With its latest earnings — more accurately, its almost unbelievable cloud backlog — Oracle suddenly catapulted itself into the top ranks of hyperscaler cloud providers.
One big reason for that backlog: a stunning $300 billion deal to provide OpenAI with compute in that Project Stargate deal over the next five years. As a result of the equally unbelievable 36% jump in Oracle’s stock Wednesday, Larry Ellison became the world’s richest man for the first time, at least for now. Not least, he was finally rewarded for what Tony Baer notes was long seen as a terrible decision in 2009 to buy Sun Microsystems.
The whole tech ecosystem is scrambling to catch up to the new and much more infrastructure needed to power AI now and in coming years, from a raft of new AI chips to networking to memory and storage technologies needed for a crazy data center buildout. (One tidbit: Some data centers use as much power as all of New York City.)
The gist from this week’s AI Infra Summit in Silicon Valley: There’s huge interest by engineers and investors alike to seize this opportunity and wrest away a bit of what Nvidia has been reaping for several years now.
Not surprisingly, everyone at the summit, while raising parallels to the dot-com boom and bust, thought it’s different this time with AI. Well, it is different, but people are still people, so it’s almost certain some are overshooting and will pay dearly for that. Maybe even Larry Ellison, whose new stock riches depend on OpenAI raising a boatload of money in coming years to pay for all that cloud computing.
But just not right away: The big bucks keep on flowing for hot AI and data companies (are any of them not hot?): Databricks, Mistral, Reflection, Cognition, Replit, Perplexity, Mercor and more. Oh, and OpenAI appears to have finally resolved that thorny for-profit vs. nonprofit issue by giving the former a $100 billion stake in the latter. And it looks like Microsoft is on board.
Same deal on a smaller scale in quantum, as PsiQuantum raised a billion-dollar round following several other big quantum startup fundings recently.
IPOs keep coming, with successful offerings this week by Figure, Klarna and Gemini, and more filed by Netskope, StubHub, Infleqtion and CoinShares.
Dell’s and Intel’s management shakeups apparently aren’t over yet. And Databricks’ AI chief Naveen Rao is departing to start a new computer company.
Next week is CrowdStrike’s annual Fal.con conference.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news, views and analysis this week from News and beyond:
AI and data: What trough of disillusionment?
Money matters
OpenAI’s nonprofit parent set to receive $100B+ stake in for-profit arm
Databricks discloses latest funding round and path toward profitability
Mistral AI raises $2B led by semiconductor equipment maker ASML at $14B valuation
Nvidia-backed AI startup Reflection nears deal for $1B round at $5.5B valuation (per Financial Times)
AI coding startup Cognition raises $400M+ at $10.2B valuation
Replit raises $250M at $3B valuation for its AI application builder
Perplexity finalizes $200M round at $20B valuation (per The Information)
CuspAI raises $100M to build AI ‘search engine’ to transform materials science
Report: Investors offered to fund AI data startup Mercor at $10B valuation
Motion lands $38M in funding to expand its agentic AI suite for smaller businesses
Agentic master data management firm Syncari closed a Series B funding round of an undisclosed amount
TwinMind AI app secures $5.7M seed funding for ‘second brain’ tech
Policy
What could go wrong? Albania appoints world’s first AI-made minister
New models and services
New animated feature film to be produced using OpenAI’s AI models
Cisco aims to turn machine data chaos into AI Intelligence with Data Fabric
Splunk exec says Cisco acquisition has ignited platform expansion
Anthropic lets Claude remember previous interactions to streamline work
Adobe’s first AI agents are ready to rock and roll
Box debuts AI agents for almost every aspect of content management
Lanai’s edge-based observability agents aim to seek out and shut down shadow AI
Monte Carlo debuts a universal observability tool for AI inputs and outputs
JFrog unveils AI era platform upgrades for software supply chains
RavenDB launches database-native ‘AI Agent Creator’ for faster enterprise adoption
ThoughtSpot users can now embed its analytics into their own customer-facing applications
Vidu launches AI image generation update with reference-to-image for creating imaginative realism
BlackLine launches Verity AI to create a trusted digital workforce for finance
Empromptu promises to transcend vibe coding with AI-generated apps that actually work
There’s even more AI and big data news on News
Around the enterprise: The AI-infra disconnect… and Oracle’s stock rocket
AI chips, both Nvidia’s and those from a raft of challengers, drew a lot of attention at a crowded Silicon Valley conference this week, the AI Infra Summit:
‘Kicking our butts’: Rapid pace of AI development sparks an urgent push to build better infrastructure
Nvidia previews Rubin CPX graphics card for disaggregated AI inference
Arm debuts AI-optimized Lumex chip lineup for mobile devices
D-Matrix introduces AI network accelerator card for ultra-low-latency inference
