#cloud-computing

#cloud-computing

OpenAI recently closed the largest private funding round in history, raising $110 billion from Amazon, NVIDIA, and SoftBank. Leading the way was Amazon with an investment of approximately $50 billion, of which $15 billion was committed to upfront, while another $35 billion was tied to various milestones. For their parts, NVIDIA and SoftBank each contributed $30 billion, pushing OpenAI's massive valuation to $730 billion pre-money and $840 billion including the new capital.

We have under development approximately 26,000 acres across two jurisdictions with the infrastructure necessary to support power generation and compute capacity at scale. Each Wonder Valley campus is expected to provide 7.5 gigawatts of power generation capacity, creating a combined initial power plan of 15 gigawatts.

In his final quarter as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway ( NYSE: BRK-B), Warren Buffett reallocated his technology holdings. In the process, he sold 75% of his Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) position, according to Bloomberg. He has held the stock since 2019. Buffett also reduced his investment in Apple ( NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction), a move he has made for several quarters. Like many of the world's largest investors, Buffett does not always provide a rationale for buying or selling a stock.

Cloud computing stocks are trading like they've hit a wall. WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund ( NASDAQ:WCLD) dropped 30.5% over the past year to $28.60, a stark reversal from the sector's pandemic-era dominance. This divergence from the S&P 500 ( NYSEARCA:SPY)'s 14.4% gain reflects investor skepticism about whether emerging cloud software companies can maintain their business models as AI reshapes the technology landscape.

Linthicum has also taken serverless to task. "Serverless technology will continue to fade into the background due to the rise of other cloud computing paradigms, such as edge computing and microclouds," he says. Why? Because these "introduced more nuanced solutions to the market with tailored approaches that cater to specific business needs rather than the one-size-fits-all of serverless computing." I once suggested that serverless might displace Kubernetes and containers. I was wrong. Linthicum's more measured approach feels correct because it follows what always seems to happen with big new trends: They don't completely crater, they just stop pretending to solve all of our problems and instead get embraced for modest but still important applications.

On today's MadTech Daily, we cover TikTok using Pixels to track performance beyond its platform, Amazon launching Prebid Adapter Beta to connect ad demand, and UK Lords backing social media ban for under-16s. OpenAI confirmed it will begin testing ads in ChatGPT, marking a significant shift in how the AI assistant is monetised. The ads will be trialled with free users in the US, appearing in clearly labelled placements above or below chatbot responses, while paid tiers remain ad-free.