August 15, 2026: Flattish Week, Decent AI Datapoints

Last week, Dow Jones fell 0.6%, S&P 500 index rose 0.4%, Nasdaq composite was up ~0.1%. Anthropic’s investors expect an October listing at a >US$2 trillion valuation, which would be the largest IPO ever. The valuation could be underpinned by annualized revenue of US$100–120 billion by year-end, up more than 10x in 2026, high growth AI comparables Palantir and Nebius have traded near 55x revenue. Intel is raising US$15 billion in stock after a 175% twelve-month run. Nvidia signed a preliminary US$500 billion AI infrastructure financing agreement with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR, retaining an option to backstop up to 25% of any project. Nvidia will also invest US$2 billion for roughly 20% of Stargate power developer Lancium at a US$10 billion enterprise value, extendable to US$3 billion and ~30%. SK Hynix approved 54 trillion won (US$38 billion) for two new fabs. Nebius revenue rose 454% to US$582 million. CoreWeave revenue doubled to US$2.575 billion. Cisco stock fell 5% despite 18% revenue growth to US$17.3 billion and US$4 billion of AI orders in the quarter alone. Cerebras fell 16% as hardware revenue halved to US$54 million. Workday rose 18% on Silver Lake takeover talks. Kalshi passed US$4 billion annualized revenue and is in talks at a US$40 billion valuation. Gemini reached 1 billion monthly users. Meta will open-weight Muse Spark 1.2. OpenAI paused Astra over cyber capabilities. Z.ai claims GLM-5.3 matches Mythos 5 on security tasks. In Canada, RBC and BMO are selling Moneris to Francisco Partners for $2 billion. Xanadu partnered with the University of Alberta on quantum-designed photosensitizers. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Legend Power Systems won a GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract placing SmartGATE Gen 3 under SIN 334512, opening federal plus state and local buyers via Cooperative Purchasing. Intermap reported Q2 revenue of US$2.0 million and negative US$1.4 million adjusted EBITDA. Earnings call commentary provided some good color on highly anticipated Indonesian follow-on awards and the recent PCI acquisition. Intermap also strengthened its Board of Directors.

Sophic Client Legend Power Systems Inc. (LPS-TSXV, LPSIF-OTC) awarded GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract for SmartGATE active power management systems.

Legend Power Systems Inc. has been awarded U.S. General Services Administration (“GSA”) Multiple Award Schedule (“MAS”) Contract 47QSMS26D0071 for its SmartGATE™ Active Power Management systems. The award makes Legend’s SmartGATE Gen 3 platform available under Special Item Number (“SIN”) 334512, Total Solution Support Products for Facilities Management Systems. Legend’s GSA MAS contract provides eligible U.S. federal agencies with access to pre-negotiated SmartGATE pricing, terms, and procurement conditions through one of the federal government’s primary commercial acquisition vehicles. The U.S. federal government manages one of the largest real estate portfolios in the world, with the federal inventory reported by the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) to include more than 3 billion square feet of building space. This scale underscores the importance of technologies that can help government facility operators address energy use, power quality, equipment reliability, and long-term infrastructure performance across large and diverse building portfolios. GSA maintains the Federal Real Property Profile as the centralized inventory for executive branch real property. Importantly, SIN 334512 is also eligible under GSA’s Cooperative Purchasing Program, allowing eligible state, local, tribal, and other qualifying government buyers to access approved products and services through the MAS program. This expands the potential procurement pathway for SmartGATE beyond the federal agency buyers to potentially include broader eligible public-sector entities such as municipalities, public schools, higher education institutions, public housing authorities, water authorities, and other government-related facilities. Prior to the MAS award, government customers interested in SmartGATE often faced longer, project-specific procurement processes to evaluate and acquire a differentiated building-level power management solution. The GSA MAS contract provides eligible federal, state, and local buyers with a pre-negotiated procurement pathway that can reduce administrative friction, support partner-led procurement strategies, and make it easier for agencies to evaluate and deploy SmartGATE where incoming power conditions are impacting energy use, equipment reliability, or capital planning. SmartGATE is Legend’s patented Active Power Management platform installed at a building’s electrical service entrance to manage incoming power conditions. By dynamically regulating and optimizing voltage, SmartGATE is designed to reduce energy waste, improve power quality, and help protect critical building systems from the impact of poor incoming power conditions. “This award is an important milestone in Legend’s government market strategy,” said Michael Cioce, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Legend Power Systems. “Federal, state, and local government facility operators are facing many of the same challenges we see across the broader commercial building market: aging infrastructure, increasing grid volatility, rising operating costs, and growing pressure to extend the life of critical equipment. The GSA Schedule gives eligible government buyers and our channel partners a more efficient path to evaluate and procure SmartGATE as part of their facility performance, resilience, and capital-protection strategies.” The GSA MAS award builds on Legend’s broader government and institutional market development efforts, including the prior selection of SmartGATE for evaluation through GSA’s Center for Emerging Building Technologies programs, including the Green Proving Ground evaluation program. Together, these efforts support the Company’s strategy to increase public-sector access to SmartGATE through third-party evaluation, established procurement pathways, and partner-led deployment channels. The GSA MAS contract does not guarantee specific orders; however, it establishes a streamlined procurement pathway for eligible government buyers to access Legend’s SmartGATE solutions through the Schedule program. https://t.co/awotghLjYP

