gm.
midweek catch-up. five things that moved since monday.
the 5
1. google is supplying anthropic $150 billion worth of chips.
on tuesday, the FT reported that google is putting together a $200 billion financing deal to supply anthropic (the AI lab behind claude) with $150 billion worth of its own AI chips (called TPUs). the deal is being funded through a mix of banks and investors including broadcom, apollo, blackstone, and morgan stanley. google is also guaranteeing the data centers and could be on the hook for up to $44 billion if anthropic can't pay.
why it matters: this is one of the biggest financial engineering deals in tech history. google is essentially financing anthropic's AI buildout using outside money, which lets google keep the debt off its own books while still getting more customers hooked on google chips (instead of nvidia). it also fits the broader theme markets have been tracking: big tech is spending huge sums on AI, and now we know exactly where a big chunk of google's spend is going.
2. saudi arabia just closed a $55 billion buyout of electronic arts.
on tuesday, saudi arabia's public investment fund (PIF), along with silver lake and jared kushner's affinity partners, completed the $55 billion buyout of EA (maker of madden, FIFA/EA sports FC, the sims, battlefield, plants vs zombies). the deal was announced last september and just closed. PIF owns ~94% of the new private entity.
it's now the largest leveraged buyout in history. EA is now delisted and private. saudi's PIF has been aggressively expanding into gaming for years (they already own big stakes in nintendo, activision blizzard, and take-two). the sports gaming category especially aligns with saudi arabia's massive push into global sports (LIV golf, boxing, F1, etc).
3. palantir just posted a blowout quarter.
palantir (a data analytics and AI software company that works with governments and big enterprises) reported earnings monday. stock jumped roughly 30% the next day, its biggest single-day gain since 2024. the standout: US commercial revenue was up 149% year-over-year. palantir also raised its full-year forecast.
what's driving it: american companies are actually buying palantir's AI software at scale, not just piloting it. the story matters because there's been a growing debate about whether AI is generating real revenue anywhere outside of the hyperscalers (microsoft, amazon, google). palantir just answered that question with a $2 billion US commercial bookings quarter.
4. openai's new model just solved 10 open math problems.
on friday, openai published a paper showing that an internal version of its next major model (called "astra") solved 10 open problems in mathematics, quantum complexity, and theoretical computer science. one of the problems had been unsolved for over 25 years. the total compute cost to solve all 10 was about $2,000.
this is one of the first times an AI model has done original research at the professional math level. it follows a similar pattern to last week's story on claude cracking encryption. frontier AI models are now doing real research.
5. bitcoin miners are becoming AI data centers.
on tuesday, hut 8 (a former bitcoin miner) reported Q2 earnings. the takeaway: they now have 949 megawatts of AI infrastructure contracted with anthropic and others, backed by roughly $26.6 billion in expected long-term contract revenue.
the bigger story: bitcoin miners spent 2020-2022 racing to secure cheap electricity and land. now those same power blocks are exactly what AI companies need. AI datacenters can't just be built anywhere (they need huge power connections, and those take years to build). former miners like hut 8, terawulf (signed a $19 billion 20-year lease with anthropic in july), and core scientific are pivoting into AI colocation. bitcoin mining is turning into an AI infrastructure business.
see you monday.
not financial advice. aggregated community trends and commentary.