From the team at Augment​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ we wish you a joyful holiday season filled with warmth, laughter, and cherished moments with your loved ones. Here's to a bright and prosperous 2025 ahead - may it bring you success, innovation, and countless opportunities!

TL;DR

• Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in new cash to fuel AI ambitions

• Don’t look now, but China’s AI is catching up fast

• OpenAI ‘considered’ building a humanoid robot

• Palantir and Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts

Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in new cash to fuel AI ambitions

xAI, founded by Elon Musk, raised $6 billion in a funding round led by major investors, doubling its valuation to $45 billion. The funds will accelerate AI development, including its Grok model. xAI leverages data from Musk’s companies, faces lawsuits over resource allocation, and races to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic.

Read the full article on TechCrunch

Don’t look now, but China’s AI is catching up fast

Chinese AI startups, including DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, are advancing rapidly despite U.S. chip export restrictions, using techniques like reinforcement learning and "mixture of experts" to optimize hardware. Tencent and Alibaba-backed models rival U.S. counterparts in specific tasks. However, limited access to cutting-edge chips and monetization challenges hinder their growth and valuation potential.

Read the full article on Wall Street Journal

OpenAI ‘considered’ building a humanoid robot

OpenAI has considered developing its own humanoid robot, revisiting robotics ambitions it abandoned in 2021. Previously, OpenAI invested in robotics-focused startups like Figure and 1X. Renewing efforts would require significant work to compete in the rapidly advancing robotics field, marked by recent breakthroughs in AI and hardware.

Read the full article on TechCrunch

Palantir and Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts

Palantir and Anduril are spearheading a consortium with companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Scale AI to disrupt traditional US defense contractors. Leveraging cutting-edge AI and autonomous technologies, the group aims to modernize defense procurement. Geopolitical tensions and record defense spending have spurred investor interest in these innovative military-tech collaborations.

Read the full article on Financial Times

More News and Links

What we learned about AI from 7 active startup investors this year

Shuttered electric air taxi startup Lilium may be saved after all

FTX executives shave serious time off their sentences

Until next week!

Cheerio,
-Noel