David Ashton grew up outside of Sacramento, California, and went to college in San Luis Obispo during the historic drought of the late 2000s.
He spent years driving the 300-mile stretch between Sacramento and San Luis Obispo, enthralled by the never-ending lettuce farms, acres of leafy green plants against a bleak, dry background. The fact that these lush, green crops were grown in drought…
Zoom introduces an AI-powered office suite, says AI avatars for meetings arrive this month
March 11, 2026
Zoom’s AI-powered avatars, which can represent users in online meetings, will be available to use later this month, the company announced on Tuesday, alongside news of other tools and services. Notably, the company is introducing its own AI Docs, Slides, and Sheets apps…
Sandbar, a startup by former Meta employees Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, attracted much attention last year when it showed off its note-taking wearable, the Stream ring. The company has now raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by Adjacent and Kindred…
AMI Labs, the new venture co-founded by Turing Award winner Yann LeCun after he left Meta, has raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. AMI is working on world models, or AI that learns from reality, not just from language.
This category has fewer players than generative AI, but maybe not for long. “My prediction is that ‘world models’ will be the next buzzword,” AMI…
Anthropic has made good on its promise to challenge the Department of Defense (DOD) in court after the agency labeled it a supply-chain risk late last week.
The Claude maker filed two complaints against the DOD on Monday in California and Washington, D.C., after a weeks-long…
German robotics startup Neura Robotics has inked a partnership with semiconductor giant Qualcomm to build the next generation of robots and physical AI. The deal is the latest coupling in the emerging physical AI industry between robotics startups and larger tech hardware…
Sandberg, Clegg join Nscale board as this ‘Stargate Norway’ startup hits $14.6B valuation
March 10, 2026
Amid growing demand for data centers that can deliver AI compute at scale, Nvidia-backed British AI infrastructure company Nscale is now valued at $14.6 billion. This makes it one of Europe’s latest decacorns alongside Helsing and Mistral AI.
Nscale has bet on vertical integration, from energy and data centers to compute and orchestration software. Its new valuation stems from a $2 billion…
Microsoft, Google, Amazon say Anthropic Claude remains available to non-defense customers
March 9, 2026
Enterprises and startups that use Anthropic Claude through Microsoft and Google products need not fear that the model will be ripped from their reach, Microsoft and Google confirmed to TechCrunch. AWS customers and partners can also reportedly continue to use Claude for…
Claude’s daily active users are on the rise on mobile devices, as are its new app installs, following the company’s fallout with the Pentagon. After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to allow the government to use its AI systems for mass surveillance of Americans or to…
City Detect, a company that uses vision AI to help local governments monitor the health of buildings and neighborhoods, announced on Friday a $13 million Series A round led by Prudence Venture Capital.
The startup launched in 2021, and Gavin Baum-Blake, the remaining co-founder, serves as CEO. He said the company was founded in part because cities were struggling to deal with “urban blight and…
