Anthropic said to close in on $3.5B raise
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI firm, is closing in on a $3.5 billion raise that would value the OpenAI rival at $61.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Why it matters: Last month's arrival of China's DeepSeek hasn't slowed the money train propping up AI companies.
Zoom in: The latest round includes Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Bessemer Venture Partners, with Abu Dhabi-based MGX also a possibility, the WSJ reports.
Anthropic had initially targeted $2 billion in its fundraising.
The news comes as Anthropic said Monday that its latest model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, integrates advanced reasoning capabilities for the first time, per Axios' Ina Fried.
The big picture: The funding comes a month after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm, shocked the entire industry by building a model that rivals OpenAI for a fraction of the cost.
That raised concerns among VC firms and other investors that have been pouring billions into U.S. AI firms over the last two years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
5 minutes ago
- Business Insider
OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman says vibe coding has taken away some of the fun parts of being an engineer
OpenAI's cofounder said vibe coding has left human engineers to do quality control. On an episode of Stripe's "Cheeky Pint" podcast uploaded last week, OpenAI's cofounder and president, Greg Brockman, said that AI coding will only get better. But until then, it's taking away some parts of software engineering that he said are enjoyable. "What we're going to see is AIs taking more and more of the drudgery, more of this like pain, more of the parts that are not very fun for humans," Brockman said. He added, "So far, the vibe coding has actually taken a lot of code that is actually quite fun." He said that the state of AI coding has left humans to review and deploy code, which is "not fun at all." Brockman added that he is "hopeful" for progress in these other areas, to the point that we end up with a " full AI coworker" that could handle delegated tasks. Changing engineering landscape Using AI to write code, dubbed " vibe coding" by OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, has skyrocketed this year. Engineers and novices alike are using tools like Microsoft's Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf to write code, develop games, and even build websites from scratch. Vibe coding has already started changing how much Big Tech and venture capital value people with software engineering expertise. In March, Y Combinator's CEO, Gary Tan, said that vibe coding is set to transform the startup landscape. He said that what would've once taken "50 or 100" engineers to build can now be accomplished by a team of 10, "when they are fully vibe coders." Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that AI coding is no longer a nice-to-have skill. Job listings from Visa, Reddit, DoorDash, and a slew of startups showed that the companies explicitly require vibe coding experience or familiarity with AI code generators like Cursor and Bolt. Still, some in tech circles say leaning on it heavily is short-sighted and the job is being trivialized. Bob McGrew, the former chief research officer at OpenAI, said that while product managers can make "really cool prototypes" with vibe coding, human engineers will still be brought in to "rewrite it from scratch." "If you are given a code base that you don't understand — this is a classic software engineering question — is that a liability or is it an asset? Right? And the classic answer is that it's a liability," McGrew said of software made with vibe coding. GitHub's CEO, Thomas Dohmke, said that vibe coding may also slow down experienced coders. On a podcast episode released last week, he said that a worst-case scenario is when a developer is forced to provide feedback in natural language when they already know how to do it in a programming language. That would be "basically replacing something that I can do in three seconds with something that might potentially take three minutes or even longer," Dohmke said.
Business Wire
38 minutes ago
- Business Wire
CEA Opens Shanghai–Auckland–Buenos Aires "New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor" to First Bridge China and South America
SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On June 18, 2025, China Eastern Airlines (CEA) and Auckland Airport signed a cooperation agreement in Shanghai. According to the plan, CEA will launch commercial flights in December 2025 from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Ministro Pistarini International Airport via Auckland Airport. The signing ceremony was attended by government officials, corporate representatives, and heads from relevant departments. New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon highlighted that the new route will enhance global connectivity by linking Auckland with the dynamic economies of Asia and South America. He also announced that New Zealand will implement a visa-free transit policy for Chinese travelers passing through Auckland. Since the opening of the route to Auckland in 2014, CEA has shown strong growth. Chairman Wang Zhiqing stated that the airline will leverage its Shanghai hub to accelerate the construction of its global route network. The new route will serve as a vital bridge among New Zealand, China, the Asia-Pacific region, and South America, supporting the Belt and Road Initiative. Auckland Airport expressed satisfaction with the imminent realization of the jointly envisioned " New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor". CEA, Auckland Airport's key partner and now the leading carrier on the China–New Zealand route, has maintained steady operations and consistently expanded capacity. The new service, to be operated twice weekly by Boeing 777, will be the only direct air link between Argentina and China, filling the gap in direct air services between the two nations. The "New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor" shortens travel time by 4–5 hours versus European or North American routes and offers direct flights, while also reducing jet lag—passengers only face a 4-hour time difference when transiting through Auckland, as opposed to 12 hours via traditional Western routes. CEA plans to apply for fifth freedom for this route, enabling passenger and cargo transport in Auckland, boosting economic, trade, and people-to-people exchanges among New Zealand, China, and Argentina. Currently, CEA operates flights from Auckland to both Shanghai Pudong and Hangzhou Xiaoshan. Following the new route launch, CEA will boost New Zealand–China capacity deployment, increasing Auckland–Shanghai flights from 7 to 9 weekly. Note: The new route remains subject to final regulatory approval.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
US asks China to stop Iran from closing Strait of Hormuz
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping routes. His comments came after Iran's state-run Press TV reported that their parliament had approved a plan to close the Strait but added that the final decision lies with the Supreme National Security Council. Any disruption to the supply of oil would have profound consequences for the global economy. China in particular is the world's largest buyer of Iranian oil and has a close relationship with Tehran. Oil prices have surged following the US' attack, with the price of the benchmark Brent crude reaching its highest level in five months. "I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them (Iran) about that, because they heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil," Marco Rubio had said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. "If they [close the Straits]... it will be economic suicide for them. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries' economies a lot worse than ours." Around 20% of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, with major oil and gas producers in the Middle East using the waterway to transport energy from the region. Any attempt to disrupt operations in the Strait could could send global oil prices skyrocketing. They jumped to their highest since January, with the price of Brent crude reaching $78.89 a barrel as of 23:22 GMT Sunday. "The US is now positioned with an overwhelming defence posture in the region to be prepared for any Iran counter attacks. But the risk for oil prices is the situation could escalate severely further," said Saul Kavonic, Head of Energy Research at MST Financial. The cost of crude oil affects everything from how much it costs to fill up your car to the price of food at the supermarket. China in particular buys more oil from Iran than any other nation - with its oil imports from Iran surpassing 1.8 million barrels per day last month, according to data by ship tracking firm Vortexa. Energy analyst Vandana Hari has said Iran has "little to gain and too much to lose" from closing the Strait. "Iran risks turning its oil and gas producing neighbours in the Gulf into enemies and invoking the ire of its key market China by disrupting traffic in the Strait", Hari told BBC News. The US joined the conflict between Iran and Israel over the weekend, with President Donald Trump saying Washington had "obliterated" Tehran's key nuclear sites. However, it's not clear how much damage the strikes inflicted, with the UN's nuclear watchdog saying it was unable to assess the damage at the heavily fortified Fordo underground nuclear site. Iran has said there was only minor damage to Fordo. Trump also warned Iran that they would face "far worse" future attacks if they did not abandon their nuclear programme. On Monday, Beijing said the US' attack had damaged Washington's credibility and called for an immediate ceasefire. China's UN Ambassador Fu Cong said all parties should restrain "the impulse of force... and adding fuel to the fire", according to a state-run CCTV report. In an editorial, Beijing's state newspaper Global Times also said US involvement in Iran "had further complicated and destabilized the Middle East situation" and that it was pushing the conflict to an "uncontrollable state".