Sophic Client Intermap (IMP-TSX, ITMSF-OTC) reports second quarter 2026 results.

Intermap reported second quarter 2026 financial results and continued execution of its long-term growth strategy, including the acquisition of PCI Geomatics. Following the quarter, Intermap announced a definitive agreement to acquire PCI Geomatics, a global leader in satellite and aerial image processing technology. The acquisition expands Intermap’s geospatial intelligence platform, with industry-leading image processing, cloud-native micro services, APIs and edge-processing capabilities that support more than 500 satellites and thousands of production workflows. The transaction is expected to close by the end of September 2026, subject to PCI shareholder approval and customary closing conditions. “During the second quarter, Intermap took an important strategic step with the announcement of our acquisition of PCI Geomatics,” said Patrick A. Blott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Intermap Technologies. “The transaction combines commercial leaders in elevation and image processing, leveraging our data and AI platform in the commercial space segment, while expanding product breadth with distributed edge-enabled micro services.” “We continued investing in our people, technology and infrastructure to support government and commercial growth,” Mr. Blott continued. “Acquisition Services revenue reflected timing of follow-on contract awards in Indonesia, which remain delayed, impacting year on year comparisons. However, Intermap confirmed to the Indonesian government its ongoing commitment to a successful program and international tendering process, which enjoys active support and engagement from the World Bank.” Business Highlights: Announced a definitive agreement to acquire PCI Geomatics, creating a vertically integrated geospatial intelligence platform spanning data collection, image processing, orthorectification, 3D DEM terrain intelligence and AI-powered analytics. Expanded Intermap’s commercial offering with PCI’s satellite and aerial image processing technologies, cloud-native microservices, APIs and edge-processing capabilities. Grew commercial risk business with the addition of property valuation and multi-peril analytics, adopted by eight specialty line insurers within the Czech insurance association. Continued investing in personnel, aircraft, radar systems and processing capabilities to support national-scale government programs and commercial growth. Advanced government opportunities across Southeast Asia, North America, South America and the Middle East, while supporting follow-on opportunities in Indonesia. Continued expanding commercial applications built on Intermap’s proprietary 3D data foundation, including AI-powered insurance analytics, automated orthorectification and enterprise geospatial intelligence solutions. Financial Highlights: Revenue for the second quarter was US$2.0 million compared with US$3.0 million in the second quarter of 2025. Revenue for the first six months of 2026 was US$3.4 million compared with US$7.3 million during the same period last year. The expected declines reflect the absence of Acquisition Services revenue during the period due to the timing of follow-on contract awards in Indonesia. Value-added Data revenue increased to US$0.7 million during the quarter from US$0.3 million in the prior year. Software and Solutions revenue remained steady at US$1.3 million, while software prepaid revenue grew 35%. Net loss for the second quarter was US$2.1 million, or US$0.03 per share, compared with a net loss of US$0.8 million, or US$0.02 per share, in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was negative US$1.4 million compared with negative US$0.3 million in the prior-year period. Results reflect the absence of Acquisition Services revenue while Intermap participates in the Indonesian tendering process and continued investment in personnel and infrastructure to support growth. The Company invested approximately US$2.2 million year-to-date to upgrade its platform, including airborne, sensor, processing and AI technologies. Outlook: Intermap’s underlying business outlook remains unchanged, with the timing of the Indonesia opportunity continuing to be the principal variable affecting 2026 results. The Company remains confident in its long-term growth prospects and the strength of its government and commercial opportunities. Intermap expects to provide updated financial guidance following the closing of the PCI transaction, reflecting the financial profile and outlook of the combined company. Intermap is focused on completing the acquisition of PCI Geomatics, expanding its vertically integrated geospatial intelligence platform, integrating PCI’s technologies and commercial capabilities, converting government opportunities into awarded contracts and expanding recurring commercial revenue. The Company’s pipeline continues to grow, while it maintains deployment readiness for Indonesia, pursuant to its binding commitments there, and advances AI-powered applications across its defense, insurance, commercial space and infrastructure markets. Intermap believes its strengthened balance sheet, proprietary technology platform and expanded commercial capabilities position the Company to pursue larger opportunities and create long-term shareholder value. https://tinyurl.com/579b2jm2

