AI
AI
AI
AI startups’ funding frenzy, where AWS goes next, and what’s coming at Nvidia’s GTC event
The Anthropic-Pentagon pissing match continues. Anthropic got some backing from Google employees, Microsoft and others, but it’s still likely losing business to OpenAI and yes, Google.
Massive AI startup funding raged on this week with a couple of billion-dollar-plus rounds for Yann Lecun’s and Mira Murati’s startups, plus multiple multi-hundred-million rounds for vertical startups and tool providers — I mean, look at the AI and Data Money Matters section down there, it’s nuts — plus big funding for data centers too.
Cybersecurity funding got a boost as well, with Kevin Mandia’s Armadin as well as Kai getting big early-stage rounds.
AWS celebrates its 20th anniversary Saturday, and I have a feature story on where it’s at today, and what’s coming next (no secret: more AI and agents). And theCUBE will hold a celebratory event in New York City Saturday morning, which also happens to be Pi Day.
Oracle earnings defied the SaaSpocalypse scenario, boosting its stock, and so did UiPath but investors were still skeptical about it. Then longtime Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen stepped down on earnings day, the second recent departure after Workday’s Carl Eschenbach from a software-as-a-service company, despite decent earnings.
Whatever reason he’s leaving, Narayen deserves a lot of credit for moving Adobe into the cloud against what I recall were vociferous complaints from customers, and investors who hated the sudden drop in revenue from no longer selling boxes of software. He showed the entire software industry what it had to do.
Next week will be dominated by Nvidia’s annual GTC conference in San Jose, where we’ll hear the latest on all things AI from Nvidia, a cast of thousands of partners, a whole lot of providers of AI factory gear, and others that want to bask in Nvidia’s green magic. SiliconANGLE, theCUBE and theCUBE Research will be onsite starting Monday at one of the biggest tech conferences of the year with all the news, interviews and analysis.
One intriguing possibility: Per Wired, Nvidia is planning to launch an open-source AI agent platform. Here’s what else to expect: From GPU clusters to AI factories: The next phase of AI infrastructure heading into Nvidia GTC The WSJ says Nvidia will introduce a new chip for AI inference, or answering AI queries. Also, Wired also says it’s looking to dive much deeper into creating its own, open-weight foundation models, with plans to spend $26 billion over the next five years on the effort. It’s sure nice to have unlimited cash, isn’t it?
And the following week, March 23-26, we’ll all be at RSAC, the biggest cybersecurity conference of the year, in San Francisco, and there’s KubeCon+CloudNativeCon in Amsterdam the same week.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news and views this week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
AI and data: AI’s growing pains
Food for thought
Amazon calls engineers for a “deep dive” internal meeting to discuss gen AI-related outages
Building for trillions of agents: Box CEO Aaron Levie’s manifesto on how software applications need to be rebuilt for the AI agent era, prioritizing application programming interfaces over user interfaces
Grammarly shuts down ‘Expert Review’ after pushback from the real experts
When using AI leads to ‘brain fry’: A new study finds that certain patterns of AI use are driving cognitive fatigue, while others can help reduce burnout (per Harvard Business Review)
AI-powered apps struggle with long-term retention, new report shows (per TechCrunch)
Policy
Anthropic sues to scrap Trump administration’s Claude ban This issue isn’t going to die down, as Google workers filed an amicus brief in support of Anthropic and Microsoft also backed Anthropic. But as Bloomberg noted, Google itself will provide the Pentagon with AI agents for unclassified work.
