OpenAI announces $500Bn Stargate Project to expand U.S. AI infrastructure + releases Operator, an AI agent that performs online tasks autonomously

Today’s Highlights:

?? News: OpenAI announces $500Bn Stargate Project to expand U.S. AI infrastructure + OpenAI launches Operator, an AI agent that performs online tasks autonomously

?? Funding: Mistral AI plans for IPO + Google invests additional $1Bn in Anthropic

?? Top News Stories:

1. OpenAI , in partnership with SoftBank Group Corp. , 甲骨文 , and other tech giants, has launched The Stargate Project, a $500Bn initiative to expand U.S. AI infrastructure.

• An initial $100Bn investment will focus on building large-scale AI data centers in Texas, with nationwide expansion planned.
• The project is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, reinforcing U.S. dominance in AI and AGI development.
• Key technology partners include 英伟达 , 微软 , and Arm , leveraging their expertise in AI hardware and cloud infrastructure.
• OpenAI and SoftBank are each committing $19Bn to the Stargate project, giving them both a 40% stake in the joint venture.
• Stargate plans to build up to 20 data centers, each with a half-million square feet, by 2029.
• The announcement coincides with President Trump’s new executive order, which seeks to establish U.S. dominance in AI by accelerating private investment, reducing regulatory hurdles, ensuring ideological neutrality in AI models, and advancing the Stargate initiative, replacing Biden’s safety-focused AI regulations with an industry-driven approach.
• Elon Musk challenged the financial viability of the Stargate Project, questioning SoftBank’s secured funding and raising doubts about the initiative’s backing.

2. OpenAI has introduced Operator, an AI-powered assistant that leverages Computer-Using Agent (CUA) technology to autonomously browse the web and perform complex tasks such as booking and shopping by interacting directly with web interfaces through a built-in browser.

• CUA combines GPT-4o’s vision with reinforcement learning to perform digital tasks via GUI interaction, without relying on specialized APIs.
• Operator interacts with web interfaces visually, replicating human actions like clicking and typing.
• The AI is designed to handle multi-step tasks with self-correction capabilities, improving its performance dynamically.
• Safety measures include user confirmations for sensitive actions, restricted access to high-risk sites, and real-time monitoring for potential misuse.
• Currently available to ChatGPT Pro users in the U.S., with expansion plans for Plus, Team, and Enterprise tiers in the future.

3. Anthropic has introduced Citations, a new API feature allowing Claude to ground responses in source documents for improved accuracy and trustworthiness in applications such as document summarization, complex Q&A, and customer support.

4. Perplexity has introduced Sonar and Sonar Pro APIs, providing businesses with real-time, citation-backed AI search integration, where Sonar offers an affordable, lightweight solution with flat pricing, and Sonar Pro delivers enhanced functionality for complex queries with twice the citations.

5. Perplexity has launched Perplexity Assistant for Android, an AI-powered tool that combines reasoning, search, and app integrations to assist users with daily tasks like hailing rides, managing calendars, and conducting online searches.

6. Researchers at the Center for AI Safety and Scale AI have introduced “Humanity’s Last Exam,” a rigorous benchmark featuring 3,000 expert-vetted Ph.D.-level questions across disciplines like philosophy and rocket engineering, where top AI models, including OpenAI's o1 and Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro, achieved a maximum score of only 8.3%.

7. Google DeepMind 's Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking AI has topped some leaderboards with its exceptional math and science reasoning abilities, featuring multimodal capabilities, built-in code execution, and a 1M token context window, all available for free during beta testing.

8. 微软 has lost its exclusive cloud provider status for OpenAI, now holding only a right of first refusal, as OpenAI signs new infrastructure deals with SoftBank, Oracle, and others to expand its AI research and training capabilities beyond Azure.

9. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff suggested that Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI “cracked” after hiring Mustafa Suleyman as CEO of Microsoft AI, due to reported personal tensions between Suleyman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which were visible at previous public events.

10. Hugging Face has introduced SmolVLM-256M and SmolVLM-500M, the smallest AI models capable of processing images, videos, and text on low-resource devices, boasting superior performance to larger counterparts while being cost-efficient and open-source.

11. 字节跳动 has launched Doubao 1.5 Pro, a multimodal AI model that surpasses leading competitors while using fewer compute resources and offering a more cost-effective alternative.

12. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced plans to introduce a voice-interaction feature for its AI chatbot, Claude, allowing for more natural conversations, along with an improved memory function to recall past user interactions.

13. Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, in an open letter published in The Washington Post, urged the Trump administration to prioritize AI investment to maintain U.S. dominance over China, recommending five strategic steps, including boosting federal AI infrastructure spending, making government agencies “AI-ready” by 2027, and ensuring affordable electricity for AI data centers.

14. Scale AI faces a third lawsuit within a month, with workers alleging psychological trauma from reviewing disturbing content on its Outlier platform without adequate mental health support, following previous lawsuits accusing the company of labor violations, including worker misclassification and sub-minimum wage payments.

15. Goldman Sachs has launched the GS AI Assistant, a generative AI tool initially rolled out to 10,000 employees with plans to expand firm-wide, designed to handle tasks like email summarization, proofreading, and code translation while ensuring security, compliance, and alignment with the bank’s culture and operational processes.

16. 三星电子 's Galaxy S25 lineup introduces significant AI upgrades, aiming to create a more personalized and context-aware mobile experience through One UI 7 and Galaxy AI.

17. 谷歌 is expanding its Gemini app’s smart home control capabilities to all users, allowing them to manage lighting, thermostats, speakers, and other connected devices via natural language commands.

18. 英伟达 unveiled a new AI inference platform designed to provide high-throughput and low-latency performance, enabling efficient deployment of AI services across cloud, data centers, and edge environments.

?? Top Funding News:

1. French AI startup Mistral AI , valued at €5.8Bn, is preparing for an IPO rather than a sale, as confirmed by CEO Arthur Mensch at the World Economic Forum in Davos, while expanding its global footprint with a new Singapore office to target the Asia-Pacific market alongside continued growth in Europe and the U.S.

2. Google has invested an additional $1Bn in AI startup Anthropic, increasing its total stake to $3Bn, as the company nears a $60Bn valuation with plans to raise up to $2Bn from investors like Lightspeed, bringing its total funding to $14.7Bn amid strong market interest and anticipation of major updates in 2025.

3. Databricks has secured $15.3Bn in funding at a $62Bn valuation, consisting of $10Bn in equity and $5.25Bn in debt financing from major financial institutions, with Meta joining as a strategic investor alongside backers like Temasek and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund (QIA) to support its AI expansion and global operations.

4. Vertice , an AI-powered SaaS spend management platform optimizing enterprise software procurement, raised a $50M Series C led by Lakestar , with participation from Perpetual Growth, CF Private Equity, Bessemer Venture Partners , and 83NORTH .

5. Ati Motors , an AI-driven robotics company automating industrial material movement, raised a $20M Series B co-led by Walden Catalyst Ventures and NGP Capital , with participation from existing investors.

6. Doti AI , an AI-powered enterprise search platform enabling data integration and proactive responses, raised a $7M Seed Round led by F2 Venture Capital , with participation from angel investors.

7. Coval , an AI simulation platform for evaluating voice and chat agents, raised a $3.3M Seed Round led by MaC Venture Capital , with participation from Y Combinator and General Catalyst .