer over four wheeled-quadruped robots has been settled through negotiation, after reports of late P2 deliveries, a balance fault in a Curiosity S01 and a disagreement over secondary-development rights. The buyer, which ordered two P2 units for 580,000 yuan and later two S01 units at 160,000 yuan each, had refused research-only terms for software access. Micbot's October 6 statement said it supports customer secondary development but requires clear authorization and protection of core technology.

AINaive AI, a Tsinghua-linked company founded seven months ago, has raised $400 million across three rounds at a post-money valuation of $1.42 billion. The company's founder is Dai Jifeng, an associate professor in Tsinghua's Department of Electronic Engineering, and its team has not given interviews or published a product introduction.

AIBASAL Intelligence (本溯智能), founded by Tsinghua AIR's first PhD graduate Li Jianxiong, has raised funding led by Fifth Source Capital, with Ivy Capital, Linear Capital and WestSummit Capital participating. The company is pursuing an action-native, in-context embodied foundation model that lets robots adapt to new scenes in minutes from a few human demonstrations and self-attempts, rather than retraining.

AIElon Musk announced on X on October 7 that Grok Bot will select the most suitable backend model for each specific task, explicitly naming Claude Opus 5.5. The source text is truncated, so the full list of other models and any further details are not available.

AIChina's Xiongan New Area is accelerating efforts to attract technology firms, officials and sources said, aiming to nurture local industries alongside state institutions relocated from Beijing. Officials are targeting companies that could reach valuations of 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) and list on markets including Hong Kong within a few years.

AIMeta, Walmart, Stripe and Sierra Technologies are partnering on a Personal Agent Protocol that would define how AI agents interact with businesses online. Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor said it will handle authentication and give companies visibility into personal agents' activity, and it is open for anyone to implement. The effort responds to concerns from six major banks, which urged the industry last month to set standards around transparency, safety, privacy, choice and interoperability.

AICaterpillar and CoreWeave are working to cut the time needed to train construction machines from months to hours, according to Caterpillar's Brandon Hootman. Caterpillar's ecosystem holds about 18 petabytes of federated machine, dealer and customer data, and a single machine can generate terabytes of LiDAR, camera and control data in a day. The partners use AI models, working with Nvidia, to annotate incoming field data so it can feed simulation and training within the same workday.

AINous Research, developer of the open-source Hermes AI agent, raised $90 million in a Series B round led by Robot Ventures, with Nvidia and Samsung participating. The company is now valued at $1.5 billion and says Hermes has been downloaded more than 24 million times. The source also reports $36 million in annualized revenue as of mid-September and expects it to exceed $100 million by year's end.

AIUS venture capital deal value reached a record $515.8 billion in the first nine months of 2026, driven largely by giant AI rounds for OpenAI and Anthropic, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Exit activity has not kept pace, with third-quarter exit value heavily dependent on SpaceX's $60 billion all-stock purchase of Anysphere, and IPOs remaining sparse.

AIGallatin AI raised $50 million in a Series A round led by contributors including 8VC and Silent Ventures, following a $15 million seed raise in 2024. The El Segundo, California company's Navigator platform helps the U.S. military manage supply chains, with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force listed as customers. Gallatin says it will use the funds to enhance Navigator's AI capabilities and hire more engineers.

AIA Financial Times report said OpenAI told prospective investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion, below the $68 billion widely reported two months earlier. The gap was attributed to gross revenue including partner revenue in the earlier figure versus net revenue in the newer one. The Nasdaq fell 1.25% and Oracle dropped 5.5%, while OpenAI and Anthropic prepare for IPOs.

AIRohit Prasad, a longtime Amazon AI executive, will lead robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics as it prepares to manufacture humanoid robots at scale. The source provides no further details on the appointment or production timeline.

AIThe S&P 500 closed above 7,800 for the first time, marking its first record close in nearly two months, while the Nasdaq Composite also hit a fresh all-time closing high. Chipmakers led gains, with Marvell Technology up 5.8%, Advanced Micro Devices up 3% and Broadcom up 3.7%. Investors are now watching Federal Reserve September meeting minutes and a $39 billion 10-year Treasury note auction.

AIApollo Capital Management and several banks are in talks to help SpaceX finance a $40 billion purchase of Nvidia GPUs, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The deal would rely mainly on investment-grade debt, with GPUs likely serving as collateral. SpaceX raised $25 billion in bonds in mid-June, weeks after its IPO.

AIOracle Corp. is trucking natural gas directly to several data centers to keep them on schedule despite power delays. The source provides no further details on volumes, costs, or duration of the arrangement.

AIPresident Donald Trump will award medals to tech executives including Elon Musk, Michael Dell and Satya Nadella at a science summit on Thursday, CNBC confirmed. Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su will receive the National Medal of Science, while Dell and Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, according to the White House. Each recipient has contributed financially to Trump or Republican campaigns and causes.

AIResearch firm New Constructs values Anthropic at $150 billion and calls its planned Nasdaq IPO, targeting a $2 trillion market cap, the most ridiculous offering of 2026. It cites reported 2025 revenue of $4.6 billion and a net loss of $42 billion from a leaked prospectus, and argues open-source competition makes Anthropic's business unviable. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.

AISamsung Electronics projected third-quarter preliminary operating profit of 107.40 trillion won ($80.2 billion), topping 100 trillion won for the first time as AI demand fuels its chips business. The forecast is up 782% from a year earlier, on revenue of about 195 trillion won, up nearly 127%. Samsung shares fell 0.7% Thursday morning, and full third-quarter earnings are expected later this month.

AIPlaintiffs filed a proposed nationwide class action in federal court in Chicago alleging McDonald's AI pricing tool violates antitrust laws by coordinating prices across independent franchises. McDonald's denies that AI sets menu prices, saying franchisees decide and the tools only provide optional information. The complaint also cites a Reuters report that some franchise owners were pressured to use the tools and log deviations from their recommendations.

AITaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co reported September revenue of NT$511.86 billion ($16.03 billion), up 54.6% from a year earlier but down 0.6% from August. The company's third-quarter revenue was about NT$1.49 trillion, and it is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings next week.

AIManus, an AI agent startup, raised more than $500 million in a funding round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with follow-on investment from Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund. The company did not disclose its post-funding valuation, though Bloomberg reported last month it was set to double to $4 billion. The round follows Beijing's order blocking Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition of Manus.

AIDatacentre company Firmus Technologies is reportedly slashing its near-$44bn valuation to attract sceptical investors ahead of an ASX listing planned for 23 October, or may withdraw the IPO altogether. Its valuation rose from $1.85bn to $15bn in about eight weeks and then to almost $44bn days before the report, while the company has only two small operational sites. About 97% of its contracted revenue sits on facilities that are not yet built, according to Minotaur Capital co-founder Armina Rosenberg.

AINasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said tokenizing assets such as Treasurys, equities and money market funds, along with the flow of money, could free up tens of billions of dollars in capital tied up as collateral across the global financial system. She said moving markets to 24/7 trading would require real-time risk and collateral management, with Nasdaq launching AI agents within its risk platform that initially provide recommendations. Friedman added that not every asset is liquid enough to support round-the-clock trading.

AIMoët Hennessy is directing artificial intelligence at a persistent problem in winemaking, according to The Wall Street Journal's tech newsletter headline. The source text provided contains no further details on the technology, results, or specifics of the effort.

AIBiotech companies TRex Bio and Retension Pharmaceuticals are set to make their public debuts, continuing a rebound in the industry's IPO market. The source provides no further details on offering size, pricing, or timing.