AI News
323 articles curated for the TGB community.
Google debuts Nano Banana 2
Google’s Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) fuses Pro‑level world knowledge, reasoning and photorealism with Flash‑speed generation, adding precise text rendering, 4K output, better character consistency and search‑grounded images.
GSMA unveils Open Telco AI push
GSMA launched Open Telco AI, a global initiative and portal of open telco models, datasets and AMD/TensorWave compute to build telco‑grade AI that can truly “speak telco” for networks and operations.
Dyna.Ai raises Series A for agents
Singapore-based Dyna.Ai closed an undisclosed eight‑figure Series A led by Lion X Ventures to scale its Agentic AI platform that turns bank and enterprise AI pilots into production systems with measurable CX, EX and ops impact.
Kampong AI: SG’s live‑work AI hub
Singapore will build Kampong AI at one‑north as its first integrated live‑work hub for AI, with offices for ~70 startups and over 200 residential units, plus events and networking spaces to anchor its AI ecosystem.
Korea–Singapore eye deeper AI, energy ti
On a state visit to Singapore, President Lee Jae Myung said he hopes to widen cooperation with Singapore in AI, renewable energy and defense, building on a new strategic partnership and shared “human capital” strengths.
SK hynix pours US15B into Yongin AI fab
SK hynix approved a 21.6T won (~US15B) new-facility investment to complete its first Yongin fab by 2030, expanding cleanrooms to mass-produce HBM and advanced DRAM as a core global AI memory hub.
Vietnam AI law kicks in first in SEA
Vietnam’s AI law, effective March 1, is Southeast Asia’s first comprehensive framework, mandating human oversight, labels for deepfakes, disclosure of AI agents, and a national AI compute center and Vietnamese LLMs.
OpenAI raises US110B, Amazon leads
OpenAI is raising US110B at a US730B pre-money valuation, with Amazon investing US50B and Nvidia and SoftBank US30B each, deepening an AWS pact that adds US100B in cloud spend over coming years.
OpenAI inks Pentagon AI deal
OpenAI signed a defense deal to run its models in the Pentagon’s classified systems just hours after President Trump blacklisted rival Anthropic and ordered agencies to halt use of its AI.
Trump bans Anthropic AI in gov’t
President Trump ordered all US federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s AI after the startup refused to relax guardrails on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, prompting the Pentagon to label it a supply-chain risk
US presses Anthropic on military use
The US is threatening to cancel Anthropic’s US 200M Pentagon deal and label it a “supply chain risk” unless it lets Claude run widely on a new military AI network, testing its ethical limits.
Perplexity unveils multi-model Computer
Perplexity AI has launched Perplexity Computer, a cloud “digital worker” that orchestrates 19 specialized models and autonomous agents to turn natural-language goals into end‑to‑end projects across research, coding, design, deployment, and reporting.
Nvidia buys Israeli data startup Illumex
Nvidia is acquiring Israeli startup Illumex for about US 75M to add an AI-powered semantic data layer that unifies enterprise data across silos with built‑in governance, strengthening its stack for training and running agentic AI on corporate data.
MatX raises US 500M to rival Nvidia
MatX, founded by former Google TPU engineers, raised a US 500M Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness to build AI chips it claims will train and serve LLMs 10x more efficiently than Nvidia GPUs, with first TSMC-made parts
RLWRLD adds US 26M to scale robot AI
Seoul-based RLWRLD raised a US 26M Seed 2, bringing total seed funding to about US41M, to scale “physical AI” robotics foundation models trained directly inside live industrial sites and expand RX projects across Asia, North America and Japan.
OpenAI poaches Meta infra leader
OpenAI has hired Ruoming Pang, a top AI infrastructure leader at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs and former head of models at Apple, after months of aggressive courting, underscoring the escalating Silicon Valley AI talent war.
S2.dev raises US3.85M for streams
YC-backed S2.dev raised US3.85M led by Accel to grow its serverless streaming datastore for collaborative, agent-based and multiplayer apps, positioning durable streams as a core cloud primitive.
Tattvam AI raises US1.7M for chip design
IIT Madras–founded Tattvam AI raised US 1.7M pre‑seed led by Seedcamp to build an AI reasoning layer over Cadence/Synopsys tools that slashes manual physical‑design effort and shrinks custom‑silicon cycles from years to weeks.
Diaflow raises seed for agentic workflow
Singapore’s Diaflow secured seed funding led by Insignia Ventures to scale its autonomous, multi‑agent workflow automation platform that lets teams describe goals in natural language while AI executes securely end‑to‑end.
AMD–Meta sign US 60B AI chip deal
AMD will supply up to US 60B of MI450‑class AI chips and CPUs over five years to Meta, giving the social giant 6GW of compute and warrants for up to 10% of AMD stock as it diversifies beyond Nvidia.
