Techmeme
April 1, 2025, 8:30 AM

Top News

CNBC:
OpenAI closes a $40B round, the most raised by a private tech company, at a $300B post-money valuation; SoftBank led with $30B; source: ~$18B is for Stargate  —  OpenAI on Monday announced it had closed what amounts to the largest private tech funding round on record.
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Source: SoftBank will invest an initial $7.5B in OpenAI's $40B round, plus $22.5B by 2025's end; other backers include Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive  —  OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, said it has finalized a funding round that will bring in $40 billion …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
OpenAI's new GPT-4o-powered image generator is now available to all users; Sam Altman last week mentioned a limit of three images per day for free-tier users  —  OpenAI's new image generator, powered by its GPT-4o model, is now available to all users, CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Sam Altman says OpenAI plans to “release a powerful new open-weight language model with reasoning in the coming months”, its first open-weight model since GPT-2  —  OpenAI says that it intends to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 “in the coming months.”
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft expands Copilot+ PC features like Live Captions and Cocreator, previously exclusive to models with Snapdragon chips, to models with AMD or Intel chips  —  Staggered feature releases make me ask “what even is a Copilot+ PC?”  —  Microsoft has a big update for Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel or AMD processors.
Ian King / Bloomberg:
At the Intel Vision conference, CEO Lip-Bu Tan says Intel plans to spin off non-core assets, create new products including custom semiconductors, and more  —  Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan said the chipmaker will spin off assets that aren't central to its mission and create …
Bloomberg:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple releases iOS 18.4 with Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence, which gets support for eight more languages, and Ambient Music via Control Center  —  Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Megan Specia / New York Times:
How some UK parents created a “Smartphone Free Childhood” pledge, signed by 124K+ people, after the UK government watered down a bill banning phones in schools  —  In Britain, amid growing evidence of harm to young people from extreme content online, a “Smartphone Free Childhood” campaign is going viral.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Introducing Microsoft-Decision-1, our model for fast decision-making  —  Our new model delivers top performance in latency and quality on structured decision tasks to outperform other models.
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Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Meta & Microsoft's Claude Slowdown, His Agent Leaked His Banking Info, Don't Bully Your AI
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
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Earlier Picks

Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post:
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia: