Today’s top line: OpenAI raised $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation while researchers found 800+ exposed Artex hacking tool deployments; Meta paused controversial scraping terms and Google will invest $17 billion to develop Crusoe’s Wyoming data centre.
OpenAI raises $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation
Summary: OpenAI has raised $11 billion so far in a new funding round that Bloomberg says values the company at $1.25 trillion. The round has not closed; sources told Bloomberg it could total about $20 billion and is expected to close in the coming weeks.
Digest: A very large private valuation and fresh capital increase investor expectations ahead of an anticipated IPO next year and will shape competition and hiring in the AI industry. Watch for how OpenAI allocates this funding and whether the round expands further.
Source: TechCrunch
Researchers find 800+ public deployments of Artex AI hacking tool
Summary: Security firm Censys identified more than 800 distinct Artex deployments that were accessible from the web without a password. Artex is an open-source autonomous penetration-testing tool linked to several cyberattacks since its public release in July, including attacks on the Korean finance sector and an incident affecting ConnectWise.
Digest: Publicly exposed Artex instances make powerful offensive capabilities easier to misuse and magnify risk from simple misconfigurations; organisations should audit exposed tooling, lock down access, and enforce strong authentication and monitoring.
Source: TechCrunch
Meta pauses controversial business terms after publisher and regulator backlash
Summary: Meta has paused planned changes to its business terms for Facebook pages and said it will consult with stakeholders. Critics argued the proposed language could allow broad crawling of linked external sites and bypass publishers’ scraping preferences; courts in Brazil and Norway issued preliminary injunctions and the UK Competition and Markets Authority opened a formal investigation.
Digest: Content owners and regulators forced Meta to step back; publishers and platform partners should watch for any final wording about robots.txt and opt-outs because the debate affects data access for AI training.
Source: Ars Technica
Nvidia hardware worth $11.4M stolen between Oakland and Texas
Summary: Six pallets of Nvidia equipment valued at $11.4 million disappeared after leaving Oakland on August 29 for Fort Worth, Texas; a grand theft report was filed on September 13 and the investigation is ongoing. The incident is part of a wave of hardware heists that have netted more than $100 million in shipments since June.
Digest: Repeated large-scale thefts of AI hardware threaten supply chains and can push up costs and lead times for AI projects; companies should strengthen shipment security, tracking and vendor controls.
Source: Ars Technica
Crusoe sells unfinished Wyoming data centre project to Google; Google to invest $17B
Summary: Crusoe confirmed it sold an unfinished data centre project in southeastern Wyoming to Google. Google announced plans to invest $17 billion to develop the data centre campus; Crusoe had originally planned the site with Tallgrass and aimed to scale it to 10 gigawatts.
Digest: Major cloud providers are stepping in to secure large-scale compute capacity, highlighting the difficulty independent developers face delivering huge AI-scale infrastructure on time and within budget.
Source: TechCrunch
MIT’s CheMeleon model improves molecule prediction when data are scarce
Summary: MIT researchers released CheMeleon, a model pre-trained on detailed data for one million molecules and about 1,600 chemical descriptors that helps predict properties when experimental data are limited. The open-source model, available via ChemProp, outperformed other approaches in an OpenADMET contest and is already in use by some pharmaceutical firms.
Digest: CheMeleon can speed early-stage drug and materials discovery by improving triage of candidate molecules when lab data are scarce; companies doing computational chemistry should evaluate the open-source tool.
Source: MIT News
Quick hits
- Meta launches Spaces for Muse agents – Meta added Spaces, a sidebar feature that creates project-specific conversations where Muse agents track tasks and integrate third-party apps; Meta said Muse agents had 10 million U.S. and Canada users. (TechCrunch)
- Podcast: Blue Wave midterms could reshape AI policy – TechCrunch’s podcast discusses how Democratic election wins and 41 data-centre ballot measures (all but one voting to restrict development) could lead to more regulation of data centres and Big Tech. (TechCrunch)