Intel finally got a new CEO this week: Lip-Bu Tan, a former board member and longtime CEO of chipmaking software veteran Cadence Design Systems.
By all accounts, he’s a capable leader, but former CEO Pat Gelsinger looked capable too. Turning around Intel is a huge undertaking, especially if, as Tan said this week, he aims to keep both Intel design and foundry units. Even if TSMC might be interested in a joint foundry venture — a big if — it would take a miracle to keep Intel whole.
Interest in artificial intelligence agents is exploding, judging from a number of new services this week — even if the reality is still limited. ServiceNow even provided agentic AI’s first exit, buying Moveworks.
Lightweight large language models are proliferating, this week from Google and Cohere. Given the cost of compute, that’s only likely to continue. So are more industry- or task-specific models besides code generation, such as Google’s Gemini models for robots and Moonvalley’s “copyright-clean” video model.
Still, investors are getting impatient with what they see as the slow pace of AI contributing to enterprise value, as UiPath and Adobe found out this week. Other enterprise names reported disappointing earnings or outlooks too, such as Oracle and Asana, though others such as Rubrik, PagerDuty and Docusign outperformed. Next week there’s a single tech earnings report: Micron.
But an even more nascent technology, quantum computing, is getting more investor interest even further ahead of the likely opportunity. It doesn’t hurt that one company, D-Wave, demonstrated what it says is the long-awaited quantum supremacy, though not everyone agrees.
Next week we’ll be covering one of the biggest events of the year, Nvidia GTC, in San Jose, where we’re likely to hear about new graphics processing units — hello, Vera Rubin — as well as networking and other technologies, even quantum, which is surprising given CEO Jensen Huang recently threw cold water on its near-term prospects.
Here’s all the news and analysis from this week, and what’s coming next:
AI and data: An agentic AI exit already
Top of mind
Coverage from the HumanX conference:
Building an ecosystem: Model providers join the tech mainstream as interest in AI agents explodes
Assessing the human element: Panelists weigh AI’s role in cybersecurity during HumanX
OpenAI calls on Trump to eliminate restrictions on the AI industry And Google chimes in: Google submits AI policy suggestions to the White House A useful perspective from Alex Wilhelm at Cautious Optimism: Can I borrow your life’s work? It’s a matter of national security!
The ladder to agentic AI: Navigating the next frontier in enterprise AI
New models and services
OpenAI’s newest developer API brings search capabilities to AI agents
Sam Altman says OpenAI has trained a fiction writing AI model that’s actually decent
Databricks kicks off an initiative to make AI agents easier to build and manage
Google introduces the Gemma 3 family of accessible lightweight models
Google debuts two new AI models for powering robots
China’s new AI agent Manus gets global attention for its autonomous smarts
Cohere releases a low-cost AI model that requires only two GPUs
Vast Data adds vector search and serverless functions to its scalable data platform
SambaNova debuts framework for lower-cost, open-source deep research agents
AI21 debuts Maestro AI planning and orchestration system
Moonvalley introduces a ‘clean’ generative video AI model for cinema and advertising
Foxconn builds FoxBrain, its own AI model (per Wall Street Journal)
Cinelytic acquires Jumpcut Media to expand AI-powered entertainment analytics platform
Money matters
ServiceNow to acquire agentic AI platform Moveworks in $2.9B deal
Qualcomm acquires edge AI development startup Edge Impulse
Arize AI acquires Velvet to expand support for AI observability, LLM evaluation
Documents reveal Google has a 14% stake in Anthropic and may invest $750M more
Lila Sciences raises $200M to accelerate autonomous scientific research
Supabase developer platform raises $100M+ at $2B valuation (per Bloomberg)
AI-powered industrial robotics startup Dexterity raises $95M
Ditto raises $82M in funding for its edge database
Nirvana raises $80M for AI-powered insurance for truck drivers and fleet operators
Business intelligence startup Omni closes $69M funding round
Voice AI startup Cartesia raises $64M Series A round
AI agent-powered compliance automation startup Norm Ai raises $48M
Bria raises $40M to develop generative AI models trained on licensed data
There’s even more AI and big data news on News
Around the enterprise: Can Intel’s new CEO save it?
