Following the latest investment events and market trends in the AI industry
DeepSeek V4 natively compatible with Ascend 950 processors, combined with Cambricon Q1 revenue growth exceeding 150%, US export controls are transforming from "obstacles" to "forced monopoly accelerators" for Chinese AI chip makers. Domestic compute substitution has crossed the testing phase into full-scale deployment.
DeepSeek valuation exceeds $40B, Zhipu GLM reaches $50B, MiniMax at $30B, and Moonshot AI Kimi prepares for HK IPO at ~$20B. The capital landscape of Chinese AI foundation models is reshaping, with valuations benchmarking against Silicon Valley.
Alphabet Q1 2026 revenue hits $109.9B, cloud business up 63% YoY to $20B, net profit surges 81% to $62.6B. Gemini Enterprise paid users up 40% QoQ — AI has officially become Google core revenue engine.
Based on Q1 earnings data, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are expected to collectively spend over $600 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Google raised CapEx guidance to $180-190B, Meta to $125-145B.
Defense AI sector sees record capital inflow in 2026 Q1: Shield AI closes $2B Series G at $12.7B valuation; Anduril Industries seeks $60B valuation for new round. AI autonomous systems are reshaping global defense industry.
AI financial analysis platform Rogo closed a $160M Series D led by Kleiner Perkins, with valuation jumping from $750M in January 2025 to $2B. The company now serves 35,000+ financial professionals and 250+ institutional clients.
San Francisco defense startup Scout AI raised $100M in Series A funding, co-led by Align and Draper. The company is building AI models capable of commanding autonomous military assets like unmanned ground vehicles, marking accelerated commercialization of AI in defense.
According to the Financial Times, SoftBank plans to establish an independent AI robotics and data center company called Roze in the US, targeting a $100 billion valuation for a potential 2026 IPO. This represents the latest piece of Masayoshi Son AI strategy, integrating ARM, OpenAI investments, and self-built computing power.
SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic plan to list sequentially in 2026 with combined target valuations of approximately $4 trillion. This is the mostconcentrated trillion-dollar IPO wave in history.
Anthropic completed a new $2 billion round led by Spark Capital, bringing its valuation to $20 billion.
OpenAI's pre-IPO valuation exceeds $1 trillion, but latest reports show revenue and user growth falling short of internal targets, sending a cooling signal to the overheated AI investment narrative.
Global AI funding was highly active in Q1 2024, with total financing exceeding $30 billion.
OpenAI, together with TPG, Bain, Advent and other PE firms, established DeployCo joint venture with $500M initial commitment and up to $1.5B total, targeting a $10B valuation to accelerate enterprise AI adoption.
China's NDRC, under the foreign investment security review mechanism, blocked Meta's approximately $2.5 billion acquisition of general AI agent company Manus, ordering the deal to be revoked. This is a landmark event in global AI M&A regulation.
Anthropic's valuation surged from ~$120B in October 2025 to $800B–$1T, with ARR doubling from $9B to $19B in under four months. The company plans to launch its IPO in Q4 2026.
Tesla CFO announced 2026 capex exceeding $25B for six new/expanded factories, AI infrastructure, and Austin semiconductor facility. Optimus robot mass production plan advances, marking traditional automakers AI transformation.
AI coding agent company Cognition AI is negotiating a new funding round that could value it at over $25 billion, doubling its previous valuation. The coding agent sector sees surging capital interest.
Q1 2026 saw $242B in AI company funding globally, representing ~80% of total VC. But OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo alone captured $188B, leaving 6,000 other startups to split the remainder.
Google will invest $10B in Anthropic at a $350B valuation, with up to $30B additional on performance targets. The deal covers 5GW of compute and 1M TPU chips, forming a deep compute-model binding.
Anthropic has hired Wilson Sonsini to prepare for an IPO as early as 2026, potentially becoming the largest AI company listing. Beating OpenAI to the public markets could reshape AI industry capital dynamics.