Major AI News: Sequoia Joins $25B Anthropic Round & Musk Sues OpenAI for $134B | January 19, 2026

Daily AI Blog

📋 Quick Takeaways

  • Anthropic Valuation Soars: Sequoia Capital joins a massive funding round valuing Anthropic at $350B+, with total investment targeting $25B.
  • Musk’s $134B Legal Battle: Elon Musk files for up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, citing “wrongful gains” from his early support.
  • ChatGPT Go Global Launch: OpenAI rolls out the $8/month “ChatGPT Go” tier worldwide and confirms ad testing begins in February.
  • Tesla Dojo3 Revival: Elon Musk announces the restart of the Dojo3 supercomputer project powered by the new AI5 chip.
  • Meta’s Nuclear Pivot: Meta commits over $10 billion to a nuclear power deal for AI infrastructure while cutting 1,500 Reality Labs jobs.
  • Wikipedia Monetizes Data: The Wikimedia Foundation signs paid training deals with Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon.

💰 Major AI Funding & Business

Sequoia Capital Joins $25 Billion Anthropic Funding Round

Investment Milestone: Sequoia Capital is breaking venture capital norms by backing Anthropic, joining a massive funding consortium led by GIC and Coatue. The round is expected to reach $25 billion, pushing Anthropic’s valuation to $350 billion—more than doubling in four months. Key Participants:

  • Lead Investors: GIC (Singapore) and Coatue Management ($1.5B each).
  • Strategic Backers: Microsoft and Nvidia have committed up to $15 billion combined.
  • Market Impact: The deal cements Anthropic as the primary rival to OpenAI, with enough capital to aggressively scale its “Claude” model family. Source: Financial Times | TechCrunch

Elon Musk Seeks Up to $134 Billion from OpenAI and Microsoft

Legal Escalation: Elon Musk has escalated his legal war against OpenAI, demanding between $79 billion and $134 billion. The filing alleges OpenAI abandoned its non-profit mission, claiming Musk is entitled to “wrongful gains” proportionate to his seed investment relative to OpenAI’s current $655 billion valuation. Damages Calculation: Expert witness C. Paul Wazzan based the figure on Musk’s crucial early $38 million funding and the company’s subsequent explosive growth. Source: Reuters | Business Insider

Wikipedia Signs Paid AI Training Deals with Tech Giants

Data Licensing: The Wikimedia Foundation has officially launched “enterprise” partnerships with Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Perplexity. These deals monetize the use of Wikipedia content for training Large Language Models (LLMs), addressing the high server costs caused by automated scraping. Source: WTAQ | DTN Progressive Farmer

🚀 Product Launches & Technology

OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Go and Announces Ads

Global Rollout: OpenAI has released “ChatGPT Go” worldwide, a new $8/month subscription offering access to GPT-5.2 Instant with higher limits than the free tier. Ad Integration: The company confirmed it will begin testing advertisements for Free and Go tier users in the U.S. starting February 2026. Ads will remain absent from Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans. Source: OpenAI Blog | CNBC

Anthropic Releases “Cowork” Autonomous Agent Tool

New Capability: Anthropic introduced “Cowork,” a feature enabling users to collaborate with autonomous AI agents across multi-session workflows, significantly enhancing complex task management. Source: YouTube (AI News)

Google Unveils Universal Commerce Protocol

AI Shopping: Google announced a new protocol designed to standardize AI-driven shopping experiences, allowing agents to execute transactions seamlessly across different e-commerce platforms. Source: YouTube (AI News)

🏗️ AI Infrastructure & Hardware

Tesla Restarts Dojo3 Supercomputer with AI5 Chip

Hardware Roadmap: Elon Musk announced the revival of the Dojo3 supercomputer project, declaring the new “AI5” chip design “almost done.” The system is critical for training Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) neural networks. Timeline: Mass production of the AI5 chip is targeted for mid-2027. Source: Finviz | AInvest

Meta Signs $10 Billion Nuclear Power Deal

Energy Security: To support its massive AI infrastructure needs, Meta has secured a nuclear power agreement valued at over $10 billion, signaling Big Tech’s shift toward nuclear energy to sustain data center growth. Source: YouTube (AI News)

OpenAI & Cerebras Form $10 Billion Inference Partnership

Hardware Alliance: OpenAI and chipmaker Cerebras have announced a $10 billion partnership focused on accelerating AI inference, aiming to reduce latency and cost for deploying massive models. Source: YouTube (AI News)

🔬 Science & Healthcare AI

Nvidia and Eli Lilly Launch $1 Billion AI Drug Discovery Lab

Bio-Compute: Nvidia is partnering with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to establish a $1 billion laboratory. The facility will leverage generative AI to accelerate the discovery and development of new medicines. Source: YouTube (AI News)

Google Releases MedGemma Medical AI Model

Clinical AI: Google introduced MedGemma, a specialized version of its Gemma model fine-tuned on vast medical datasets to assist in clinical decision-making and research. Source: YouTube (AI News)

New Agent Memory Systems Released: HINDSIGHT & Confucius

Technical Advance: Researchers released new memory architectures for AI agents. “HINDSIGHT” and “Confucius SDK” enable dynamic skill loading and separate memory types, reducing token usage for autonomous coding tasks. Source: YouTube (AI News)

🏢 Corporate Strategy & Community

Meta Cuts 1,500 Jobs in Reality Labs

Strategic Pivot: Meta laid off ~1,500 employees (10%) from its Reality Labs division, affecting VR hardware and game studios. The move reflects a resource shift from the metaverse toward AI infrastructure. Source: WSJ | SFGate

Microsoft to Pay Full Electric Bills for Data Center Communities

Community Relations: In a “Good Neighbor” initiative, Microsoft announced it will cover the complete electricity costs for communities that host its major AI data centers to mitigate local concerns over grid strain. Source: TechStartups