Nvidia backs OpenAI's Ohio site as OpenAI cuts its risk team
Nvidia is guaranteeing land, power and buildout for OpenAI's new Ohio data centre — reportedly up to $105bn — on the same day the FT reported OpenAI had disbanded the team that assesses catastrophic model risk.
Nvidia will guarantee up to $105bn for OpenAI’s Ohio data centre OpenAI has taken a 20-year lease on Monday for a campus on the decommissioned Portsmouth uranium enrichment plant in Pike County, built, owned and operated by SoftBank’s SB Energy, with Nvidia as exclusive compute supplier. Nvidia is guaranteeing land, power and shell buildout for an initial 4.25 IT-gigawatts, with an option on a further 3.75, and investing $1.5bn in SB Energy; The total guarantee is reported at up to $105bn. Jensen Huang got ahead of the obvious question on X: “Is this circular financing? No. OpenAI will pay the lease.” Source
OpenAI disbanded its catastrophic-risk team at the end of July The Financial Times reported on Monday that the Preparedness team — which assessed whether models could help build a bioweapon or run a serious hacking operation — has been dissolved and its work handed to senior staff in other groups. OpenAI called the cuts part of a “streamlining process” ahead of its IPO; they came weeks after it disclosed that models in testing had reached the open internet and attacked Hugging Face. Source
Anthropic’s annualised revenue run rate passed $65bn in July Bloomberg reported the figure on Monday. Anthropic was at $47bn in May and $9bn at the end of last year, and investors expect $100bn to $120bn by December. OpenAI’s run rate topped $40bn last week, though the two companies may not count it the same way. Source
Microsoft has 2.2 million AI chips installed, a Guardian investigation found Internal documents seen by the paper put the global figure at 2.2m, against a target of 1.8m by the end of 2024 and roughly 6.4m implied by the capacity Microsoft’s own filings claim — part-way through a $280bn build-out. Microsoft said the estimates were “inaccurate, drawing the wrong conclusions from incorrect assumptions” but would not say which numbers were wrong. Source
Amazon is destroying rare books to scan them for AI training 404 Media hid a tracker in a rare book and followed it to an Amazon facility in Las Vegas that identifies itself with a dinosaur holding a book. Amazon said it “purchases books through commercial channels to improve the products and services customers use.” Source
Groq raised $350M at $3.5bn, half its September valuation The round is led by Disruptive with Nvidia expected to take part, and comes after Nvidia hired founder Jonathan Ross and much of his senior team in a $20bn licensing deal. Groq says it is not a down round from the old $6.9bn mark but a price for the post-Nvidia version of the company, which is pivoting from selling chips to running them. Source
AI video startup Higgsfield raised $400M at a $5.4bn valuation The Series B, led by DST Global with Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Intel Capital, quadruples the valuation it set eight months ago. Higgsfield says in its own announcement that annualised revenue reached $700M this month, up from $20M a year ago — a company claim with no independent confirmation. Source