Foundations by Axented
Anthropic Overtakes OpenAI in Valuation, Nvidia Expands Investments in Photonics, Pope Leo Warns AI Must Be “Disarmed”, Drafted Raises USD $16M in Seed Round
Table of Contents:
AI | Artificial Intelligence
Anthropic Overtakes OpenAI in Valuation After Massive Funding Round
Nvidia Expands Investments in Photonics to Support AI Infrastructure
Pope Leo Warns AI Must Be “Disarmed” in “Magnifica Humanitas”
VC | Startup & Funding
Cloudgeni Raises EUR €858K to Scale AI Agents for Secure Cloud Infrastructure
Drafted Raises USD $16M Seed Round to Expand AI Home Design Platform
HI | Hardware & Infrastructure
Memory Prices Tipped to Fall as China Expands DRAM Supply
AWS Redesign Cuts Network Costs by 40% Using Random Graph Theory-Based Architecture
Anthropic Overtakes OpenAI in Valuation After Massive Funding Round
Anthropic has become the world’s most valuable AI startup after raising $65 billion in a new funding round that pushed its valuation to about $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s last reported valuation.
The company’s rapid growth has been driven by enterprise demand for its Claude models and coding-focused AI tools, with annualized revenue reportedly climbing sharply over the past year.
Major investors in the round included Altimeter Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Amazon, which continues to deepen its infrastructure partnership with Anthropic.
The development intensifies competition among leading AI firms as investors continue pouring capital into generative AI infrastructure and applications.
Source: The New York Times
Nvidia Expands Investments in Photonics to Support AI Infrastructure
Nvidia is investing billions of dollars into photonics and optical networking companies as it seeks to improve the speed and efficiency of AI data centers.
The company’s strategy focuses on technologies that use light instead of traditional electrical signaling to move massive amounts of data between AI chips and servers.
Nvidia has backed suppliers including Lumentum and Coherent to secure manufacturing capacity and accelerate development of next-generation optical interconnects.
The move reflects growing pressure on data-center infrastructure as AI systems demand faster communication and lower power consumption.
Source: CNBC
Pope Leo Warns AI Must Be “Disarmed” in “Magnifica Humanitas”
Pope Leo XIV presented his first encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” focused on the ethical and social risks of artificial intelligence.
In the document, the pontiff called for AI to be “disarmed” and warned about the emergence of “new digital slaveries,” while also condemning the use of AI in warfare and political manipulation.
The Vatican presentation included Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, who acknowledged that AI labs operate under incentives that can conflict with ethical decision-making.
The text also contained one of the Vatican’s strongest apologies for the Catholic Church’s historical role in slavery and urged AI developers to assume ethical and spiritual responsibility for their technological choices.
Source: BBC
Join the newsletter for regular updates on artificial intelligence, venture activity, and core systems!
Cloudgeni Raises EUR €858K to Scale AI Agents for Secure Cloud Infrastructure
Cloudgeni, an Oslo-based startup developing AI agents for cloud infrastructure management, raised 858 thousand euros in fresh funding to expand across the Nordics and the US.
The round included participation from byFounders Angel Collective, Startuplab, Antler, Vegard Gullaksen Veiteberg, and Danish investor Nicolaj Højer Nielsen.
Founded in 2024 by Iuliia Petryshyn Thuen and Davlet Dzhakishev, the company builds AI-powered systems designed to detect, remediate, and verify cloud security and compliance issues through automated workflows.
Cloudgeni stated that it has already secured enterprise customers in Norway, including Hydro and Havila, partnered with IBM, and plans to grow its team to support further expansion.
Source: EU-Startups
Drafted Raises USD $16M Seed Round to Expand AI Home Design Platform
Drafted, a San Francisco-based AI startup, raised a 16 million dollars seed round from investors including Buckley Ventures, Y Combinator, Pinterest cofounder Ben Silbermann, and musician Ryan Tedder.
The company builds an AI platform that turns user prompts such as lot size, room count, and design preferences into floor plans and 3D home layouts that can be iterated in real time.
The startup had previously raised 1.65 million dollars at a 35 million dollar valuation and reports strong early traction, including 250,000 visitors and over 300,000 generated floor plans in recent months.
It plans to monetize through basic plan sets priced around 1,000 dollars while continuing to scale adoption among homebuyers, architects, and builders.
Source: Business Insider
Memory Prices Tipped to Fall as China Expands DRAM Supply
Chinese semiconductor firms are increasing production of DRAM and NAND chips, which analysts say could push memory prices downward as supply expands.
Corsair has reportedly begun using DRAM chips from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies in next-generation DDR5 modules, replacing its usual reliance on Micron amid high market prices.
CXMT holds about 7.7% of the global DRAM market and reported 50.8 billion yuan (about USD $7.4 billion) in revenue, with profits of 33.0 billion yuan and a 719% year-over-year increase.
Industry expansion from Chinese producers, alongside competitors such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, has raised expectations that increased output could eventually ease pricing pressure in the memory market.
Source: TechSpot
AWS Redesign Cuts Network Costs by 40% Using Random Graph Theory-Based Architecture
Amazon Web Services developed a new data center networking architecture based on random graph theory to improve performance, reliability, and efficiency across its cloud infrastructure.
The system introduces a flat network design that replaces traditional hierarchical routing structures, using a new routing protocol called Spraypoint and a hardware component known as ShuffleBox to manage randomized connections at scale.
According to internal testing described in the report, the approach can deliver up to 33% faster data movement while reducing network equipment electricity consumption by 40%.
The redesign is also expected to lower costs, reduce CO2 emissions, and improve resilience by minimizing single points of failure across AWS data centers.
Source: Amazon News
Foundations is written by the Axented team.
Axented works with companies around the world to design, build, and scale digital products, teams, and AI-driven systems.
If you’re building or scaling a technology-driven business and want to explore how these signals apply to your context, you can learn more about how we work at axented.com.