SiFive introduces new processor core designs for AI devices
Digging deeper into the two AI chip leaders, food for thought from Dave Vellante: Breaking Analysis: Broadcom vs. Nvidia: Not a zero-sum game
And don’t forget Amazon Web Services, says SemiAnalysis: Amazon’s AI resurgence: AWS and Anthropic’s multi-gigawatt Trainium expansion
Money matters
Oracle’s stock makes biggest single-day gain in 26 years on huge cloud revenue projections
Well, no wonder: OpenAI and Oracle strike $300B cloud computing deal to power AI
Tony Baer provides some historical perspective: How the Sun Microsystems acquisition made Oracle the cloud company it is today
Shares of Synopsys crater after export restrictions derail China sales
Bending Spoons snaps up struggling YouTube rival Vimeo in $1.38B deal
Adobe’s stock gains as its AI investments start bearing fruit
Microsoft turns to Nebius in nearly $20B AI infrastructure deal
DataCrunch raises $64M to build European-based AI hyperscaler using green energy
Computer chip performance optimization startup ProteanTecs raises $51M
Clockwork raises $20.5M to synchronize GPU clusters and accelerate AI workloads
IPO watch
Crypto exchange Gemini raises $425M after pricing its IPO at $28 per share
More IPO momentum as Netskope, StubHub, Infleqtion and CoinShares file stock listing paperwork
Klarna surges 14.6% in NYSE debut as ‘buy now, pay later’ giant goes public
Shares of blockchain company Figure climb 21% after $787M+ IPO
New products and services
Exclusive: Together AI launches self-service GPU infrastructure
Apple introduces iPhone 17, Watch 11 and new AirPods Pro 3
RingCentral dials up native workforce management with the acquisition of CommunityWFM
Cisco endows Splunk with agentic AI for security and observability
Disruptions
Microsoft warns of latency as Red Sea cable cuts disrupt internet across Middle East and South Asia
Policy
FTC questions OpenAI, Meta and others over child protections in AI companions
US tech companies enabled the surveillance and detention of hundreds of thousands in China (per AP)
Meta whistleblowers claim company buried information on child safety
We have lots more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps
Cyber beat: Mitsubishi nabs Nozomi and F5 bulks up with CalypsoAI
Money matters
Mitsubishi Electric acquires cybersecurity provider Nozomi Networks for $883M
F5 acquires AI security provider CalypsoAI for $180M And analysis from Zeus Kerravala: F5 boosts AI security capabilities with acquisition of CalypsoAI
Rubrik posts narrower loss and strong revenue growth in second quarter
SailPoint shares drop 7%+ despite strong second quarter
Endpoint cybersecurity firm Koi raises $48M to stop attacks against enterprise networks
Red Access raises $17M to deliver frictionless protection for browsers and SaaS apps
AegisAI raises $13M to protect business users against email attacks
AI phishing simulation startup Adaptive Security gets OpenAI funding boost
Silent Push raises $10M to expand preemptive cyber defense platform
Geordie launches with $6.5M in funding to bring security to agentic AI adoption
Attack & response
Massive npm hack poisons 18 packages with billions of downloads
UK Online Safety Act sparks surge in VPN use and dark web activity
New services
Vanta expands AI capabilities to unify compliance and risk management
Swimlane expands Hero AI to deliver agentic automation for security teams
Lookout rolls out Smishing AI to stop social engineering on mobile devices
SPLX launches AI Asset Management to map and secure enterprise AI stacks
New open-source tool from Permiso uncovers dangerous inbox rule blind spots
More cybersecurity news here
Elsewhere in tech: Quantum’s leap
Quantum computing startup PsiQuantum raises $1B, aiming to build 1M-qubit-scale machine
Amazon launches Zoox robotaxi service with free rides in Las Vegas
Amazon reportedly developing AR glasses in challenge to Meta (per The Information)
And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy
Comings and goings
Databricks‘ AI chief Naveen Rao to exit, launch a new computer startup (per Bloomberg)
Dell’s internal shakeups continued with the departure of longtime Chief Financial Officer Yvonne McGill (per CRN).
Intel reshuffles its executive leadership team as its former co-CEO departs
Edo Liberty, founder of vector database firm Pinecone, is moving from CEO to chief scientist. Googler Ash Ashutosh is the new leader (per VentureBeat).
IT management and cybersecurity software firm Kaseya appointed former Commvault, Veeam and AWS sales exec Anthony Anzevino chief revenue officer and former Intuit, Applatix and Data Domain exec Pratik Wadher chief technology officer.
Veteran infosec and IT exec Ravi Soin joined work management platform Smartsheet as chief information security officer.
Also on the work management front, Asana named former Okta Chief Product Officer Arnab Bose to the same position.
SUSE appointed former Chronosphere Chief Marketing Officer Margaret Dawson its new CMO.
What’s next
Events
Sept. 15-18: CrowdStrike Fal.Con, Las Vegas and virtual. TheCUBE will be onsite Sept. 16-17 for interviews and analysis, and News will have the news.
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