Anthropic nears $170 billion valuation

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Tuesday.

Anthropic is closing a $3B–$5B funding round led by Iconiq Capital, valuing the AI startup at $170B.

The raise nearly triples its valuation from earlier this year and fuels its race with OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI to secure data centers and top AI talent.

Sovereign wealth funds from Qatar and Singapore are in talks to join.

OK let’s keep going ↓

🔥 Creative pulse

Nick Cave once called AI lyrics “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.”

Then he watched filmmaker Andrew Dominik bring Elvis back to life with AI for the 40th anniversary of Tupelo.

He was ready to hate it.

Instead, it left him speechless.

Watch the video and decide for yourself. As always, it’s posted on LinkedIn…make sure to read the entire post.

PS: I’m launching an AI creative community in less than 3 days. I’ll share the link here first. Keep an eye out.

💡 Here’s what you should know

• OpenAI launches Study Mode in ChatGPT

  New interactive mode helps students learn step by step with hints, questions, and knowledge checks.

• Google expands AI Mode in Search with new study tools

  Users can now upload PDFs, create dynamic Canvas plans, and use Search Live video for real-time help.

• NotebookLM Launches Video Overviews

  AI now creates narrated slide videos and supports multiple outputs per notebook.

• NSF backs AI institutes at Brown & Cornell

  The National Science Foundation is awarding $40 million to new AI research centers focused on mental health applications and sustainable materials innovation.

• AI firm alliances form in China amid export curbs

  Leading Chinese AI companies, including Baidu, Alibaba, and Huawei, have launched two new industry alliances to build a domestic ecosystem resistant to export restrictions.

• Skild AI debuts omni-bodied robotics brain

  The new foundation model can learn from trillions of examples to control any robot across tasks and hardware.

• Luma AI adds “Modify with Instructions”

  Users can apply natural language edits to videos for object swaps, virtual sets, and VFX.

💰 The numbers

• Groq is in talks to raise $600M at a ~$6B valuation to expand its AI chip business for data centers and LLMs.

• Whitefiber is marketing a $132.8M IPO to scale its AI infrastructure business as a subsidiary of Bit Digital, with pricing expected the week of August 4.

• Pokee AI raised $12M seed led by Point72 Ventures for its general-purpose AI agent platform.

• Nebulock raised $8.5M led by Bain Capital Ventures to launch its autonomous AI threat‑hunting platform for enterprise security.

🧠 Thought starters

Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is negotiating to keep access to OpenAI’s tech even if AGI is reached, sidestepping the contract clause that could cut it off.

• Talks include 30–35% equity, new revenue splits, and IP protections for both sides

• OpenAI wants freedom and independence to sell to governments and enterprises beyond Azure

• Microsoft wants to lock in AGI distribution

If OpenAI keeps the AGI trigger in place, it could one day walk away with the crown jewels.

If Microsoft removes it, they effectively own the AI distribution rails for the next decade.

(Bloomberg, paywalled)

😂 Meme of the day

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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