Anthropic launches an institute to tackle AI risks
Meta told by Oversight Board better moderation is needed for AI-generated deepfakes
Money matters
Nvidia will spend $26B to build open-weight AI models, filings show (per Wired)
Yann LeCun’s new startup AMI Labs raises $1.03B to train world models
Nvidia makes ‘significant’ investment in Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines
Databricks launches data engineering copilot and acquires agent evaluation startup Quotient AI
OpenAI to acquire Promptfoo to expand AI application testing capabilities
MariaDB buys in-memory computing pioneer GridGain to accelerate data processing for AI agents
Meta Platforms buys Moltbook, the bizarre and fascinating social network for AI agents
Zendesk announces deal to acquire customer support AI startup Forethought
Legora raises $550M to fuel U.S. expansion of AI agents that automate legal work
Rivian’s industrial automation spinoff Mind Robotics secures $500M in funding
Rhoda AI raises $450M to build foundational robotics models that learn from internet videos
Vibe coding startup Replit closes $400M round at $9B valuation
Verifiable AI startup Axiom raises $200M to prove AI-generated code is safe to use
AI agent development startup Wonderful reels in $150M
Fireworks AI bets on Hathora acquisition to power the next phase of real-time AI
Axiamatic raises $54M in early-stage funding to build an AI platform to accelerate enterprise transformation programs
Qdrant raises $50M to bring flexible vector search to production AI systems
Gumloop lands $50M from Benchmark to turn every employee into an AI agent builder
Translucent raises $27M to help healthcare firms automate financial visibility
BackOps raises $26M Series A round to build the AI-native operating system for global supply chains
Standard Kernel raises $20M seed round to let AI rewrite the software that runs AI
Just for maximum confusion, Axiomatic AI raises $18M to build the intelligence infrastructure for verified science and engineering
Zymtrace raises $12.2M to optimize AI workload performance across GPU infrastructure
Anchr brings AI to America’s food supply distribution chain with $5.8M raise
New models and services
Nvidia’s Nemotron Super 3 model for agentic systems launches with five times higher throughput
Google Maps makes navigation easier with conversational ‘Ask Maps’ feature
Microsoft introduces Microsoft 365 E7 subscription with expanded AI features
Microsoft launches Copilot Health to help consumers understand their medical data
Google enhances Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive with deeper Gemini integration
Anthropic’s Claude gets interactive visuals to enhance learning
Anthropic debuts extremely efficient but pricey code checking tool for developers
Claude for Excel and Claude for PowerPoint now can share the full context of conversations across all open files, so every action Claude takes in one application is informed by everything that’s happening in the other.
Canva’s Magic Layers breathes new life into flat and AI-generated images
Thenvoi launches platform to help developers orchestrate multiple AI coding agents
New memory architecture targets AI inference bottlenecks
Exclusive: Virtana customizes its observability platform for AI workloads
Zoom introduces agentic AI capabilities to drive productivity and action at work And analysis from Zeus Kerravala: Zoom at Enterprise Connect 2026: From meeting tool to agentic work orchestrator
Dataiku is evolving into the orchestration layer for enterprise-grade AI agents
Genspark launches Claw AI assistant as secure alternative to open agent platforms such as OpenClaw
Mend.io launches AI system prompt hardening solution to secure LLM instructions
Tricentis introduces agentic AI-driven software quality tool suite
CData expands Connect AI platform with agent-specific tooling and governance
Atlas rolls out multi-agent AI system to automate game asset production
OneTrust expands platform with real-time AI governance and agent oversight capabilities
Around the enterprise: AWS is no longer a teen
Twenty years after pioneering the cloud, Amazon Web Services chases the next big prize: AI
Money matters
AI cloud startup Nscale raises $2B in funding at $14.6B valuation
Nvidia invests $2B in AI cloud operator Nebius
Salesforce’s $25B debt sale draws weak demand on AI worry (per Bloomberg)
Google sells partial stake in fiber business, becomes minority owner of new venture
AI networking startup Nexthop AI raises $500M, launches new switches
With $200M in funding, Eridu wants to break through the network wall holding back AI
ORO Labs raises $100M to expand procurement orchestration platform
