AI leaders stare down limits as they keep spending big – News

Initial public offerings of stock inched back this week as eToro’s IPO soared 29% over its initial price, Chime filed and Pony AI in China filed confidentially. But don’t expect a full-scale return in this choppy economy.

Herald the coming of the software-only cloud hyperscaler — starting with Salesforce.

AI leaders suddenly are confronting reality — excessive hype and high expense, not to mention diverging interests and doubts about the headroom for cutting-edge AI such as reasoning models. Meta even reportedly is delaying its latest mega-model after it didn’t show enough improvement, and it’s not alone. But they all still expect a big payoff from the continuing stream of new models from Google DeepMind, OpenAI and more, and from AI services — some, such as Box’s and Boomi’s, providing crucial deeper links to enterprise data and processes.

For now, many AI and data companies are still raking in big rounds, such as Perplexity and AI21 Labs, along with Anthropic closing a $2 billion debt facility — honestly it’s kind of exhausting, as you can see below. And they’re spending that cash, such as Databricks buying Neon for $1 billion. Then there’s Saudi Arabia’s big multibillion-dollar AI play, Humain, with Nvidia, AMD and Amazon feeding at the Mideast trough. But not everyone’s making bank — Cohere’s revenue reportedly came in very low — so you have to think investors are going to start getting pickier at some point.

Quantum computing still seems years off from real commercial potential, but that’s not stopping investors from pouring money into quantum startups such as Classiq.

Trump told Apple CEO Tim Cook how to do business. Cook wisely ignores him, no doubt waiting for him to forget it once the next distraction comes along.

A huge event week is coming up, with Computex, Dell Tech World (check out Dave Vellante’s deep dive on Dell’s strategy in his latest Breaking Analysis), Red Hat Summit, Microsoft Build, Google I/O and commercetools Elevate, most of which will be covered by News and most of them onsite by theCUBE and theCUBE Research as well. And there are a few important earnings reports next week as well: Palo Alto Networks, Snowflake, Zoom, Workday and Autodesk.

You can hear more about this and other tech news on John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, out now on YouTube.

Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news this week from News and beyond:

AI and data: No slowdown for AI spending

Top news and analysis

Salesforce Agentforce and Data Cloud: A path to the software-only hyperscaler

In the race to deploy AI, industry leaders confront hype and expense – but project a promising future

OpenAI and Microsoft engage in tense negotiations over the future of their partnership

Meta set to postpone release of Llama 4 Behemoth model, report claims

Are AI reasoning models reaching limits already? Maybe so.

Why again should we trust Grok? XAI’s chatbot Grok just went on the fritz and couldn’t stop talking about white genocide in South Africa

New models and services

Google DeepMind develops AlphaEvolve AI agent optimized for coding and math

OpenAI says GPT-4.1 model is now available in ChatGPT

OpenAI updates ChatGPT with coding-optimized Codex AI agent

Box expands its toolbox with more AI agents for search, research and data extraction

Cerebras Systems blazes a trail for AI inference, enabling advanced reasoning in real time

Informatica’s CLAIRE agents bring AI automation to big data management

Boomi leaps on the agentic AI boom to accelerate business automation Some analysis from theCUBE: Data governance takes center stage at Boomi World: keynote analysis from theCUBE And CEO Steve Lucas talks to theCUBE: Boomi CEO Steve Lucas on why intelligent automation is now critical to business survival

Qlik unveils agentic AI capabilities, launches lakehouse And check out theCUBE’s analysis of the Qlik Connect keynote, along with many more interviews.

Vectara launches Hallucination Corrector to increase the reliability of enterprise AI

Kong debuts Kong Event Gateway for managing real-time data streams

Celonis adds new AI, data management features to its business process platform

AWS’ AI-powered workload modernization service is now generally available

AWS open-sources Strands Agents SDK to ease AI agent development

Patronus AI debuts new Percival tool for fixing AI agent malfunctions

Amplitude adds new tools to unify marketing and product analytics

Moderne and Diffblue team up to use AI for faster, more cost-effective app modernization

Zerve launches multi-agent system to support full enterprise AI development lifecycle

Twilio unveils AI-powered engagement platform and partners with Microsoft at SIGNAL 2025

Alteryx looks to become an AI data powerhouse with new unified platform (per CRN)

Oracle’s AI play: Making databases speak your language

Five takeaways from IBM Think 2025

Absorbing supply chain shocks with AI at Epicor Insights 2025

Money matters

Anthropic raises $2.5B in debt to finance growth investments

Databricks buys serverless database startup Neon for reported $1B

Salesforce acquires London-based AI agent startup Convergence

Perplexity reportedly near $500M funding round at $14B valuation

Saudi Arabia launches multibillion-dollar AI venture

Nvidia, AMD and Amazon to cash in on Saudi Arabia’s AI hub ambitions

AI-powered drug development startup Pathos AI closes $365M investment

AI21 Labs raises $300M from Google and Nvidia to expand enterprise AI offerings

Harvey reportedly holding discussions to raise $250M at $5B valuation

TensorWave raises $100M to build out AI training cluster data center with 8,000+ AMD GPUs

