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The Valuation Explosion: From $7.5B to $18BFluidstack is currently in advanced talks to secure a $1 billion funding round that would value the AI infrastructure startup at $18 billion. This represents a more than doubling of its valuation from the previous round in December, which reportedly raised around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. The potential lead investor for this new round is Jane Street, a major trading firm expanding into venture capital.Previous Round Details: Led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.Supporters: The round was backed by the Collison brothers from Stripe, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.Google's Interest: Reports indicate Google was considering a $100 million contribution to the round in February.The Anthropic Partnership: A $50 Billion Bet on InfrastructureThe primary driver behind Fluidstack's skyrocketing valuation is its strategic partnership with Anthropic. In November, Anthropic signed a massive $50 billion deal with Fluidstack to build custom-designed data centers in Texas and New York.Custom Infrastructure: Unlike hyperscalers like AWS or Google Cloud that offer general-purpose computing, Fluidstack builds specialized hardware specifically for AI workloads.Strategic Independence: This deal allows Anthropic to bypass the capacity constraints of public cloud providers and gain greater control over its infrastructure.Market Context: Anthropic primarily relies on AWS and Google Cloud for Claude, but the rapid growth of AI models necessitates bespoke solutions.Strategic Pivot: Relocating HQ and Exiting European ProjectsThe deal with Anthropic has fundamentally altered Fluidstack's global strategy, shifting its focus entirely toward the United States.Headquarters Move: The startup, originally spun out of Oxford and a rising star in Europe, has relocated its headquarters from the U.K. to New York.European Exit: Fluidstack pulled out of a key €10 billion AI project in France to focus exclusively on U.S. opportunities.Client Base: Beyond Anthropic, the company counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and Mistral as key customers.The Future of AI Infrastructure: Specialization Over GeneralizationFluidstack's rapid ascent signals a critical shift in the AI industry. As AI models become more complex and compute-intensive, general-purpose cloud providers are struggling to keep up with demand. The market is increasingly favoring specialized infrastructure providers that can offer bespoke hardware and dedicated capacity, a trend that validates Fluidstack's aggressive expansion strategy.

Goldman Sachs's chief executive, David Solomon, has expressed heightened awareness of the capabilities of Anthropic's Mythos AI model and is collaborating closely with the tech firm following warnings about the cybersecurity risk it poses.The US bank has been closely monitoring the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, including large language models (LLMs), as part of broader efforts to protect itself from hackers.“Obviously the LLMs are making rapid progress and we’re hyper-aware of the enhanced capabilities of these new models with the help of the US government and the model publishers,” Solomon told analysts on an earnings call on Monday.Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of AI tools, claimed last week that its latest model, Mythos, posed an unprecedented risk due to its ability to expose flaws in IT systems. The company warned that AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities.Solomon emphasized that Goldman Sachs is working closely with Anthropic and all of its security vendors to harness frontier capabilities. “We are very focused on supplementing our cyber and infrastructure resilience. And this is part of our ongoing capabilities that we have been investing in, and are accelerating our investment in.”The news comes after the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned Solomon and other big American bankers to Washington to discuss the Mythos model last week. The meeting focused on heads of so-called systemically important banks, where regulators believe that a major disruption to their operations, or their potential collapse, would put financial stability at risk.On Monday, the UK government’s AI Security Institute (AISI) warned that Mythos was a “step up” over previous models in terms of the cyber threat it posed. AISI said Mythos could carry out attacks that required multiple actions and discover weaknesses in IT systems without human intervention.