Xscape debuts its first laser-based optical interconnect after raising $37M in fresh funding
Nyad launches commercial solution for wastewater operators with $1.3M in funding
Earnings
Networking boost helps HPE beat the Street’s earnings targets
Oracle’s cloud revenue surges 44%, easing pressure on its stock
Domo shares rally 30% as earnings beat expectations despite modest revenue growth
Despite an earnings beat and solid guidance, UiPath’s stock slides after hours
Rubrik shares slip after-hours despite strong earnings results and upbeat outlook
Pagerduty earnings beat by five cents, revenue tops estimates, but stock falls after-hours
New products and services
Meta debuts internally developed AI chips for inference workloads
Exclusive: Panzura updates global file system to cut storage costs and prepare for agentic AI
Beyond the fan experience: How Wi-Fi 7 is redefining the modern stadium
Texas Instruments launches two new microcontrollers to boost AI for edge devices
Cyber beat: Kevin Mandia’s back
Money matters
Kevin Mandia’s Armadin raises record $189.9M to develop AI-driven cyberattack simulation software
Cybersecurity startup Kai raises $125M to build agent-driven AI security platform
Google completes $32B acquisition of Wiz
Slide raises $70M to expand its business continuity and disaster recovery platform for managed service providers
Bold Security and Onyx Security raise $40M each to tackle emerging AI cybersecurity risks
Qevlar AI raises $30M to shift security operations from alert firefighting to organization-level security insights
Escape raises $18M to expand AI agent platform for offensive security testing
Attack & response
Iran-backed hackers claim ‘wiper attack’ on medtech firm Stryker
New services
AWS updates Security Hub to aggregate security findings across multicloud environments
F5 announces platform-wide upgrades including Insight observability and AI security tools And a deeper dive from Zeus Kerravala: The convergence crisis: Why AI adoption demands a new architectural blueprint
Netskope launches One AI Security suite to protect agentic AI and enterprise models
Quantro Security launches with AI-powered VM.Analyst for enterprise vulnerability management
Darwinium launches agent intent intelligence to tackle fraud in AI-driven commerce
Fortanix expands Data Security Manager with quantum entropy from Qrypt and Quantum Dice
ColorTokens launches Xshield AI Agent to automate microsegmentation policy enforcement
IO River introduces edge security platform running Check Point WAF across multiple CDNs
Elsewhere in tech
Sunday raises $165M at $1.15B valuation to launch Memo household robot
Cryptio raises $45M to build ERP infrastructure for tokenized and digital assets
Comings and goings
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen will step down after nearly two decades leading company transformation. Did the SaaSpocalypse look a little too close for comfort?
ActiveState, which makes tools for managing open-source software, appointed open-source veteran Abby Kearns CEO.
Darktrace named former Quickbase CEO Ed Jennings president and CEO, its third in the last year and a half.
Team software provider Atlassian will lay off 1,600 people, 10% of staff, to focus more on AI and enterprise.
Microsoft‘s top Office executive Rajesh Jha will retire after more than 35 years.
Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne appointed Sonalee Parekh chief financial officer a couple of days before reporting earnings that knocked its stock down about 5% in late trading Thursday.
OpenAI hardware exec Caitlin Kalinowski said she’s leaving in response to its Pentagon deal.
Allen Institute for AI CEO Ali Farhadi stepped down as the nonprofit navigates the shifting AI landscape (per GeekWire)
Niobium, maker of hardware acceleration for fully homomorphic encryption, added former Groq exec John Barrus VP of product and former Celestial AI exec Evan Scott VP of finance.
Orca Security appointed former Darktrace exec Rachel Nislick chief marketing officer.
Toni Schneider, former CEO of Automattic and partner at True Ventures, joined Bluesky as interim CEO after Jay Graber decided to step down.
What’s next
Events
March 16-19: Nvidia GTC, San Jose: SiliconANGLE and theCUBE will be onsite with stories, interviews and analysis at what has become one of the premier AI conferences of the year.
March 23-26: RSAC, San Francisco: SiliconANGLE and theCUBE will be onsite at the biggest cybersecurity conference of the year.
March 23-26: KubeCon+CloudNativeCon EU, Amsterdam: TheCUBE will onsite with interviews and analysis, and SiliconANGLE will have the major news.
Earnings
Tuesday, March 17: Docusign
Wednesday, March 18: Micron
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