Kate Clark

It’s my first day at The Wall Street Journal covering startups, VC, AI and more. Confidential tips welcome: kate.clark@wsj.com | Signal: 415-409-9095.

The Race to Build an American Alternative to Cheap AI From China—Silicon Valley startups are setting up open models, with some operating on shoestring budgets @KateClarkTweets @samschech wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ra… wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ra…

SCOOP California Governor Newsom's Office Has Encouraged State AG to Settle Antitrust Suit Against Paramount w/@@elizacollins1 wsj.com/business/media… via @WSJ

NEW: His Wedding Guests Were Arriving—Just as His $45 Billion Fund Was Falling Apart. The Leopold Aschenbrenner saga...w/@berber_jin1 @rudegeair @anissagardizy8 wsj.com/finance/leopol…

Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update. Must read from @jdawsey1 @DanaMattioli @AnnieLinskey @EmilyGlazer wsj.com/politics/polic…

late-night scoop from @WSJ: Situational Awareness tried to sell a $3.5 billion stake in Anthropic to a group of investors led by Greenoaks and Sequoia the parties reached a deal late wed before situational awareness pulled out thurs morning w/ @rudegeair

Citadel buys Situational Awareness’s stock portfolio. Scoop from @GZuckerman & @rudegeair wsj.com/finance/citade…

I interviewed Mark Zuckerberg today. He told me he thinks AI is creating more value than harm and is worried that people who think otherwise will influence who has access to the tech. He also said he doubts a ban on foreign open-source models would be productive.

Nvidia is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, one of the most ambitious financial transactions yet in America’s artificial-intelligence boom. on.wsj.com/4yWVhE6

Scoop - Stripe is in talks to buy OpenRouter in a deal that could be around $10 billion, sources tell us story with @laurenthomas and @KateClarkTweets wsj.com/tech/ai/stripe…

Sources: Stripe is in talks to acquire OpenRouter in a deal potentially worth around $10B; PitchBook: OpenRouter was valued at $1.3B in May (Wall Street Journal) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

Scoop with @berber_jin1 and @KateClarkTweets: Stripe is in talks to acquire the buzzy AI-model marketplace OpenRouter, which could fetch around $10 billion in a sale. wsj.com/tech/ai/stripe…

China AI Companies Rush to Raise Funds and Close Gap With U.S.—Startups plan IPOs and get private investment, but American rivals still bring in far more investor cash @raffaelehuang @Tracyyyqu wsj.com/world/china/ch… wsj.com/world/china/ch…

Sources: AI inference chip startup Etched is raising funds at a ~$20B valuation and is raising capital at a $10B valuation in a separate round led by Sequoia (Wall Street Journal) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

SCOOP: Meta has poached Dave Brown, one of the most senior executives at Amazon Web Services, to join its data center and compute team. More for @WSJ: wsj.com/tech/meta-plan…

Scoop: Coatue is leading a $3 billion @databricks round at a $188 billion valuation. w/ @berber_jin1 wsj.com/tech/ai/databr…

Mira Murati’s AI startup, Thinking Machines, has released its first AI model – and it’s open weights. It's a bid to contribute to a decentralized AI ecosystem to counter the frontier labs, whose models Thinking Machines has compared to "central planning." w/ @berber_jin1 wsj.com/tech/ai/mira-m… via @WSJ

SCOOP: Data center firms are working to sell majority equity stakes worth tens of billions of dollars this summer. - The largest deal could see DataBank sell for as much as $25B - The big question is whether there's enough capital for all of these transactions “There are not that many people who can write those checks,” Ravi Purohit of Paul Weiss told me. full story in @WSJ: wsj.com/finance/invest…

Today is my first day at The Wall Street Journal! I'm covering all things related to AI infrastructure (cloud computing, data centers, energy, semis, etc). 📩send confidential tips here: 215-896-1307 [Signal], anissa.gardizy@wsj.com

Fable may be back, but not everyone is relieved. I went to a rally in San Francisco last night where @sqs @DanielleFong and 50 other attendees talked about how they're still concerned about gov't gatekeeping over AI models.

As OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public, San Francisco tech workers making six figures say they cannot compete with the new A.I. elite. Some doubt they can afford to stay.