AI · page 6

OpenAI holds back new model over safety

• GPT-6.1 Astra scored below its predecessor on alignment
• Its AI agents breached partners, including governments
• Sam Altman has joined calls to “pace the frontier” so safety can keep up.

Other side: Slowing down could cost the US ground to China, which is why the White House resists guardrails.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Big dreams and tiny revenue are the new norm for AI IPOs

• Data-centre builders Nscale and SB Energy, both preparing New York IPOs, each made $140mn revenue in the last half year, yet hope for valuations of $35bn and $50bn.
• The biggest US-listed company with annual revenue under $500mn (excluding biotechs and bitcoin treasuries) is AST SpaceMobile, at $27bn.
• Contracts with OpenAI, Anthropic and ByteDance back their pitch, but backlogs depend on data centres being built on time and on budget.

Other side: Signed contracts with big tenants may yet turn backlog into revenue; the real test is delivery on time and on budget.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

How to Know When the AI Boom Is About to Go Bust

• Columnist Jonathan Weil argues booms need a steady flow of fresh capital, and can turn to busts once the window to raise new money closes; he says we are not there yet.
• His signal to watch: the return of the phrase ‘funding gap’, which entered the lexicon with ‘burn rate’ in 2000 as the dot-com bubble began to deflate.
• Early nerves: OpenAI ruled out going public this year, Holtec Nuclear paused its IPO plans and Anthropic pushed its IPO from October to November.

Other side: The delays may be bumps rather than warnings: the companies still appear able to raise private money, and Holtec is already profitable. Because OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s finances aren’t public, outsiders can’t easily read how close any funding gap really is.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

AI hyperscalers are transforming debt

• Meta will tap the European bond market for the first time this autumn, investors say, joining a record hunt for funds.
• Investors have provided about $500bn to AI-linked groups this year, per Goldman Sachs; the five hyperscalers account for about $200bn and are expected to issue over $1tn more in the next few years. SoftBank raised over $11bn in the biggest junk bond issue ever, to fund an OpenAI investment.
• Other borrowers are timing bond sales around the tech giants, and highly rated bonds sometimes trade at discounts to lesser-quality ones. Fed chair Kevin Warsh and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent argue hyperscalers compete with the $31tn Treasury market, where 10-year costs hit their highest since 2007 last week.

Other side: Whether hyperscaler debt is lifting government yields is disputed: HSBC’s Adam Bothamley calls it a stretch, and Morgan Stanley’s Matthew Hornbach sees a far smaller effect than rates and deficits. Morgan Stanley also says euro capacity is untapped. The risk is if AI cash flows disappoint: Apollo’s Torsten Sløk notes the credit case rests on operating cash flow tripling from $600bn to $2tn.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Sarvam: India will be AI’s biggest user in five years

• Co-founder Pratyush Kumar calls this “year one for India AI”.
• He says India should speed up how it builds and adopts AI.
• The catch: the cost of using AI has to keep falling.

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Govt weighs a ₹20,000 cr fund for frontier AI

• Proposed ₹15,000–20,000 cr anchor under the IndiaAI Mission.
• Would back AI startups, GPU clusters and data centres.
• Could be set up as a SEBI-regulated Category I AIF.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

AI is reading your online past

• Screeners flag posts once 70% sure who wrote them.
• Face matching can unmask pseudonymous accounts.
• Some employers keep monitoring staff after hiring.

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Summary based on MSN. Read the full story ↗

Leaked document shows which Oracle cloud roles were cut

• Business Insider obtained a document listing the job titles and ages of 546 employees laid off from Oracle's America Cloud Infrastructure organisation.
• Software developer III was the hardest-hit title, followed by program manager IV and principal core infrastructure engineer; developers made up around 17% of cuts.
• 41 roles came from data center support services, including that division's vice president; Oracle said the document was provided to comply with federal age discrimination laws.

Watch next: Oracle has not said how many people it laid off in total, and Business Insider could not determine whether the document lists everyone. Final Round AI reports WARN filings covering 359 Washington and 441 California roles, effective November 13, 2026, and cites a TD Cowen estimate of a further 20,000–30,000 cuts that Oracle has not confirmed.

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Summary based on Business Insider. Read the full story ↗

Google's Project Suncatcher readies its first test of AI chips in orbit

• Google says Project Suncatcher is scheduled for its first orbital test, with the first TPUs going into orbit next week.
• A prototype satellite built with partner Planet will fly on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare.
• The test will evaluate how Google's Tensor Processing Units perform in space.

Watch next: How the new TPU cooling system performs in orbit, and the 2027 test of high-bandwidth, short-range laser links between two satellites.

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Summary based on Google. Read the full story ↗