Techmeme
April 1, 2025, 7:00 AM

Top News

CNBC:
OpenAI closes a $40B funding round, the most ever raised by a private tech company, at a $300B post-money valuation; SoftBank led the round with $30B  —  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 is planning to “release a powerful new open-weight language model with reasoning in the coming months”  —  OpenAI says that it intends to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 “in the coming months.”  —  That's according to a feedback form …
Kylie Robison / The Verge:
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 …
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.
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:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Lightmatter, which uses silicon photonics to move data in chips via light, unveils an interposer and chiplet for AI chips; the startup has raised $850M so far  —  Lightmatter, a startup valued at $4.4 billion, on Monday released two pieces of technology aimed at speeding up the connections between artificial intelligence chips.
More: SiliconANGLE
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

Google:
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Atlassian:
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Zoho:
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IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
F5:
Securing AI models and agents in the enterprise  —  The new AI stack creates a highly dynamic attack surface, and traditional controls aren't keeping up.  F5's recent acquisition will bring advanced AI guardrails to enterprise apps.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic Chief Product Officer: Why AI Model Development Is Accelerating — With Mike Krieger
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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Great Chat:
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Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Vince Hankes from Thrive Capital
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Why the Guardian Doesn't Need a Billionaire to Thrive
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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[trading places]:
TP EP6: Peter Walker of Carta 📊 | OpenAI Tender 🧾| Revolut $75B Valuation 💳 | Is 3X 3X 2X 2X 💀?
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The Social Radars:
Founder Mode: Jen Herbach, Founder & CEO, Adventris Pharmaceuticals
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
 

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More News

Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

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