E99: 8/15/25
AI2's $152M NSF investment, Github re-org, Meta talent wars intensify, a botched GPT-5 rollout, new models from Anthropic/Deepmind, new mega VC rounds, and more!
Hi all, here's this week's AI newsletter, after taking last week off in Argentina. Brace yourself… it is a very long one, as the last two weeks have been jam-packed with new mega VC rounds, new model releases (some botched), new US Gov deals, and much more. Enjoy!
PNW AI News:
AI2 lands $152M from Nvidia and NSF to lead a national AI project for scientific research, marking the NSF's first major investment in AI software infrastructure for science
The project, Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI), will develop a family of large, fully open, multimodal AI models trained on scientific literature and data
GitHub will join Microsoft’s CoreAI division with the departure of CEO Thomas Dohmke, who is starting a new company in the beginning of 2026 after the transition
Microsoft is targeting Meta’s AI talent in a new recruiting offensive, using multi-million dollar offers of its own to lure researchers from labs outside of the new Superintelligence Labs division
T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telecom officially launched its AI phone and tablet in European markets, which come integrated with Perplexity’s assistant
AI2 released MolmoAct, a new AI robotics system that uses novel approaches to help robots navigate messy real-world environments, while making all of the model’s code, data, and training methods open-source
Microsoft just announced CLIO (Cognitive Loop via In-situ Optimization), a framework that enables non-reasoning LLMs to develop their own thought patterns and adapt their reasoning in real-time
Two UW Students got into YC for their startup Meteor, building what they call the “world’s most intelligent web browser… on a mission to kill Chrome"
Sci-fi fans at Seattle Worldcon 2025 voice real-world concerns about how AI is changing the information and entertainment ecosystem
Outpost, the Seattle/Austin-based operator of truck terminals across the US, announced it isrolling out a gate automation platform that uses computer vision and AI to automate trucking gate inspections
Key AI Product/Research Updates:
Sam Altman announced a series of changes to ChatGPT following backlash from the company’s GPT-5 launch, including the return of the popular 4o model, expanded rate limits, and new controls for model choice
OpenAI leaders held a Reddit Q&A on Friday, following the polarizing rollout of GPT-5, which angered the user base due to technical failures, chart “crimes,” and the abrupt removal of older models
Google DeepMind just announced Genie 3, a new general-purpose world model that can generate interactive environments in real-time from a single text prompt, complete with surrounding and character consistency
Anthropic released their latest LLM Claude 4.1, an incremental upgrade for Opus 4, improving performance across real-world coding, in-depth research, and data analysis tasks
OpenAI has released GPT-OSS, its first open-weight models since GPT-2, in 120B and 20B parameter variants, both of which use a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture
Perplexity partnered with OpenTable to let users make restaurant reservations directly when browsing through its answer engine or Comet browser
xAI is officially rolling out Grok Imagine, its new AI image and video generator, to compete with Google, OpenAI, Runway, etc.
Apple is making a smart home push with four AI-powered devices, including a desktop robot, smart display, and security cameras, targeting launches between 2026 and 2027
MIT researchers just used AI to design two new antibiotics capable of killing drug-resistant gonorrhea and MRSA bacteria, potentially opening a new front against infections that cause millions of deaths annually
ElevenLabs launches multilingual AI music generator with full commercial rights
Taiwanese giant HTC introduced Vive Eagle, a new line of AI glasses that let users choose between AI assistants and feature strong battery life, advanced translation capabilities, and other features to challenge Meta’s Ray-Ban dominance
Figure AI has shown its Figure 02 humanoid robot folding laundry fully autonomously, powered by its existing "Helix" neural net
Unlike Tesla’s Optimus, which earlier performed the same task via teleoperation, Helix required no model architecture changes, only new training data
Google released Gemma 3 270M, an ultra-compact open model with just 270M parameters, small enough for efficient on-device inference yet outperforming several larger lightweight models
Anthropic brings Claude's learning abilities to regular users and devs, where "Explanatory mode" breaks down reasoning, trade-offs, and decisions, while "Learning mode" pauses for developers to complete #TODO code segments
DeepSeek’s long-awaited R2 model is reportedly being delayed due to training issues with Huawei’s Ascend chips
Google's Gemini gained new personalization features, including a default memory mode that stores prior conversation context, “Temporary Chats” for privacy, and a “Keep Activity” setting
Anthropic has introduced "persona vectors", a method to isolate and manipulate neural activation patterns linked to traits like sycophancy, maliciousness, or hallucinations
Meta’s FAIR team just introduced TRIBE, a 1B parameter neural network that predicts how human brains respond to movies by analyzing video, audio, and text
Google is rolling out an AI-powered upgrade to Google Finance in the U.S., adding natural language Q&A, advanced charting, expanded asset coverage, and a streaming news feed