Sophic Client Intermap (IMP-TSX, ITMSF-OTC) appoints J. Michael Rolland to Board of Directors.

Intermap announced the appointment of J. Michael Rolland to its Board of Directors. Mr. Rolland brings decades of experience financing strategically important infrastructure for a variety of programs around the world. Geospatial data and platform architecture provide foundational infrastructure for our customers. This appointment supports Intermap’s continued investment to expand its financing tool kit, broaden its technology platform, grow its customer base, and strengthen its position in global geospatial intelligence markets. “We are delighted to welcome Michael to Intermap’s Board as we expand the capital market and efficient pricing of strategic geospatial programs,” said Patrick A. Blott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Intermap Technologies. “Michael has built and led world-class investment organizations focused on infrastructure, long-term value creation and global growth. His experience financing strategically important assets, developing investment platforms and building relationships across governments and institutional investors will strengthen Intermap as we continue expanding our geospatial intelligence platform and pursuing new opportunities around the world.” “Intermap has built a differentiated geospatial intelligence platform that addresses critical challenges for government and commercial customers,” said J. Michael Rolland. “The Company has established a strong foundation for growth, combining proprietary 3D terrain data, advanced image processing, AI-powered analytics and mission-focused applications with enterprise scale. I look forward to working with the Board and management team to help advance Intermap’s strategy, broaden access to capital and create long-term value for shareholders.” Michael was previously CEO of the Ontario Municipal Employees Sponsors Corporation (“OMERS”), one of the two governing bodies of a $145 billion AUM pension fund. His investment experience spans a broad range of infrastructure, including telecommunications, satellite systems, aviation and other government regulated and strategically important sectors. Michael was the first Chief Investment Officer of OMERS Private Markets, President and Chief Operating Officer of OMERS Asia Pacific, and CEO of Borealis Infrastructure (today known as OMERS Infrastructure), OMERS wholly-owned, global infrastructure investing arm. Michael has opened investment programs and established relationships with governments and companies throughout North America, the UK, Europe and Southeast Asia. https://t.co/0gLVJ39tid

Xanadu and University of Alberta partner on quantum-powered cancer research.

