#A260423p14

From Techmeme: Anthropic says Google is committing to invest $10B now in cash at a $350B valuation and will invest another $30B if Anthropic hits performance targets (Bloomberg)

From Techmeme: Helsinki-based Verda, formerly Datacrunch, which aims to become Europe's first AI cloud hyperscaler, raised €100M in debt and equity (Mimi Billing/Sifted)

From Techmeme: Meta and Amazon reach a multi-billion, multiyear deal for Meta to rent hundreds of thousands of Amazon's Graviton chips for its AI efforts (Matt Day/Bloomberg)

From Techmeme: Meta announces a deal to use "tens of millions" of Amazon's Graviton chips to help deliver its next generation of AI models, amid a shortage of Nvidia chips (Ina Fried/Axios)

From Techmeme: Huawei plans to spend up to $11.7B over five years to boost compute for training and testing autonomous cars, with ~$2.64B for autonomous driving R&D in 2026 (Daniel Ren/South China Morning Post)

From Techmeme: Sources: China recently told tech companies, including ByteDance and Moonshot AI, to reject US capital without state approval, after Meta's Manus acquisition (Bloomberg)

From Techmeme: Alibaba says its Qwen AI models will be integrated into BYD, Volkswagen, and other cars, letting users buy food and tickets via voice commands on select models (Evelyn Cheng/CNBC)

From Techmeme: As part of the Cohere-Aleph Alpha deal, Aleph Alpha backer Schwarz Group plans to invest $600M in Cohere's Series E, which a source says is set to close in 2026 (Kai Nicol-Schwarz/CNBC)

From Techmeme: Norway plans to ban children from using social media until they turn 16; the government says it will introduce a bill in parliament by the end of 2026 (Terje Solsvik/Reuters)

From Techmeme: Canada's Cohere and Germany's Aleph Alpha agree to a merger deal valuing the combined group at ~$20B to work on sovereign AI; both governments support the deal (Financial Times)

From Techmeme: Sources: India is piloting 10 schemes to test whether its CBDC, the e-rupee, can deliver welfare payments more efficiently, as it looks to boost e-rupee usage (Reuters)

From Techmeme: DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.74/1M input tokens and $3.48/1M output tokens, while V4 Flash costs $0.14/1M and $0.28/1M; both models are the cheapest in their class (Simon Willison/Simon Willison's Weblog)

From Techmeme: Staffing experts say India's IT sector is seeing a rise in replacement hiring as companies adapt to Gen Z staff leaving jobs faster than previous generations (Tanya Pandey/The Economic Times)

From Techmeme: Singapore is slowly emerging as a neutral ground for AI companies, offering an alternative place to build without worrying about US or Chinese regulations (Reuters)

From Techmeme: Texas Instruments stock rose 19% on Thursday, its best day since 2000, after upbeat Q2 guidance driven by high demand for analog chips used in AI data centers (Katie Tarasov/CNBC)

From Techmeme: Shenzhen-based Pudu Robotics, which makes commercial service robots, raised ~$150M, bringing its total funding to $300M+, and says its valuation exceeds $1.5B (The Robot Report)

From Techmeme: Intel reports Q1 revenue up 7% YoY to $13.58B, vs. $12.42B est., and forecasts Q2 revenue and adjusted EPS above estimates; INTC jumps 15%+ after hours (Katie Tarasov/CNBC)

From Techmeme: Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty detail their "return of Xbox" strategy, including daily active players as its "new north star" (Tom Warren/The Verge)