Apple filed suit against OpenAI in federal court in Northern California, alleging a coordinated campaign to obtain confidential product designs, manufacturing processes, and supply chain strategies as OpenAI builds consumer hardware. The complaint names OpenAI hardware chief and former Apple VP Tang Tan and cites more than 400 ex-Apple employees now at OpenAI; OpenAI has denied the allegations.
Why it matters
It's a sharp reversal in a once-close partnership and puts OpenAI's hardware ambitions and recruiting practices under court scrutiny just as the company prepares for a possible IPO.
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FUNDING
OpenAI's deployment arm agrees to acquire Northslope
OpenAI Deployment Company, majority-owned by OpenAI, agreed to acquire Northslope, an applied-AI firm founded by former Palantir engineers whose forward-deployed engineers embed inside customer organizations. It's the unit's second acquisition after Tomoro, drawing on roughly $4 billion set aside for enterprise deployment deals.
Meta to begin production of custom AI chip Iris in September
Meta plans to start manufacturing its in-house data-center AI chip, codenamed Iris, in September as part of a push to scale computing infrastructure to 14 gigawatts by 2027. That's up from a 7-gigawatt target for 2026.
Anthropic's cybersecurity model program expands to 150 organizations
Project Glasswing, Anthropic's program deploying its restricted Claude Mythos model to find and patch vulnerabilities in critical software, grew from 50 partner organizations to 150 across 15 countries this week. The expansion signals growing government and enterprise appetite for AI-assisted vulnerability research.
SambaNova raises $1 billion Series F at $11 billion valuation
AI chip and inference platform SambaNova closed the first tranche of a $1 billion Series F led by General Atlantic, doubling its valuation to $11 billion five months after its last mega-round. JPMorganChase also named SambaNova an inference infrastructure partner for on-premises deployments.
China weighs curbs on overseas access to its top AI models
China's Ministry of Commerce has met with Alibaba, ByteDance, and Z.ai about possible limits on overseas access to advanced Chinese models, including ones not yet released. The talks follow a surge in US companies' use of Chinese models, which have held above 30% of weekly token volume on OpenRouter since February.