Toronto-based quantum computing firm Xanadu has struck a partnership with the University of Alberta to pioneer new quantum algorithms that can help in cancer treatment. The news: The research partnership, led by Xanadu’s algorithms team and chemistry professor Alex Brown, aims to develop a quantum computing framework to design next-generation photosensitizers. Photosensitizers are molecules that react to light. They can be used in photodynamic therapy, a non-invasive cancer treatment that uses light to selectively destroy tumour cells, while avoiding the side effects of traditional cancer treatments. This is the second academic partnership Xanadu has struck this month, following a memorandum of understanding it signed with the University of Guelph last week. That partnership is meant to prepare Guelph students for quantum careers by introducing them to “practical” quantum computing concepts, tools, and research opportunities. Xanadu, which became publicly traded earlier this year, also filed its second-ever earnings report last week, in which it reported increased research and development spending and the significant expansion of its US operations in Albany, New York, which Xanadu has called a strategic base for its broader US expansion. https://tinyurl.com/tshbutnz

RBC and BMO to sell off Canadian payment giant Moneris in $2 billion deal.

The two Canadian banks announced an agreement to sell their co-owned operation for $2 billion on Monday evening. As part of the deal, BMO and RBC will each receive 50 percent of the sale’s proceeds and exclusively refer their customers to Moneris going forward. The transaction is expected to close in early 2027, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Once closed, Moneris will join the numerous payment processing companies in Francisco Partners’ portfolio, including Hypercom, Paymetric, PayLease, NMI, and Verifone. The Francisco Partners deal comes almost exactly one year after Reuters reported that BMO and RBC were planning to put Moneris up for sale. https://tinyurl.com/34uavvs5

Anthropic investors bet on US$2 trillion valuation in record IPO.

Anthropic investors expect the AI start-up to float at a valuation of US$2 trillion or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make the AI lab’s debut the largest ever initial public offering. Half a dozen of the company’s backers told the FT that Anthropic’s rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. A listing at that level could unlock billions of dollars in gains for the five-year-old company’s early investors but would also test public markets that are growing more nervous about the AI boom. Anthropic’s backers say booming demand for the lab’s advanced AI models and tools justifies their lofty expectations. Investors expect the Claude maker’s annualised revenue to be between US$100 billion and US$120 billion by the end of 2026 — using the start-up’s preferred measure, which infers full-year sales from recent performance — up by more than 10 times over the course of 2026. “If Anthropic is growing 800 per cent a year, you’d think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [revenue],” said one investor in the group. “That would make them a US$3 trillion company.” Anthropic lacks a publicly listed US peer that would provide a benchmark for its valuation. But companies that are seen as AI beneficiaries, such as data intelligence group Palantir and cloud company Nebius, have traded this year at roughly 55 times revenue. https://tinyurl.com/bdzj488t

Intel to Raise US$15 billion in a stock offering to fund expansion.

Intel is raising US$15 billion in a public offering of its stock, taking advantage of the enormous improvement in investor sentiment it has enjoyed in the past year to raise money. Intel stock is up 175% over the past 12 months. Intel shares fell 4% Monday. The iconic chip maker, which has lost its strong market position over the past few years to rivals such as TSMC and Nvidia, has shown signs of a nascent turnaround in recent months under a new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. It reported a 25% lift in second quarter revenue last month, which the company said was its strongest growth in 15 years, driven by 59% expansion of its Data Center and AI group. Intel is benefiting from a shortage of central processing units that has emerged lately, reflecting growing use of CPUs in data centers alongside specialized AI chips. Intel retains a strong position in the CPU sector. The company has also developed a technique for chip packaging—assembly of different pieces of silicon into a single unit—that has even drawn attention of customers and its rival, TSMC. The company said on Monday it would use the money to “pursue the growth opportunities ahead,” including in areas such as physical AI, “purpose built silicon” and “advantage packaging.” The offering will add to a rising volume of U.S. stock sales, which are on track for a record this year. https://tinyurl.com/23y2sxks

Nvidia may backstop up to 25% of projects from US$500 billion alliance with wall street giants.