Google’s new AI Futures Fund turns on the tap for startup founders

Akido lands $60M to grow AI platform for underserved healthcare settings

AI video startup Moonvalley lands $53M, according to filing

AI notetaking app Granola raises $43M at $250M valuation, launches collaborative features (per News)

Cognichip raises $33M to speed up chip development with AI

AI video platform Hedra raises $32M to build digital character foundation models

AI biotech firm SpotitEarly raises $20.3M to scale noninvasive cancer detection in US

Former Apple leaders raise $16M for stealthy Seattle startup building AI inference tech (per GeekWire)

Openlayer raises $14.5M to help developers assess and improve AI model performance

Layer raises $6.5M for AI-powered video game production tools

TensorStax gets $5M in funding to automate data engineering with deterministic AI agents

Soopra AI raises $1M to make AI-driven expert personas into agents

Around the enterprise: IPO glimmers

New products and services

Google gives Android a vibrant, colorful new look with Material 3 Expressive

AMD announces an EPYC upgrade to its entry-level data center server chips

HPE expands private cloud portfolio and touts simplified virtualization

Riverbed introduces new SteelHead 90 network acceleration appliances And a deeper analysis by Zeus Kerravala: Riverbed goes back to the future with a renewed focus on acceleration

Google updates its Cloud Marketplace economics to boost value for partners and customers

Sysdig donates Stratoshark to Wireshark Foundation to expand open-source cloud forensics

Money matters

IPOs may be picking up:

Chime prepares for IPO as tech listings regain momentum

In a positive sign for IPOs, eToro shares rise 29% on Nasdaq debut

Pony AI has confidentially filed for HK listing (per Bloomberg)

Cisco beats expectations and its stock rises on growing AI momentum And Zeus Kerravala’s analysis: Thoughts from Cisco’s third-quarter earnings results

Applied Materials’ chips are down following revenue miss and light guidance

CoreWeave shares fall after missed earnings estimates in first report since Nasdaq debut

Foxconn posts strong profit but lowers guidance amid tariff risks

Arista acquires VeloCloud networking unit from Broadcom (per The Information)

AMD announces $6B buyback, shares climb 5%

Financial technology startup Stash reels in $146M

Ascendx raises $110M to revolutionize CRM with AI-powered insights

Policy

Trump takes issue with Apple’s manufacturing investments in India

And the grift continues: Trump administration leaned on African countries. The goal: Get business for Elon Musk (per ProPublica) 

And: Silicon Valley’s new hold on Washington (per the Wall Street Journal)

Cyber beat: Data breach at Coinbase

Attack & response

Coinbase suffers data breach, exposing customer information to hackers

New services

Commvault teams with Deloitte to strengthen enterprise cyber resilience

Cato Networks launches AI-driven Autonomous Policies to streamline SASE management

Linux Foundation debuts Cybersecurity Skills Framework to address enterprise talent gaps

Money matters

Proofpoint to acquire Hornetsecurity in move to expand Microsoft 365 threat protection

Orca Security acquires Opus to expand AI-driven cloud security automation

Rapid7 delivers solid first quarter but outlook falls short

CyberArk earnings top forecast amid shift to subscription model

ClearVector raises $13M to expand identity-driven threat detection platform

Elsewhere around tech: Investors wake up to quantum computing

Classiq gets $110M to build the operating system for quantum computers

Robinhood to acquire Canadian crypto exchange WonderFi for $179M

Charter to buy Cox for $21.9 billion in mega cable deal

Comings and goings

Microsoft to lay off 6,000 workers, 3% of staff, in new restructuring initiative

Former Google and Amazon Web Services exec Stephen Orban joined Databricks as SVP of product ecosystem and partnerships.

Mark Patterson, Cisco’s EVP and chief strategy officer, has replaced retiring Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren as CFO. Jeetu Patel, EVP and chief product officer, was promoted to president and CPO.

Lidar startup Luminar Technologies replaces founder and CEO Austin Russell after an ethics inquiry, replaced by former Nuance CEO Paul Ricci.

RISC-V International promoted Andrea Gallo to CEO.

Accounts payable spend management firm Medius appointed Gary Hall chief product officer.

What’s next

Events

May 19-22: Dell Technologies World, Las Vegas: TheCUBE will be onsite with interviews and analysis, and News will have all the news.

May 19-22: Red Hat Summit + AnsibleFest, Boston: TheCUBE will be onsite and News will have all the news.

May 19-22: Microsoft Build, Seattle and online: News will have all the news.

May 19-23: Computex, Taipei.

May 20-21: Google I/O, Mountain View. News will have all the news, and I’ll be there to soak in the developer vibes.

May 20-22: commercetools Elevate, Miami, Florida: TheCUBE will be onsite with interviews and analysis to air May 23.

Earnings

Tuesday, May 20: Palo Alto Networks

Wednesday, May 21: Snowflake, Zoom, Domo

Thursday, May 22: Workday, Autodesk

Image: News/Ideogram