Nvidia Lines Up Over $1 Trillion in Orders for Its New Chips

Top News

At Nvidia’s GTC conference in San Jose today, CEO Jensen Huang said that the company now sees at least $1 trillion in orders for its Blackwell and Rubin AI chips through 2027, up from about $500 billion in projected demand just months ago. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenAI is delaying a planned ChatGPT adult mode that would allow erotic text conversations after advisers and employees warned the feature could expose minors and deepen user attachment to the bot. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Three plaintiffs, including two minors, have sued xAI, alleging its Grok image models generated sexualized images of identifiable underage girls from ordinary photos because the company failed to implement safeguards used by other AI labs. TechCrunch has more here.

Nvidia’s Version of OpenClaw Could Solve Its Biggest Problem: Security

Image Credits: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images

By Rebecca Szkutak

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang thinks every company should have an OpenClaw strategy. And Nvidia is here to provide it.

Nvidia has developed NemoClaw, an enterprise-grade AI agent platform, Huang announced during his GTC keynote on Monday. The platform is built on top of OpenClaw, the popular open-source framework for building and running AI agents locally on a company’s own hardware.

The new open source platform is essentially OpenClaw with enterprise-grade security and privacy features baked in. The idea is to turn OpenClaw into a secure platform that enterprises can tap into with one command, giving them control over how agents behave and handle data, according to Nvidia.

“For the CEOs, the question is, what’s your OpenClaw strategy?” Huang said onstage. “We need it. We all have a Linux strategy. We all needed to have an HTTP HTML strategy, which started the internet. We all needed to have a Kubernetes strategy, which made it possible for mobile cloud to happen. Every company in the world today needs to have an OpenClaw strategy, an agentic systems strategy.”

Nvidia worked with OpenClaw’s creator Peter Steinberger to develop NemoClaw, Huang said.

Once released, NemoClaw users will be able to tap any coding agent or open-source AI model, including Nvidia’s NemoTron open models to build and deploy AI agents. The platform allows users to access cloud-based models on their local devices. The platform is hardware agnostic — it doesn’t need to run on Nvidia’s own GPUs — and integrates with NeMo, Nvidia’s AI agent software suite.

Massive Fundings

Frore Systems, an eight-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that makes liquid-cooling systems for semiconductors, raised a $143 million Series D round at a $1.64 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by MVP Ventures, with Fidelity, Top Tier, Mayfield Fund, Clear Ventures, Addition, Qualcomm Ventures, StepStone Group, and Alumni Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $340 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Fuse, a six-year-old New York startup that provides loan origination software for credit unions, raised a $25 million Series A round co-led by Footwork, Primary Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, and Commerce Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Great Sky, a two-year-old Boulder startup that is building hardware to run AI workloads using superconducting circuits, raised a $14 million seed round led by Bison Ventures, with Matchstick Ventures and Range Ventures also participating. More here.

GridBeyond, a 16-year-old Dublin company that operates software and hardware to coordinate renewable energy, batteries, and industrial loads as virtual power plants, raised a $13.8 million round led by Samsung Ventures, with ABB, Act Venture Capital, Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund, Constellation, EDP, Energy Impact Partners, Enterprise Ireland, Klima, Mirova, and Yokogawa also engaging. TechCrunch has more here.

Halcyon, a three-year-old San Francisco startup whose platform lets users search and monitor regulatory filings, dockets, and datasets across the energy industry, raised a $21 million Series A round led by Energized Capital, with Zero Infinity Partners, Congruent Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and Sabanci Climate Ventures also taking part. More here.

Ironlight, a four-year-old Austin startup that runs a regulated marketplace and trading system for tokenized securities, raised a $21 million Series A round. Investors included Greg Braca, the Sei Development Foundation, and Laidlaw Private Equity. The Block has more here.

Unnatural Products, a nine-year-old startup based in Santa Cruz, CA, that engineers macrocyclic peptide drugs designed to bind proteins that conventional drugs cannot target, raised a $45 million Series B round led by The Venture Collective, with argenx and Droia Ventures as well as previous investors Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Artis Ventures, and First Spark Ventures also piling on. More here.

Zero RFI, a recently founded San Francisco startup that is building an AI platform that reviews construction drawings and project documents to identify and respond to contractor questions before they become formal RFIs, raised a $14 million seed round led by General Catalyst. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Alomana, a three-year-old Milan startup that is developing an AI operating layer to run autonomous workflows across enterprise systems, raised a $4.6 million round. CDP Venture Capital was the lead investor, with additional support from Italia Venture II, Fondo Imprese Sud, Founders Factory, Kairos Ventures ESG One, Gresilent Holdings, Italian Angels for Growth, and Club degli Investitori. The Next Web has more here.

Memories.ai, a two-year-old startup that provides infrastructure for AI systems to store and recall visual data, raised an $8 million seed extension round led by Susa Ventures, with Seedcamp, Fusion Fund, and Crane Venture Partners also digging in. The company has raised a total of $16 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Understood Care, a one-year-old New York startup that operates a patient advocacy platform that helps patients schedule appointments, access resources, complete applications, and coordinate healthcare services, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Rethink Education and Zeal Capital Partners. The company has raised a total of $8.4 million. More here.

WhiteBridge AI, a two-year-old Vilnius startup whose AI search engine compiles reports on people using data from public and online sources, raised a $3 million seed round led by FirstPick VC, with First Degree, NGL.VC, Scalewolf.VC, BADideas.fund, Nectolabs, and Plug and Play also pitching in. EU-Startups has more here.

New Funds

Ambition Capital, a recently founded Bengaluru VC firm founded by former Peak XV investors that focuses on seed and Series A investments in Indian startups across consumer, AI, fintech, and deep tech, is raising a $250 million debut fund. The Economic Times has more here.

Exits

Apple has acquired MotionVFX, a 17-year-old Warsaw-based company that develops plug-ins, templates, and visual effects tools for the Final Cut Pro video editing platform used by professional creators. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Accenture has paid an undisclosed sum for Faculty, a 12-year-old London-based AI company that develops AI strategy, safety systems, and enterprise decision intelligence tools for public and private sector clients. More here.

Going Public

PhonePe, a 10-year-old Bengaluru-based digital payments platform backed by Walmart, has paused plans for an IPO that could have raised up to $1.5 billion after geopolitical tensions and falling Indian stock markets rattled investor demand. TechCrunch has more here.

People

The Block reports that investigators found a document on a lobbyist’s phone outlining an alleged $5 million payment plan tied to Argentine President Javier Milei promoting the Libra memecoin, with forensic call logs showing direct contact between Milei and intermediaries around the token’s launch and collapse. More here.

Rivian founder RJ Scaringe says the robotics industry is chasing the wrong idea by building complex humanoid machines for homes, arguing his new startup Mind Robotics will instead focus on simpler industrial robots optimized for hand-based factory tasks. TechCrunch has more here.

Post-Its

Essential Reads

A Washington Post analysis of more than 350 occupations finds many jobs most exposed to AI, including programming, marketing, and clerical work, are also held by workers most able to switch careers, though millions of administrative roles, mostly held by women, face higher risk and fewer escape routes. The Washington Post has more here.