A group of private equity giants has signed a preliminary agreement with Nvidia to raise US$500 billion to help finance AI infrastructure, Nvidia said on Monday. The firms are Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR. The partnerships haven’t yet been finalized, per an Nvidia press release. The goal of the partnership is to allow more AI companies to raise debt (and at lower interest rates) to buy more GPU server racks and build more data centers. Nvidia has the option to backstop up to 25% of the financing for any project that’s part of the new partnership, said a person close to the agreement. It’s not known how the US$500 billion might be split among the lenders or others, but Nvidia said it’s all “third-party capital.” While its exact role is unclear, Nvidia’s backstops could involve cosigning leases, promising to lease back land if a customer were to stop being able to pay, or buy back computing capacity at an agreed-upon base rate. Nvidia has used similar tools with customers including OpenAI and a number of neoclouds. It’s also unclear whether the partnership would help with financing a 10-gigawatt data center in progress in Ohio, for which OpenAI could be a major tenant. That project could cost as much as US$500 billion, and directly taking on OpenAI’s risk would be a hard sell for many of the largest private credit investors, one private credit executive said. He added that Nvidia’s strong balance sheet would help put them at ease. Even though Nvidia generated nearly US$50 billion in free cash flow last quarter, some investors have expressed worries about Nvidia’s credit risk in the last month or so—likely in part spurred by potential backstop discussions. https://tinyurl.com/58mkr6dm

Nvidia agrees to invest up to US$3 billion in power firm behind Stargate.

Nvidia has agreed to invest US$2 billion into Lancium, the power infrastructure developer behind the OpenAI and Oracle AI campus in Texas, and has agreed to commit another US$1 billion as the developer secures additional planned power, The Information reported late Friday. The deal values Lancium and its portfolio of land and power connections at around US$10 billion in enterprise value, which includes the investment and its debt. The US$2 billion would give Nvidia a roughly 20% stake in the Blackstone-backed power developer. Nvidia’s stake could grow to around 30% with the additional US$1 billion once more of Lancium’s campuses hit certain thresholds, including grid hookups, the report said. The deal is intended to help Nvidia secure multiple gigawatts of pending power rights for its chip customers’ data projects at a time when energy for AI data centers is becoming harder to come by. https://tinyurl.com/su7u2fe6

SK Hynix to start building two new chip fabs next year.

South Korean memory maker SK Hynix said on Friday that it will start the construction of two new chip plants next year, after its board approved its plan to invest about 54 trillion won (US$38 billion) in the new fabs. The company’s announcement of the timelines for its new fabs comes as demand for memory chips continues to surge amid a global AI boom. SK Hynix said the construction of its Y2 fab in the city of Yongin is scheduled to begin in July next year, targeting the opening of its first cleanroom in June 2029 to produce high-bandwidth memory and other products. The construction of its M17 fab in the city of Cheongju is expected to start in February next year, with plans to open its first cleanroom in December 2028. The investment in the two new fabs is part of the company’s ongoing long-term plans to invest a total of 700 trillion won to build massive manufacturing complexes in Yongin and Cheongju. The Y2 fab is the second fab in the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, which will eventually have four fabs. The M17 fab is part of the company’s Cheongju production base, which mainly manufactures flash memory. https://tinyurl.com/4na94cjj

Sony, TSMC to invest US$6.3 billion in image sensor joint venture in Japan.

