Cory Weinberg

Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust appointed former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke as its fourth member on Thursday. The trust is responsible for appointing board members for the AI safety company. Bernanke's appointment fills a key opening, though the trust still has one vacant seat of its five total positions.

Temasek, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund managing hundreds of billions in assets, plans to triple its AI investment holdings from $25 billion to $75 billion by 2030, representing a shift from cautious observer to major player in AI infrastructure and startups. The firm, known for patient capital and risk management focus, has recently invested in major AI rounds from Anthropic, Isomorphic Labs, and Waymo. The move reflects broader institutional capital flowing into AI, though Temasek executives acknowledge uncertainty about whether corporate AI spending actually delivers returns.

SpaceX's lead IPO bank Goldman Sachs projects the company will burn $350 billion in cash through 2030, with $120 billion burned in 2026 and 2027 combined. The forecasts anticipate $360 billion in capital expenditures through 2028, with roughly 80% directed toward artificial intelligence initiatives. The projections suggest SpaceX may need to raise additional capital by next year despite planning the largest initial public offering on record.

Alphabet's $80 billion share offering reveals that nearly 40% of proceeds will cover tax obligations tied to employee equity awards rather than AI infrastructure. The company expects to spend $30 billion this year on taxes related to stock compensation, roughly double last year's total, as rising share prices increase the tax bills employees owe when restricted stock units vest. This dynamic reflects a hidden cost of the AI talent war across big tech, where stock-based compensation creates significant cash drains during periods of heavy infrastructure investment.

Analog Devices is in advanced talks to acquire Empower Semiconductor, a 12-year-old power management startup, for approximately $1.5 billion. The deal reflects growing demand for specialized chips that manage the intense energy requirements of AI workloads. Empower's technology helps AI chips operate more efficiently by reducing energy waste during power delivery, a critical capability as AI systems consume ever-larger amounts of electricity.

BlackRock is in discussions to invest $5 billion to $10 billion in SpaceX's upcoming initial public offering, which could raise as much as $75 billion and rank among the largest IPOs in history. The investment would signal confidence from the world's largest asset manager in Elon Musk's company, even as SpaceX seeks a stratospheric valuation and plans to offer investors minimal ability to challenge management decisions. The move reflects a broader Wall Street consensus to participate in the offering despite its aggressive terms, and underscores the close relationship between Musk and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who recently traveled to China together with President Donald Trump.

On Christmas Eve 2025, OpenAI committed billions of dollars to purchase chips from Cerebras, a startup that manufactures large-format AI inference chips, according to securities filings. The deal marks a significant shift in the AI chip market, coming the same day Nvidia announced its acquisition of inference chip rival Groq. The move signals OpenAI's effort to diversify its chip supply chain beyond Nvidia and reduce dependence on a single supplier for inference workloads.

Anthropic's CFO Krishna Rao has become a quiet but influential force within the company since joining in 2024, pushing the AI startup to diversify its infrastructure partnerships beyond its existing Google cloud agreement. Rao advocated for striking deals with multiple chip providers and cloud partners to accelerate growth, a strategy that resonated with investors like Byron Deeter at Bessemer Venture Partners. While Anthropic maintains a public-facing roster of researchers, philosophers, and a combative CEO, Rao's behind-the-scenes work on vendor relationships and business strategy has emerged as a key lever for the company's operational scaling.