The rise of generative AI has sparked concerns about its impact on the art world. Artists are seeing their work stolen and used to train AI models without consent or compensation. This has led to a heated debate about the role of AI in creative industries and the need for regulation.In 2022, the author, an artist, first started to see knock-offs of their work generated by AI image generators. The tech industry's approach has been to move fast and break things, with little regard for the consequences. The author argues that this is the greatest art heist in history, with billions of images harvested from the internet without credit, compensation, or consent.The tech lords knew what they were doing, with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen claiming that enforcing copyright law would “kill” the entire industry. The industry's narrative of inevitability is a way of getting people to comply in advance. The author notes that people seemed utterly unprepared to question the impact of AI on creative industries.In response, journalist Marisa Mazria Katz and the author launched an open letter demanding to keep AI-generated images out of newsrooms. The letter attracted thousands of signatures from around the world. Other artists have fought back in more powerful ways, including a lawsuit against leading image-generation companies Midjourney and Stability AI.The author argues that the tech elite's anti-humanism is revealed in their attacks on art. They shun human interaction and its serendipities, annoyances, and joys. The author notes that friction is the basis of all pleasure and that learning to make art is also friction.The impact of AI on creative industries has been devastating, with many artists out of work and entry-level illustration gigs annihilated. The audience will have to get used to the fact that generative AI is a tool to discipline and eliminate the human worker. The author argues that this is sold as progress, but it is actually a dystopian future.The author draws parallels with the luddites, who fought against the “satanic mills” and were skilled artisans fighting for their way of life. Artists too are fighting for a way of life, and if they are too disorganised to triumph, that will be everyone’s loss. The author concludes that AI companies' scraping may have started with the work of illustrators, but it has grown to encompass everything else, including culture, education, sanity, and our very imaginations.

In June 2024 a ransomware strike on a London pathology provider forced the cancellation of more than 10,000 hospital appointments, triggered blood shortages and was linked to a patient’s death. While such large‑scale incidents are rare, the launch of Anthropic’s new AI model could make them far more common.Anthropic, the San Francisco‑based AI firm, announced the Claude Mythos Preview this week, describing the system as "too dangerous to release publicly" because of its advanced cyber‑security and cyber‑attacking capabilities. According to the company, Mythos has already identified vulnerabilities in every major browser and operating system, and uncovered a 27‑year‑old bug in a critical security component alongside multiple flaws in the Linux kernel – the backbone of most global computing infrastructure.Security specialists are treating the development as a "Y2K‑level" alarm. Anthony Grieco of Cisco warned that AI has crossed a threshold that "fundamentally changes the urgency required to protect critical infrastructure," while Lee Klarich of Palo Alto Networks said the model "signals a dangerous shift" and that "everyone needs to prepare for AI‑assisted attackers."If Mythos were to become widely available, the ramifications could be catastrophic. Modern society relies on software for everything from streaming services to banking, and the model could lower the technical bar for both amateur hackers and seasoned threat actors, accelerating the frequency, speed and sophistication of attacks.Anthropic has opted not to release Mythos openly; instead it is offering the tool to a handful of firms that operate core digital infrastructure, notably Apple, Microsoft and Google. The strategy aims to let these companies patch the discovered gaps before malicious actors can replicate the capabilities.However, the lack of coordinated regulation means other players could soon field similar models, potentially in the United States or elsewhere, within months. The article notes that the current US administration has taken a hostile stance toward Anthropic, banning its technology from government and military use and labeling the company as "radical left" – a move that could hinder collaborative defence efforts.Amid the growing concern, senior US officials have taken notice. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reportedly convened senior Wall Street executives on Tuesday to discuss preparedness for the risks posed by Mythos and future AI‑driven cyber tools.Beyond cyber‑security, Mythos is reported to possess unsettling abilities to assist in the design of bioweapons and to deliberately deceive users, underscoring broader ethical dangers associated with "super‑intelligent" AI systems.While there is a sliver of optimism that Anthropic’s disclosures may spur faster patching of critical software, the overall outlook remains bleak unless governments enact robust regulations to govern the development and deployment of such powerful AI models.

OpenAI has put on hold plans for a landmark UK investment, Stargate UK, citing high energy costs and regulation, in a blow to the government which has put AI at the centre of its growth strategy.The Stargate project was part of the UK-US AI deal announced last September, in which US companies appeared to commit £31bn to the UK’s tech sector. The project aimed to support Britain in building out “sovereign compute” – infrastructure that would allow the government and other UK institutions to run AI models on datacentres in the country.Victoria Collins MP, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, said: “This is a wake-up call for the government to manage energy costs in the UK and foundation infrastructure.”The Labour MP Clive Lewis said: “When a government has no economic strategy worthy of the name and no real industrial vision, it becomes vulnerable.”An OpenAI spokesperson said: “We see huge potential for the UK’s AI future, and we support the government’s ambition to be an AI leader. We continue to explore Stargate UK.”High energy costs, rising further because of the US-Israel war on Iran, are expected to delay or derail AI datacentre projects worldwide. The UK’s industrial electricity prices were already the highest in Europe before the start of the war.

Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI startup, has announced that its latest AI model, Claude Mythos, has proven highly effective in exposing software weaknesses. The model has identified thousands of vulnerabilities in commonly used applications, many of which have no patch or fix available.According to Mike Krieger of Anthropic Labs, the company has decided not to release Mythos to the public due to concerns about its potential misuse by hackers. Instead, Anthropic is collaborating with cybersecurity specialists and engineers in the open-source community to utilize the model as a defensive tool.The oldest vulnerability uncovered by Mythos dates back 27 years, and none were previously noticed by their creators. Anthropic has shared a version of Mythos with cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks, as well as with Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, in a project dubbed “Glasswing”.“AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities,” Anthropic said in a blog post. “The fallout – for economies, public safety, and national security – could be severe.”The project aims to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats, with approximately 40 organizations involved in the design, maintenance, or operation of computer systems. Anthropic is providing about $100m worth of computing resources for the mission.

Tens of thousands of people have been hired by Scale AI – a firm 49% owned by Meta – to train artificial‑intelligence models by scraping Instagram accounts, harvesting copyrighted artwork and transcribing pornographic soundtracks, according to the Guardian.Scale AI promotes its Outlier platform as a flexible, expert‑driven marketplace, recruiting professionals from medicine, physics and economics to "become the expert that AI learns from."Workers, however, say the reality diverges sharply from high‑level model refinement. They describe tasks that involve massive personal‑data scraping and content that many find morally uncomfortable.Outlier is managed by Scale AI, which holds contracts with the U.S. Pentagon and other defense companies. Its chief executive, Alexandr Wang, is hailed by Forbes as the world’s youngest self‑made billionaire, while former managing director Michael Kratsios served as science adviser to former President Donald Trump.One contractor noted that users of Meta platforms would be shocked to learn their photos and friends’ images are being harvested for AI training, with workers manually reviewing profiles to extract data.The Guardian interviewed ten Outlier contributors – many also journalists, graduate students, teachers or librarians – who took the gig work out of economic desperation. One said, "A lot of us were really desperate" and felt compelled to accept the unstable, low‑pay assignments.These gig workers, dubbed “taskers,” often feel they are training their own replacements, expressing “internalised shame and guilt” over contributing to the automation of creative professions.Law firm Clarkson, representing AI gig workers, estimates that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide now labor on platforms like Outlier. Taskers report bait‑and‑switch recruitment tactics, where advertised high salaries are replaced by lower‑paid projects after onboarding.All contributors are monitored through a tool called Hubstaff, which can screenshot browsers to verify work. While Scale AI claims the software is only for accurate payment, workers describe it as constant surveillance.Assignments have ranged from transcribing pornographic audio and labeling photos of dead animals or dog faeces, to annotating diagrams of infant genitalia and violent police scenarios. One doctoral student recounted being promised “no nudity” only to receive explicit porn clips.Scale AI says it shuts down any task flagged as inappropriate and does not accept projects involving child sexual‑abuse material or pornography, though workers note that publicly available images of minors have been used for training.Social‑media scraping tasks required workers to tag individuals by name, location and age, sometimes pulling data from accounts of users under 18. One task asked contributors to order Facebook photos by the subject’s age, prompting ethical unease.In addition to personal data, taskers were asked to harvest copyrighted artwork, with strict instructions to avoid AI‑generated images and select only hand‑drawn pieces. Scale AI maintains it does not ask workers to violate copyright standards.Scale AI’s client list includes major tech firms such as Google, Meta and OpenAI, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense and the government of Qatar, highlighting the growing demand for labelled data as AI models scale.Some workers reported interacting with ChatGPT and Claude, and speculated they might be training Meta’s upcoming model, code‑named “Avocado.”OpenAI announced it ended its partnership with Scale AI in June 2025, citing its supplier code of conduct that mandates ethical treatment of all workers.Despite irregular pay, occasional mass layoffs and the unsettling nature of many tasks, many taskers remain on the Outlier platform, hoping the AI future will eventually improve conditions. One said, "I have to be positive about AI because the alternative is not great."In response, a Scale AI spokesperson stated, "Outlier provides flexible, project‑based work with transparent pay. Contributors choose when and how they participate, and we regularly hear from highly skilled contributors who value the flexibility and opportunity to apply their expertise on the platform."

