AI This Week

SoftBank has sold its entire stake in Nvidia. The massive sell-off generated $5.83 billion. The Japanese firm is directing that capital toward its “all in” bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI, planning a $22.5 billion investment that will increase its ownership from 4% to 11%. This is not the first time SoftBank has cashed out of the chipmaker, having sold a $4 billion stake back in 2019. This latest move for “asset monetization” helped its Vision Fund post a blowout $19 billion gain. A source close to the matter stated the decision was not related to concerns over AI valuations but was a strategic play for capital.

Salesforce is acquiring Spindle AI. The deal injects the analytics startup’s forecasting technology directly into Salesforce’s Agentforce platform. Spindle AI specializes in agentic AI, building systems that model complex business scenarios and predict outcomes. This is a major step in Salesforce’s strategy to create an “agentic enterprise.” The company envisions a future where specialized AI agents collaborate to manage autonomous, end-to-end operations for customer experience. Spindle’s team will work on making these agents smarter and more reliable through advanced observability and self-improvement functions. This purchase builds on other recent acquisitions, showing Salesforce’s intense focus on owning every layer of the multi-agent AI stack.

Apple is preparing a massive upgrade for Siri. The company will reportedly use a custom version of Google’s Gemini AI to drive its new Apple Intelligence system, according to a new report. This partnership will cost Apple around $1 billion annually and gives it access to a powerful 1.2 trillion parameter model for generating summaries and performing planning tasks. The model will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, a key detail for privacy. The move comes after Apple delayed its own AI rollout and considered other partners. While Apple continues developing its own technology, this deal highlights the intense competition in the AI space. The new Siri is expected next spring.

A new legal battle is erupting over AI. Amazon has sued Perplexity, demanding the AI startup stop its Comet browser from shopping on its site. The lawsuit alleges Perplexity’s AI agent accesses customer accounts without consent, committing computer fraud and degrading the shopping experience Amazon built. Perplexity responded sharply, accusing Amazon of bullying and trying to stifle innovation that makes shopping easier for customers. This conflict exposes the high-stakes tension between established tech giants and the new wave of autonomous AI agents that act on behalf of users. As this AI browser war escalates, some competitors are embracing similar technology.

Google is studying “Project Suncatcher,” an initiative to move data center workloads off Earth and into orbit. The concept taps abundant solar power and the cold of space to run and cool AI-scale compute. It also promises new capacity as demand for training and inference surges. The plan raises hard questions: launch cost, serviceability, orbital debris, latency, and regulation. It draws clear comparisons to earlier radical infrastructure bets, such as underwater server farms and satellite networks. The idea signals how far cloud providers may go to meet AI’s hunger for energy and chips.