Top of mind
Intel finally gets a new CEO: industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan
At long last, OpenStack (now known as OpenInfra Foundation) joins Linux Foundation
New services and products
Cerebras announces six new AI accelerator data centers across North America and France
Meta partners with TSMC to test its first homegrown AI training chips
With FlashBlade//EXA, Pure Storage helps enterprises keep data-hungry GPUs fed to accelerate AI workloads
Arista Networks expands AI performance with new capabilities
Flipboard debuts new Surf beta release with upgraded Bluesky integration
Money matters
Report: TSMC could launch joint venture with partners to run Intel’s fabs
Financial technology provider Klarna files for IPO at reported $15B+ valuation
Celestial AI raises $250M for its optical interconnect technology
Exclusive: CoreWeave strikes $12 billion contract with OpenAI ahead of IPO, sources say (per Reuters)
Mitel restructures under Chapter 11 bankruptcy to pursue hybrid opportunity
Earnings: Investors seem increasingly worried that AI won’t make money for its creators for awhile:
Oracle misses expectations and guidance was also weak, sending its stock lower
Asana shares drop over 25% on weak outlook and CEO Dustin Moskovitz’s retirement
UiPath’s growth slows to a crawl as it chases agentic AI dream with Peak acquisition, and its stock falls sharply
Adobe stock drops as AI monetization concerns weigh on investors
SentinelOne shares drop after weaker-than-expected revenue guidance
PagerDuty delivers strong earnings and revenue beat, boosting its stock
Rubrik shares jump on earnings beat and strong fiscal year outlook
Docusign shares jump on earnings and revenue beat
We have plenty more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps
Cyber beat: Humans in the AI loop
Attack & response
X hit by large-scale DDoS attack disrupting services for hours
Fortinet identifies thousands of malicious software packages exploiting open-source repositories
February sets record for highest number of ransomware attacks ever reported
Money matters
Security funding: Cybereason raises $120M as Chainguard reportedly eyes $350M round
Blackwall reels in €45M for its AI-powered reverse proxy
Sola Security launches with $30M to simplify cybersecurity with AI and no-code tools
Cyber Guru expands cybersecurity training portfolio with acquisition of Mantra
New services
Druva and Microsoft team up to enhance cyber resiliency for enterprises
Sysdig report finds cloud security advancing with faster threat detection
New Brivo Security Suite streamlines enterprise security and compliance management
Sonar expands SonarQube with advanced security for third-party open-source code
New Splashtop solution enhances remote support with automated patch management and security controls
Detectify launches Alfred to automate CVE security testing with AI
More cybersecurity news here
Elsewhere in tech: Quantum leaps
‘Pokemon Go’ owner Niantic Labs selling video game division to Saudi developer Scopely
Report: Binance has held talks with Trump family about selling Binance US stake As one well-connected founder and investor put it: “Corruption in broad daylight. no shame / blame whatsoever.”
Surveillance tech startup Flock Safety scores $275M in new funding at $7.5B valuation
Google reportedly negotiating $115M deal for eye-tracking startup AdHawk Microsystems
After confusion, FTC says it will go ahead with Amazon deceptive practices case
Meta says it’s almost ready to start testing Community Notes
Quantum computing seems to be getting more traction or at least more interest, and more will be coming next week at Nvidia’s GTC event, where there’s a “quantum day” despite CEO Jensen Huang’s recent insistence that quantum is many years away from practical use:
D-Wave claims to have achieved ‘quantum supremacy’ at last, but others disagree Meantime, it posted a larger-than-expected loss, but its revenue outlook topped forecasts.
Alice & Bob improve cat qubit error rates with ‘squeezing’ technique
QuamCore raises $9M to solve the biggest scalability challenge in quantum computing
And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy
Comings and goings
Space launch firm Relativity named Eric Schmidt CEO as it updates Terran R development.
Former Splunk CEO, Cisco President Gary Steele to be CEO of defense upstart Shield AI (per CRN)
After nearly 19 years at Google, Umesh Shankar has joined Microsoft AI as a corporate vice president of engineering after 19 years at Google, most recently as chief technologist and distinguished engineer for Google Cloud Security (per GeekWire).
Tammy Nam joined AI-powered ad startup Creatopy as CEO (per News).
What’s next
March 18-21: Nvidia GTC, San Jose: We’ll be covering all the news and interviewing key players.
Earnings:
Thursday, March 20: Micron
Photo: Robert Hof/ News
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