Sony Group and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are planning to invest about 1 trillion yen (US$6.3 billion) in a joint venture that will start mass producing next-generation image sensors in Japan as early as 2029, the Nikkei newspaper reported. The new joint venture, expected to be established by March 2027, plans to supply high-performance camera sensors for Apple’s iPhones, according to the Nikkei. Sony will own about 60% of the joint venture and TSMC will own the rest, the Nikkei reported. The companies are planning to build large-scale research and development facilities and production lines at an image sensor plant operated by Sony’s chip unit in Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan. The two companies are also expecting future growth in demand for image sensors that enable AI-powered robots and autonomous vehicles to recognize objects in greater precision, the Nikkei said. Sony, which is known for consumer electronics and the PlayStation videogame business, is also the world’s biggest supplier of CMOS image sensors used in smartphones and other camera-equipped devices. https://tinyurl.com/3t7vtj3m

Workday Stock jumps 18% on report of Silver Lake takeover talks.

Workday shares rose 18% in Thursday trading after Reuters reported that the HR software company is in talks to be acquired by private equity firm Silver Lake. The jump trimmed Workday stock’s year-to-date loss to roughly 4%, a mild decline relative to fellow software firms such as Salesforce and ServiceNow, which are facing pressure to show more growth from AI products. Reuters reported that talks are ongoing for the potential deal, and Silver Lake, which owns many other software firms, could tap additional investors to help finance it. Workday declined to comment on the report, while Silver Lake spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Workday reports its July quarter results at the end of the month. Workday shares jumped after its April quarter results showed usage of its AI agents climbing even as revenue growth slowed. https://tinyurl.com/5dkyf55b

Nebius shares soar on Q2 revenue surge.

Nebius, another neocloud using the AI boom to establish itself in the cloud computing sector, reported a 454% expansion in second quarter revenues to US$582 million thanks to surging demand for AI computing. Nebius’ cash burn also rose, to US$3.4 billion from US$678 million a year earlier, due to soaring capital expenditures on new chips, servers and data center expansion. Capex was US$5.657 billion in the quarter, compared with US$510.6 million a year earlier. On a conference call with analysts, Nebius CEO Arkady Volozh said “demand for what we are building continues to be enormous,” adding that Nebius could “sell today our entire 2027 capacity…if we wanted.” Nebius shares jumped 17% on Wednesday morning. https://tinyurl.com/bddh3v2t

Cisco Systems says cloud providers buying more AI chips, switches.

Cisco Systems shares dropped 5% after its fourth quarter earnings, even after the company reported strong revenue growth and said it is being fueled by cloud provider customers increasing their spending on its AI networking chips and switches. Cloud providers are turning to Cisco AI chips and networking switches to speedily shuttle data between groups of computers running graphics processing units, CEO Chuck Robbins said on an earnings call. This helps cloud providers ensure that they’re getting maximum usage from these expensive and scarce chips, sold by providers like Nvidia. After taking US$5.3 billion in AI product orders from cloud providers in the first three quarters of its fiscal year, Cisco had US$4 billion worth of orders in the fourth quarter alone. Cisco’s AI products generated US$4 billion of revenue in its last fiscal year and the company expects that figure to rise to US$7.5 billion in its current one. The trend has helped accelerate Cisco’s revenue growth over the past year. For its July quarter, Cisco reported revenue of US$17.3 billion, up 18% from last year and around US$500 million more than its forecast from last quarter. That compares to 8% revenue growth for Cisco’s fiscal first quarter. For its full fiscal year, Cisco’s revenue grew 12% to US$63.3 billion. Cisco is forecasting revenue growth of 21% for its current quarter, or US$18 billion to US$18.2 billion, and expects revenue for its full year to be around US$73.3 billion, or roughly 16% growth compared to last year. https://tinyurl.com/2pz2289c

Cerebras shares fall 16% on a decline in hardware revenue.