Google and NASA are partnering to develop an AI medical assistant, dubbed Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant, with the ability to diagnose and treat astronauts during deep-space missions where Earth communication is delayed
Google DeepMind just open-sourced an upgraded version of Perch, an AI model that helps scientists analyze massive amounts of wildlife audio, making it easier to track endangered species
Key AI Business/Investment Updates:
Perplexity AI has made a $34.5B bid for Google’s Chrome, at nearly twice Perplexity’s own $18B valuation, as the DOJ weighs forcing Google to sell Chrome after a 2024 ruling that it illegally monopolized search
With over 60% global browser share and 3.5B users feeding Google Search and its $2T ad business
OpenAI recently raised $8.3B, led by Dragoneer and backed by T. Rowe Price, Blackstone, Sequoia, and Tiger Global, after annualized revenue topped $13B
ChatGPT is set to hit 700M weekly active users this week, up from 500M in March and 4x since last year
Cohere raised $500M at a $6.8B valuation in its latest funding round led by Radical Ventures and Inovia Capital, joined by AMD, Salesforce and NVIDIA, also adding Meta’s VP of AI Research, Joelle Pineau, as its new Chief AI Officer
French AI startup Mistral is raising $1B at a $10B valuation from multiple VCs and Abu Dhabi’s MGX as the AI race heats up
xAI offers free access to Grok 4 worldwide with generous usage limits, looking to undercut other premium chatbots
Former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner just raised over $1.5B in funding for his ‘Situational Awareness’ AI-focused hedge fund, despite having zero professional investing experience
OpenAI is also reportedly holding early talks about a secondary share sale for current and former employees at a valuation of $500B
Elon Musk announced that xAI is taking legal action against Apple over pushing OpenAI’s products in the App Store and suppressing rivals like Grok, with the conversation spiraling after Sam Altman accused X of similar tactics
Anthropic is offering Claude to US federal agencies for $1, matching OpenAI’s pricing just las week in a race to secure government AI contracts
OpenAI is in talks to invest in Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup raising at an $850M valuation, with Sam Altman co-founding and the project aiming to compete directly with Elon Musk's Neuralink
The US is reportedly secretly placing tracking devices in shipments of advanced AI chips from Nvidia and AMD to identify potential re-routings to China
The US government is also entering into a new agreement with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD that would provide a 15% cut of chip sales to China
Meta’s Superintelligence Lab added three more OpenAI researchers, with Alexandr Wang revealing Edward Sun, Jason Wei, and Hyung Won Chung have joined the team
OpenAI’s Startup Fund invested $14M into Endex, a Thiel Fellow–founded startup integrating an AI agent directly into Excel
PNW AI/ML/CV Fundings:
GoodShip (Bellevue, WA/Nashville, TN) raised $25M in Series B funding led by Greenfield Partners, joined by Bessemer, FUSE, Ironspring, Chicago Ventures, and more
An AI software startup that helps companies manage shipping logistics data, get the best spot rates, and communicate with shippers - TFTD $40M
CEO: Ryan Soskin
Qbeast (Bellevue, WA) raised $7.6M in Seed funding from Peak XV Partners, HWK Tech Investment, and Elaia Partners
An AI data optimization startup that helps customers optimize analytics on open data platforms such as Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg, with an indexing layer that can deliver 2-6X faster queries and up to 70% lower compute costs - TFTD $7.6M
CEO: Srikanth Satya
Loopr (Redmond, WA) raised $5.4M in Seed funding from Growth Warrior Capital, Stellar Ventures, SWAN Venture Group, Singularity Capital, and Tacoma Venture Fund
AI visual inspection platform designed to automate quality checks and reduce manual errors in manufacturing workflows - TFTD $6.8M
CEO: Priyansha Bagaria
Cavalry.ai (formerly Shipped AI/Invisible Commerce… Seattle, WA) raised $2M in a re-capped Seed round from Mistral, and other existing investors Bling Capital, Caffeinated Capital and Max Levchin
AI software for customer success (including returns and other claims) for ecommerce brands - TFTD $9.7M+
CEO: Jonathan Wu
Wild Zebra (Seattle, WA) raised $2M in Seed funding from undisclosed investors
Personal AI tutor that doesn’t just give the answer but guides students through lessons, adapts to how they learn, appeals to their personal interests, and grows with them over time - TFTD $2M
CEO: Edan Shaher
Synthesis Health (Vancouver, BC) raised $1.8M in Seed extension funding from existing investors CME Ventures, Break Off, Hilltop Venture Partners, Blue Gentian Capital, and more
Intelligent health imaging platform designed to help imaging healthcare specialists automate their diagnosis workflow - TFTD $11.4M
President: Murray Reicher
Natural Intelligence (Boise, ID) raised $1.2M in Seed extension funding from undisclosed investors
Neuromorphic machine learning platform designed to replicate human-like pattern recognition and contextual learning in AI systems - TFTD $14.4M
CEO: Paul Dlugosch
Plutus (Seattle, WA) raised $450K in Pre-Seed funding from undisclosed angels
A marketplace for high-performance AI modelled portfolios, aiming to give everyday investors access to strategies traditionally reserved for hedge funds and ultra-wealthy clients - TFTD $450K
CEO: Shashank Chiranewala
Ceedar (Vancouver, BC) raised $200K in Pre-Seed funding from Metalab and more
AI bookkeeping platform that automates financial workflows, offering features such as real-time insights, cash flow forecasting, and compliance with accounting standards like ASPE and GAAP - TFTD $200K
CEO: Connor Turland