Anthropic Raises $650 Billion at a $9.65 Trillion Valuation, Unveils Opus 4.8 on the Same Day. As AI Competition Intensifies, US Consumer Savings Rate Hits a Four-Year Low.
1｜Anthropic's $650 Billion Funding Surpasses OpenAI, Chip Giants Invest to Reverse Supply Chain Power
Anthropic completes a $650 billion Series H funding round at a $9.65 trillion valuation, officially surpassing OpenAI at $8.52 trillion to become the world's most valuable AI company. The investor lineup includes Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix, three storage chip giants. On the same day, Anthropic unveils Claude Opus 4.8, introducing the Dynamic Workflows feature that can orchestrate up to 1000 sub-agents, increasing the code benchmark score from 64.3% to 69.2%.
Anthropic's ARR has exceeded $470 billion, up from $300 billion at the beginning of the year and just $100 billion at the end of last year. The company anticipates a 130% revenue growth, nearing its first operational profit. The shift in investor composition is noteworthy: chip companies are starting to invest in AI companies, reversing the power dynamics in the supply chain. Amazon holds an accumulated $13 billion stake in Anthropic, with a valuation now inflated to around $600 billion. With OpenAI experiencing a slowdown in growth, Anthropic is accelerating both its product offerings and revenue, poised to take over the top spot in the AI industry.
(Source: CNBC / Bloomberg / Motley Fool / Anthropic)
2｜PCE Inflation Surges to a Three-Year High of 3.8%, US Consumer Savings Rate Falls Below the Safety Line
In April, US PCE inflation rose by 3.8% year-on-year, accelerating from March's 3.5% to reach a three-year high. Gasoline prices surged by 12.3% year-on-year, driving the increase. Core PCE inflation also rose to 3.3%, the highest since 2023. Concurrently, the personal savings rate fell to 2.6%, the lowest since June 2022. Real per capita disposable income declined by 1.4% year-on-year, marking two consecutive months of negative growth.
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook bluntly stated that "inflation is clearly heading in the wrong direction," attributing it to downstream effects of oil price shocks and the lingering impact of tariffs. The picture painted by the data is clear: prices are rising, incomes are not keeping up, and consumers are starting to dip into their savings. This is not a sustainable equilibrium. The last time the savings rate fell below 3% was in mid-2022, followed by a sharp drop in consumer confidence. While the current market is still pricing in a "soft landing," consumers' balance sheets are telling a different story.
(Source: BEA / CNN / Axios / Cleveland Fed)
3 | Dell AI Server Quarterly Revenue Hits $16.1 Billion, Up 757% YoY
Dell released its Q1 earnings report, with AI server revenue reaching $16.1 billion, a 757% year-over-year increase. AI order backlogs amount to $24.4 billion. Total revenue was $43.8 billion, up 88% year-over-year. The company has raised its full-year revenue outlook to $60 billion, leading to a 30% surge in stock price after hours.
The 757% figure indicates that the demand for AI computing power has shifted from anticipation to purchase orders. A year ago, the market was still debating whether AI infrastructure investment would overheat. Dell's order book has provided the answer. A more profound change is Dell's own transformation: five years ago, this company was known for "selling PCs and enterprise storage," but now AI servers account for more than a third of total revenue. While NVIDIA sells chips, there needs to be someone to turn those chips into deployable server clusters. Dell is becoming a key intermediate layer in the AI computing power supply chain, capturing profits from the chip craze through its system integration capabilities.
(Source: CNBC / Benzinga / Dell)
4 | Details of US-Iran 60-Day MOU Revealed, But Neither Trump Nor Khamenei Has Signed
The US and Iran have agreed on the framework of a 60-day Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU requires Iran to commit to no pursuit of nuclear weapons, negotiate a pause in its uranium enrichment program and remove high-enriched uranium stockpiles, clear the mines in the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, and ensure the strait's free passage. The US, in turn, agrees to negotiate the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of Iranian funds within 60 days, but actual execution awaits the final agreement.
After the details were made public, market sentiment subtly shifted. CNBC reports that traders' optimistic expectations for the nuclear deal are waning. The key issue is that while the MOU is written, neither Trump nor Khamenei has signed it. CSIS analysis suggests that deep-rooted mistrust is a core obstacle, with Iran fundamentally skeptical of the US's commitments due to Trump's 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA. Yesterday, the market priced in peace and premium, but today it must start pricing in the probability of this MOU transitioning from a framework to a scrap of paper. (Continued from yesterday's coverage)
(Source: Axios / Al Jazeera / CNBC / CSIS / Time)
5 | Wix to Lay Off 20% of Workforce as AI's Impact on Employment Shifts from Prediction to Pink Slips
Wix announced the layoffs of about 1,000 employees, representing 20% of its workforce. The CEO attributed the decision to AI-driven productivity gains and pressure from the Israeli Shekel exchange rate. Following the disappointing May 13th earnings report, Wix's stock price had already fallen by 27%. On the same day, Morgan Stanley released a report predicting a 20% job cut in the European banking sector due to AI. Meanwhile, Costco's CEO publicly stated that AI is meant to enhance, not replace, retail jobs.
These three pieces of news draw a clear line. Technology-intensive companies (website development, back-office finance) are the first to feel AI's replacement pressure because the workflows of these positions can be described in a structured manner, which happens to be a strength of large models. The offline service industry is temporarily safe not because AI can't do it, but because the deployment costs are not yet low enough. The impact of AI on employment is no longer confined to whitepapers and predictions; it is now resulting in real layoff notices.
(Source: Reuters / Reuters / VentureBeat)
Also Worth Knowing ↓
Mistral held its first developer conference and unveiled the consumer product Le Chat. Europe's largest AI unicorn is shifting from an API provider to targeting the consumer market, directly competing with ChatGPT and Claude. European AI companies are starting to realize that merely building models is insufficient; they need their own user interfaces.
(Source: TechCrunch)
Illinois passed the first comprehensive state-level AI security law in the United States. Federal AI legislation remains deadlocked, with state-level regulations taking the lead. A similar bill was vetoed in California last year, but Illinois's passage may open the floodgates for state-level laws.
(Source: Reuters)
Waymo deployed self-driving taxis manufactured by Chinese company Geely in Ojai, California, sparking a "Made in China" controversy. While the autonomous driving technology is American, the vehicle hardware is Chinese. Where does technological sovereignty lie: in the algorithm or in the steel?
(Source: Reuters)
Supermicro got caught up in a case of smuggling servers from Taiwan to China, with customs seizing the equipment. The demand for AI servers has driven a gray supply chain, with motivations and means to bypass export controls evolving simultaneously.
(Source: Tom's Hardware)
Groq has transitioned from a self-developed LPU chip company to an AI cloud service provider. When the hardware story doesn't add up, shifting to selling inference services. The survival rules of AI chip startups are being rewritten: you can skip chip manufacturing, but you must sell computing power.
(Source: The Information)
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