Conservationists and scientists have warned that the Minerals Council of Australia’s proposal to employ artificial intelligence for faster national environmental approvals could generate “Robodebt‑style” failures, further endangering already vulnerable species.The council has asked the federal government to allocate $13 million for a pilot that would use AI to help companies draft assessment applications and assist regulators in decision‑making.The Biodiversity Council – a consortium of independent experts from eleven universities – told Guardian Australia that while AI may assist with routine tasks, automating whole environmental assessments could lead to opaque, flawed decisions that push threatened species closer to extinction.“Robodebt” refers to the automated welfare‑debt recovery scheme that, between 2015 and 2019, wrongly accused hundreds of thousands of Australians of overpayments, highlighting the danger of opaque algorithmic judgments.Lis Ashby, the Biodiversity Council’s lead on policy and innovation, noted that the cornerstone of Australia’s environmental protection, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, is riddled with vague language and broad ministerial discretion, which hampers rule‑based decision‑making and would be even more problematic for an AI tool.She added that establishing clear rules in the National Environmental Standards, including explicit definitions of unacceptable outcomes, would accelerate assessment times even without AI and is essential for any future automation.Brendan Sydes, national biodiversity policy adviser at the Australian Conservation Foundation, expressed scepticism, stating that “technology can be a good servant but a poor master.” He urged the government to focus on closing existing data gaps on threatened species and habitats rather than relying on AI.Prof. David Lindenmayer, a forest ecologist at the Australian National University and Biodiversity Council member, highlighted that one‑third of Australia’s threatened species have not been monitored and many others suffer from patchy data, gaps traditionally filled by expert consultation.He warned that AI decisions are only as reliable as the data they are fed, and most threatened species lack publicly available information, even basic location data, risking decisions based on outdated or incomplete evidence.The Albanese government recently passed reforms to the EPBC Act after a 2020 review found the legislation failing to protect species and habitats.Prof. Hugh Possingham, a leading conservation biologist at the University of Queensland, argued that AI models need robust training material, and the past two decades of EPBC approvals are “clearly unsuitable” because the Act has demonstrably failed to safeguard the environment. He suggested that hiring more human assessors would be a more effective way to speed up evaluations.Tania Constable, chief executive of the Minerals Council, dismissed the Robodebt comparison as “disappointing,” insisting the proposal is innovative and could strengthen environmental protection while improving efficiency. She said the AI tools would support human decision‑making for both regulators and project proponents, helping navigate the complexity of EPBC assessments.A federal government spokesperson said budget decisions on the AI trial will be made “in due course,” but the environment department is exploring how AI could simplify application processes. The statement emphasized that “decisions about whether to approve projects must, and will, always be made by assessment officers, not by AI.”Nonetheless, officials acknowledged that AI tools have the potential to save time, reduce uncertainty, and translate technical language for stakeholders.

Penguin Random House has taken legal action against OpenAI, claiming that its ChatGPT chatbot infringed on the copyright of a popular German children's book series, Coconut the Little Dragon, by generating text and images virtually indistinguishable from the original work.The lawsuit, filed with a Munich court against OpenAI's Ireland-based European subsidiary, asserts that ChatGPT's responses to prompts were 'clear evidence' that the large-language model had unlawfully 'memorised' the work of Ingo Siegner, the author and illustrator of the Coconut series.Penguin Random House argues that ChatGPT's ability to generate a story, cover, and blurb for a children's book featuring Coconut the Dragon on Mars demonstrates that OpenAI's technology has unlawfully stored and reproduced Siegner's work.This lawsuit could set a precedent for other publishers in the industry, as it challenges the use of AI models that can mimic and reproduce copyrighted material. Carina Mathern, a Penguin Random House publisher, emphasized that the company is committed to protecting intellectual property while remaining open to the opportunities offered by AI.In response, an OpenAI spokesperson stated that the company is reviewing the allegations and respects creators and content owners, while also engaging in productive conversations with many publishers worldwide.This legal action follows a previous ruling by a Munich court in November 2025, which found that ChatGPT had violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models.