Cerebras, which designs AI chips meant to run AI models extra fast, reported rapid sales growth for the latest quarter but investors sent its shares down sharply on competition and other concerns. Revenue for the three months through June rose 74% from a year earlier to US$180 million, Cerebras said Wednesday. Of that, US$54 million came from hardware sales, about half the amount from last quarter and less than the figure from a year ago. Cerebras’ cloud revenue offset that, nearly quadrupling compared to last year. The company reported a net loss of US$451 million, which included nearly US$400 million in stock-based compensation. Still, Cerebras raised its projections for full-year revenue to US$880 million to US$890 million, excluding adjustments for customers who have rights to purchase its stock as incentives to buy or rent Cerebras chips. Despite the strong points, shares fell 16% after hours on concerns about lower hardware sales, customer concentration and lots of competition. The shares, which had risen during regular trading, are still well above their IPO price from May, but more than 40% below their peak. Speaking in Cerebras’ second earnings call since going public, CEO Andrew Feldman emphasized that Cerebras can grow by partnering with other chip designers to run the same AI tasks concurrently via disaggregated inference—which would make workloads faster and more efficient. This year, Cerebras announced deals to run its chips alongside those of Advanced Micro Devices and Amazon. Investors have also expressed worries about Cerebras’ customer concentration. This quarter, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and OpenAI each accounted for approximately one third of Cerebras’ revenue. In the latest quarter, Cerebras disclosed US$25.4 billion in remaining performance obligations, or legally binding customer orders, approximately flat from US$25.0 billion last quarter, and said a “significant amount” is from OpenAI. https://tinyurl.com/4vfp9wmy

Kalshi tops US$4 billion in annualized revenue as it seeks US$40 billion valuation.

World Cup wagers helped double Kalshi’s revenue to a more than US$4 billion annualized rate in July, from a pace of over US$2 billion two months earlier, a person familiar with the matter said. That growth is set to drive another jump in the prediction market’s valuation. Kalshi is in advanced talks to raise new funding at a US$40 billion valuation, the person said, nearly double its valuation in a funding round announced in May. One potential wrinkle: Kalshi has been spending heavily to capture bettors’ attention and faces potential new expenses in the form of taxes in some of its biggest markets. Kalshi’s operating expenses totaled US$300 million for the month of June, mostly due to marketing spending, the person said. If Kalshi maintains its pace of spending, that could imply US$3.6 billion operating expenses on an annualized basis. The marketing blitz included advertising campaigns featuring Timothée Chalamet and Lionel Messi, and a FIFA World Cup 2026 sponsorship deal it nabbed midway through the event for ads in stadiums, on TV and online. The Financial Times had reported in June that Kalshi was exploring a new round at a US$40 billion valuation, which it could complete as soon as the third quarter. If that happens, Kalshi’s private valuation would top the market capitalization of crypto exchange Coinbase and would compare with trading app Robinhood’s market cap of around US$85 billion. Robinhood has recently evolved into a competitor to Kalshi, with more of its revenue coming from trading event contracts than from stocks or crypto. Kalshi has been raising money in rapid-fire rounds, including US$1 billion in fresh cash from its May funding round led by Coatue, which followed another US$1 billion raised at the end of 2025 at an US$11 billion valuation. Kalshi’s rapid growth, fueled mainly by sports betting, has prompted the company to hold informal conversations with bankers about an initial public offering as soon as next year. Growth in sports betting on prediction markets is meanwhile drawing pushback from traditional gambling apps as well as state gaming regulators. Kalshi is embroiled in several legal battles with state regulators who allege it offers illegal gambling. Sports contracts make up over 80% of the company’s trading volume. https://tinyurl.com/4jrc9e4u

CoreWeave’s revenue doubles but so does cash burn.

CoreWeave, the highest profile of a group of neoclouds taking on established cloud firms, reported that revenue more than doubled in the second quarter to US$2.575 billion. But CoreWeave’s cash burn also more than doubled, to US$5.7 billion. The company’s high cash burn reflects the massive capital expenditures it is laying out to build a network of data centers, along with sharply rising interest costs on the debt it is taking on to finance that expansion. CoreWeave’s capex jumped to US$6.4 billion in the quarter, compared with US$2.45 billion a year earlier. Meanwhile interest costs rose 140% to US$640 million. CoreWeave stock jumped 14% in after-hours trading, suggesting that investors are overlooking the company’s capex spending in favor of focusing on the company’s growth. https://tinyurl.com/u45mpyma

Meta to open-source flagship Muse Spark 1.2 model.

