Foundations by Axented
Alibaba Leads $290 Million Investment, Anthropic Temporarily Suspends OpenClaw Creator’s Claude Access, UK MHRA Expands AI Airlock Programme With £36 Million Funding Boost
Table of Contents:
AI | Artificial Intelligence
Alibaba Leads $290 Million Investment in ShengShu for New AI ‘World Model’ Push
Anthropic Temporarily Suspends OpenClaw Creator’s Claude Access
VC | Startup & Funding
Finally Foods Raises Pre-Seed Funding for Potato-Based Dairy Protein Technology
UK MHRA Expands AI Airlock Programme With £36 Million Funding Boost
HI | Hardware & Infrastructure
OpenAI Pauses UK Data Centre Deal Over Energy Costs and Regulation
Nvidia Demonstrates Neural Texture Compression Slashing VRAM Usage
Alibaba Leads $290 Million Investment in ShengShu for New AI ‘World Model’ Push
Alibaba Cloud has led a 2 billion yuan ($290 million) funding round for Chinese startup ShengShu, the company behind AI video platform Vidu, as it expands beyond traditional large language models into “world model” artificial intelligence.
The investment will support development of AI systems trained on video and physical-world data to better simulate real-world environments for uses such as robotics and autonomous driving.
The move reflects growing industry interest in AI models designed to understand physical space and sensory input rather than text alone.
Source: CNBC
Anthropic Temporarily Suspends OpenClaw Creator’s Claude Access
Anthropic briefly suspended developer Peter Steinberger, creator of the OpenClaw AI agent framework, from accessing Claude after flagging his account for suspicious activity before later reinstating it.
The incident follows Anthropic’s recent decision to stop allowing Claude subscriptions to cover usage through third-party tools like OpenClaw, instead requiring separate API-based billing.
Steinberger criticized the move, suggesting Anthropic is restricting open-source tools while expanding its own competing agent offerings.
The episode has fueled broader debate over Anthropic’s relationship with outside developers building on its models.
Source: Tech Crunch
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Finally Foods Raises Pre-Seed Funding for Potato-Based Dairy Protein Technology
Food biotech startup Finally Foods has secured pre-seed funding to advance its molecular farming platform that produces casein, a key dairy protein, in genetically engineered potatoes.
The company aims to create animal-free dairy ingredients for cheese and other products while reducing the environmental footprint associated with conventional dairy production.
The funding will support research, scale-up efforts, and continued development of its protein extraction process.
Finally Foods is part of a growing group of startups pursuing plant-based molecular farming as an alternative protein production method.
Source: GreenQueen
UK MHRA Expands AI Airlock Programme With £36 Million Funding Boost
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is expanding its AI Airlock programme with £36 million in funding over the next three years to support testing of AI-powered healthcare technologies.
The programme provides developers with a regulatory sandbox to trial medical AI systems while working directly with regulators on compliance and safety issues.
Officials said the expanded funding will allow more projects to participate and strengthen the UK’s regulatory infrastructure for emerging health technologies.
The initiative is intended to accelerate safe adoption of AI medical tools while maintaining oversight standards.
Source: Gov.uk
OpenAI Pauses UK Data Centre Deal Over Energy Costs and Regulation
OpenAI has paused plans for a major UK data centre project, citing concerns over high energy prices and regulatory barriers that executives say make Britain less attractive for large-scale AI infrastructure investment.
The company had been evaluating the UK as part of its broader international expansion but is now reassessing the proposal while continuing talks with government officials.
Industry figures have warned that the UK risks losing technology investment unless it improves power availability and streamlines planning rules for data centre construction.
The development adds pressure on ministers as they seek to position Britain as a global hub for artificial intelligence.
Source: BBC
Nvidia Demonstrates Neural Texture Compression Slashing VRAM Usage
Nvidia has showcased new Neural Texture Compression technology that reduced VRAM consumption in a demo from 6.5GB to 970MB while maintaining near-original image quality.
The system uses small neural networks to compress and decode textures more efficiently than traditional block compression methods, potentially allowing for smaller game installs and reduced memory requirements.
Nvidia said the approach could also preserve more visual detail at equivalent memory budgets compared with current techniques. The technology is part of the company’s broader push into AI-assisted rendering beyond DLSS.
Source: VideoCardz
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