The signal, with receipts.
Important AI developments, reported from primary sources and separated from product marketing. Facts are mapped to evidence; analysis is labeled as judgment.
NVIDIA invests $3.5 billion as MediaTek joins its custom AI infrastructure push
NVIDIA and MediaTek expanded their partnership across data-center, PC and automotive computing, with MediaTek adopting NVLink Fusion as a foundation for customer-designed AI accelerators. NVIDIA also invested $3.5 billion in MediaTek convertible bonds. The companies plan to combine MediaTek's custom-silicon, packaging and connectivity expertise with NVIDIA's interconnects, rack-scale systems and software, while extending their work on local AI chips and software-defined vehicles.
OpenAI plans to end direct model access for SpaceX-owned Cursor
OpenAI said it notified SpaceX that it intends to wind down the contract supplying OpenAI models to Cursor, proposing November 12 as the cutoff. The company tied the decision to concerns about compliance with its terms after Cursor's change of control. OpenAI said it will not provide future models to Cursor, while giving developers the maximum notice allowed under the agreement.
Federal judge overturns the Pentagon’s Anthropic blacklist
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Pentagon acted unlawfully when it labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk and imposed broad penalties after the company challenged unrestricted military use of Claude. The 59-page decision found unlawful retaliation and procedural failures, and it also addressed orders directing other federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products. The government is expected to appeal.
Nvidia posts a $96.2 billion quarter as AI infrastructure demand doubles
Nvidia reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% from a year earlier and 18% sequentially. Data Center revenue reached $89.0 billion, a 117% year-over-year increase, while GAAP operating income climbed to $63.7 billion. The company said its Vera Rubin platform is now in full production as frontier labs, startups and physical-AI developers expand compute spending.
OpenAI publishes the first performance results for its Jalapeño inference chip
OpenAI released its first measured results for Jalapeño, the company’s custom inference accelerator. On SemiAnalysis’ InferenceX benchmark, OpenAI says the chip delivered 1.5 to 1.9 times more AI work per watt at peak throughput and 1.7 to 3.6 times lower end-to-end latency than the commercial comparison systems across GPT-OSS 120B, DeepSeek R1, and Kimi K2.5 workloads.
NVIDIA takes Vera Rubin from production AI factories toward orbit
NVIDIA said SpaceXAI will deploy Vera CPUs for the orchestration, code execution, and data processing surrounding its next generation of Grok agents. The company also plans to base its first Starmind AI satellite on an optimized Vera Rubin NVL72 system while expanding terrestrial infrastructure toward gigawatt scale.
XPENG robotics raises more than $900 million at a $6.3 billion valuation
XPENG’s robotics business signed agreements to raise more than $900 million in its first outside financing, valuing the unit above $6.3 billion after the round. IDG Capital led the investment, with Gaorong Ventures participating and Tencent and Alibaba joining as strategic investors. XPENG said it will retain control and continue consolidating the business in its financial statements.
Stripe agrees to acquire OpenRouter and enter the model-routing layer
Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter, the neutral gateway that routes AI workloads across more than 400 models from over 80 providers. The companies did not disclose financial terms in their announcement. Stripe said the combination will help customers optimize requests across model quality, speed, reliability, and price while linking those decisions to products such as Token Billing.
Google widens its Marvell custom-silicon alliance across the AI stack
Marvell disclosed an expanded commercial agreement with Google covering custom products attached to the TPU ecosystem, including AI inference accelerators, network and storage controllers, memory-interface controllers, and near-memory compute. Marvell also issued Google a warrant for up to 58.97 million shares at $206.58 each.