Anthropic’s AI Spending Surges as Microsoft Rethinks Copilot

Oh, the things you can find with an inquisitive mind – and a metal detector.Today we’re bringing you Chapter 1 of Our Town, a limited-run series from The Big Take, hosted by Meribah Knight with Bloomberg’s Susan Berfield. The series tells the story of a battle over identity fought on small town soil, where acreage, heritage, and what it means to be an American are all up for grabs.  The limited-run series will publish on Fridays in The Big Take. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Meribah Knight with Susan Berfield  Produced by: Rebecca Laks with Julia Weaver and David Fox and help from Laura Newcombe Edited by: Ken Armstrong with Rebecca Laks Original Score and Mixing by: Alex Sugiura Fact-checking by: Annika Robbins Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Tim Stenovec breaks down Anthropic's $11.6 billion contract with Akamai for AI computing power - the largest deal in Akamai's history. Plus, President Trump calls his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping "very productive" with little to show for it; and Microsoft steps back from the race to build a personal chatbot by merging the consumer and workplace versions of its Copilot AI assistant into one instead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Oracle's latest move to protect itself from mounting costs on a massive New Mexico data center facing regulatory setbacks and local opposition. Plus, Meta comes out with a new palm-sized device for using its popular new AI assistant, Muse; and all eyes are on President Trump and China's Xi Jinping as they meet in the White House and discuss AI.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Anthropic's new faster, cheaper AI model as the startup tries to stay ahead of rivals before its IPO. Plus, Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas discusses SpaceX, Tesla and the robotics boom, and Bloomberg reports Apple aims to take on Whoop with its own screenless health and fitness tracker.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Alibaba's new AI chip, an accelerator to compete with Nvidia and underpinning a massive expansion of data center capacity in coming years. Plus, he sits down with Gagan Biyani, Founder and CEO of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy - Silicon Valley's alternative college for the AI era. And he sits down with AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li to talk about the AI safety debate, the race against China, and growing competition to build world models.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down what to expect from the Trump-Xi summit later this week, with AI's role anticipated to be a major part of the agenda for those upcoming talks. Plus, Bloomberg reports Paramount reached a settlement with California and other states suing to block its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery; and as data shows more disruption to US data centers, we get to the political debate with Democratic US Representative Suhas Subramanyam from Virginia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Anthropic's finding that its Claude chatbot is leading 26% of its AI research and development, even as the global debate around AI heats up. Plus, SoftBank is closing out the week with nearly $21 billion in potential fresh borrowings as it builds out its AI financing capacity, and Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller discusses the race to build the infrastructure powering AI as the company closes nearly $4 billion in fresh funding.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down OpenAI's new plan to track when things go wrong after revealing new cases of its AI models going off-script. Plus, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi and machine learning pioneer Andrew Ng weigh in on the global AI safety debate; meanwhile in Silicon Valley, the immediate fear is missing out on the money.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Mark Zuckerberg's call for AI labs to rely on independent evaluators and advisers to ensure models are safe. Plus, OpenAI is said to be in early talks with investors about a new funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker at more than $1.2 trillion, and Impulse Space CEO Tom Mueller discusses the company's $308 Million Series D Extension and the future of the space mobility economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down calls from AI for a slower pace at the frontier, arguing safety needs time to catch up with increasingly powerful models. The debate is reaching Washington and Wall Street, with AI-linked stocks under pressure as investors weigh what slower development could mean for the spending boom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.