Eezee raises US 5M for AI procurement
Singapore-based Eezee raised US 5M pre‑Series B led by Korea Investment Partners to expand across Southeast Asia and scale its RFQBot and ProcureFlow AI tools for long‑tail enterprise procurement.
SambaNova raises US350M for SN50
Intel‑backed SambaNova raised US350M led by Vista and Cambium to develop its SN50 AI inference chip, expand SambaCloud, and deepen a multi‑year heterogeneous AI infra partnership with Intel and SoftBank data centers.
Kris@Work raises US3M for GTM AI
Kris@Work raised US3M seed led by Info Edge Ventures to build an agentic AI SaaS “work companion” for GTM teams, replacing fragmented sales and SDR tools and expanding into the US market.
Mojro raises US3M for AI logistics
Bengaluru-based Mojro raised US3M led by IAN Alpha Fund to expand its AI-driven B2B logistics SaaS in the US and Southeast Asia, and bolster product, engineering and sales teams.
AI² Robotics raises ¥1B, hits ¥10B
China’s AI² Robotics raised over RMB 1B Series B at a RMB 10B+ valuation, positioning it as the country’s “most Tesla‑like” embodied AI startup building mass‑manufactured, productivity‑oriented general‑purpose robots.
Nebius–Tavily tie cloud to agents
Nebius’ Tavily acquisition links its fast‑growing AI cloud and data‑centre footprint with agentic search for trading and coding, aiming to drive higher‑value, stickier workloads from customers like Meta and Microsoft.
Haveli takes majority stake in Sirion
AI-native CLM vendor Sirion has closed a majority investment from Haveli Investments to speed product innovation and global go‑to‑market, shifting contracts from static documents to executable, AI-driven workflows.
Chai hits US68M ARR, stresses safety
Social AI platform Chai tripled revenue for three years to reach US68M ARR and a US1.4B valuation, and is rolling out suicide‑ and self‑harm‑detection, moderation and anonymised logging aligned with EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF.
ByteDance ramps up US AI hiring
ByteDance’s Seed AI team is hiring for ~100 US roles to build LLMs, gen‑AI media and drug‑discovery models, intensifying US–China AI rivalry just as Hollywood and lawmakers scrutinise its Seedance video tool.
Anthropic debuts Claude Code Security
Anthropic launched Claude Code Security, a Claude Code feature that scans entire codebases like a human researcher, finds complex bugs, and proposes patches while keeping humans in control, now in limited enterprise preview.
Polsky–IDTA launch India deeptech accel
UChicago’s Polsky Center and the India Deep Tech Alliance are launching a 10‑week India Deep Tech Accelerator with IIT Bombay, Delhi and Madras to help IIT startups globalise, fundraise and commercialise in sectors like AI, chips and robotics.
InScope raises US14.5M for AI reporting
InScope raised a US14.5M Series A led by Norwest to automate financial statement prep, using AI to handle checks, formatting and narratives so accountants can close faster with fewer spreadsheets and Word docs.
Reliance’s US110B India AI infra bet
Mukesh Ambani unveiled a ₹10T (~US110B) plan over seven years to build AI compute in India, funding gigawatt‑scale data centers, edge networks and Jio‑integrated AI services powered by green energy.
Yotta plans US2B Nvidia AI hub
India’s Yotta Data Services will build a US2B AI compute hub using Nvidia’s new Blackwell Ultra chips, including a US1B, four-year deal to host one of APAC’s largest DGX Cloud clusters.
BharatGen debuts Param2 17B MoE
BharatGen launched Param2, a 17B‑parameter multilingual MoE foundation model optimized for Indic languages, trained on NVIDIA’s stack and released openly to power sovereign AI across governance, education, health, agri and enterprise.
Sarvam rolls out 2 India LLMs
Sarvam launched 30B and 105B‑parameter India‑trained LLMs with 22 Indic languages and voice‑first support, claiming DeepSeek‑class reasoning at lower cost and backing India’s sovereign AI mission.
Robo.ai–DaBoss JV for embodied data
Robo.ai and DaBoss.AI are forming a UAE-based joint venture to build a distributed embodied-intelligence data platform that cuts cost, scales collection and standardises compliance for robotics and physical-world AI models.
India’s 3‑hour AI takedown rule
India’s new IT rules cut platform takedown time for “unlawful” or harmful AI content from 36 hours to 3, sparking industry worries over feasibility, free speech and bureaucratic overreach.
AI HBM crunch lifts phone prices
A severe DRAM and NAND crunch, driven by AI HBM demand, is set to push Asia’s smartphone prices up about 7% in 2026, hitting sub‑US 200 budget models and Chinese OEMs like Oppo, Vivo and Honor hardest.
India plans Vizag AI ‘data city’
Andhra Pradesh is pitching Visakhapatnam as a 100km‑radius AI “data city”, anchored by US 15B Google and US 11B Reliance–Brookfield–Digital Realty data‑centre plans and submarine cable links to Singapore.