Meta Platforms said it plans to release an open-weight version of its most advanced Muse Spark 1.2 model soon. The Facebook owner also announced a new small-size open-source model called Muse Glimmer that can run on personal computers. Meta’s move could provide customers with alternatives to popular open-source models from China, especially appealing to certain U.S. customers that prefer U.S. models out of national security reasons. The proprietary version of Muse Spark 1.2, released earlier this month, is currently ranked seventh—behind Anthropic and OpenAI’s frontier models as well as Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 and Alibaba’s new open-source Qwen3.8 Max model—on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, a comprehensive benchmark for AI models’ capabilities across math, science, coding and reasoning. https://tinyurl.com/22uynx23

OpenAI pauses astra work on cyber concerns.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Friday on X the company was pausing work on its upcoming Astra model to make sure the rollout was done safely “given its cyber capabilities.” The decision followed revelations that models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta had jumped their guardrails to breach other companies’ systems. Altman demonstrated Astra—which touts its ability to have multiple agents work together over a long period of time to solve particularly hard problems—to policymakers and regulators late last month in Washington. It’s intended to be the first to go through the Trump administration’s planned new framework for submitting AI models to the federal government before releasing them to the public. OpenAI’s latest evaluations “indicate significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity,” it wrote in a blog post Friday. “These results, in addition to expert assessments, have led us to conclude last night that we cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities.” https://tinyurl.com/3fyfe84z

Google’s Gemini app hits 1 billion monthly users.

Google’s Gemini reached 1 billion monthly users, making it the fastest-growing product in the company’s history, CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday on X. The announcement indicates Google is continuing to grow its share of the market for consumer chatbots that’s been dominated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The search giant reached the milestone less than a month after reporting 950 million monthly active users in its latest earnings report. The company said Tuesday that 63% of users interact with Gemini directly. Some 100 million users of Apple, with whom Google supplies the underlying model for Apple Intelligence and Siri, are active users of Gemini, Google said. Google is vying for consumer attention with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which reached 1 billion active users and more than 2 million businesses on July 31, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said. https://tinyurl.com/3spm5e29

China’s Z.ai touts new GLM-5.3 model as cyber defense tool.

Chinese AI developer Z.ai on Friday released its new open-source model, GLM-5.3, saying its cybersecurity capabilities are on par with Anthropic’s Mythos 5. Beijing-based Z.ai, also known as Zhipu in Chinese, said GLM-5.3 has achieved significant improvements from its predecessor, GLM-5.2, in both coding and cybersecurity. In some security tasks, “the performance of GLM-5.3 is the same as Mythos 5, showing the strong potential for network security defense scenarios,” the company said in a post on its official WeChat account. To emphasize the role of GLM-5.3 as an open-source cyber defense tool, Z.ai referenced an incident last month when an AI agent developed by OpenAI went rogue and hacked into the systems of AI model repository Hugging Face. Hugging Face used GLM-5.2 to analyze the data and contain the breach, after its security team couldn’t use U.S. frontier models for forensics due to built-in guardrails. Z.ai stated in the WeChat post that the lesson from the Hugging Face incident is that “if the powerful attack ability is spreading, the defensive ability cannot be limited to a few closed-source model companies.” The release of GLM-5.3 is the latest example of how Chinese AI companies are rolling out more capable open-source models that directly challenge U.S. frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI. Last month, Moonshot AI’s latest model, Kimi K3, became a global sensation by offering frontier-level coding performance. https://tinyurl.com/4rjd7xz7