AI Startups Heat Up: xAI, Thinking Machines Lab, and Safer Superintelligence Attract Major Investments

The AI sector is experiencing a surge in activity, with Elon Musk's xAI unveiling Grok-3, former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati launching Thinking Machines Lab, and Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence reportedly raising over $1 billion. OpenAI has reached 400 million weekly active users. Several AI startups have secured significant funding rounds, including Lambda ($480M), Together AI ($305M), Mercor ($100M), Hightouch ($80M), Baseten ($75M), Luminance ($75M), Augury ($75M), Sanas ($65M), and Spore.Bio ($23M). Intel is considering selling Altera and Intel Capital. Microsoft debuted Majorana, a quantum chip. HP will acquire assets from 'Ai Pin' maker Humane in a $116M deal.