{"id":55157,"date":"2026-05-29T12:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/55157\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T12:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:26:19","slug":"fortune-tech-anthropics-record-valuation-dells-sales-machine-waymo-ojai-vehicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/55157\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortune Tech: Anthropic’s record valuation, Dell\u2019s sales machine, Waymo Ojai vehicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. A refreshing bit of news out of China this morning, where JD.com<\/a> founder Liu Qiangdong promised to protect the company\u2019s 900,000 employees from AI and automation.<\/p>\n

That may seem like a surprising stance for JD, China\u2019s largest retailer by revenue and No. 44<\/a> on Fortune\u2019s Global 500. But look more closely and it\u2019s clear the Beijing-based company is not shying away from progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JD has fully committed to unmanned warehouses, drone delivery, self-driving vehicles, and more physical AI goodness. The difference? It vows to not fire<\/a> any frontline worker replaced by machines. Instead, the company will retrain its employees via some 80 centers across China. (To do what, you ask? Maintain and service the automated systems, naturally.)<\/p>\n

Before you think it\u2019s purely altruistic, it\u2019s worth noting that a Chinese court ruled in April that companies cannot terminate workers<\/a> simply to replace them with AI. Add in China\u2019s labor market instability and economic headwinds and you can see why the centrally run, unitary, one-party nation might want to consider the big picture when it comes to AI.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s tech news follows. Have a wonderful weekend. \u2014Andrew Nusca<\/p>\n

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to\u00a0Fortune Tech?\u00a0Drop a line\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anthropic is a $900 billion company now\"Anthropic<\/a>Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei speaking at Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2023 in Park City, Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stuart Isett\/Fortune<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like Lamborghini outpacing Ferrari, Puma outselling Adidas, Activision usurping Atari: Anthropic, the highly valued San Francisco AI firm founded by OpenAI veterans, is\u2014for now\u2014worth more than the highly valued San Francisco AI firm they came from.<\/p>\n

The Dario Amodei-led company announced on Thursday that it has raised $65 billion at a $900 billion valuation. That pushes its paper value ahead of OpenAI\u2019s by just $48 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a stunning ascent. Investors valued Anthropic at $380 billion only three months ago.<\/p>\n

(How detached from the rest of the startup economy is the AI arms race, by the way? I used the word \u201cjust\u201d next to \u201c$48 billion.\u201d Ahem.)<\/p>\n

The new funds come from investors Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, Altimeter Capital, and Dragoneer Investment Group and bring Anthropic\u2019s total raised to $130 billion. There are also new strategic investors from the chip camp: Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.<\/p>\n

Anthropic\u2019s latest funding round further demonstrates that its foundational commitment to commercial applications of its technology\u2014writing code, discovering software bugs, and white-labeling enterprise chatbots around the globe\u2014is paying off.<\/p>\n

To that end, Anthropic used the occasion to unveil a new flagship AI model<\/a>, Claude Opus 4.8. The company says it outperforms every AI model currently on the market in \u201cvibe coding\u201d and improves its standing in the hotly competitive area of mathematics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a rather human aspect\u2014honesty\u2014that stands out. \u201cEarly testers report that Opus 4.8 is more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims,\u201d Anthropic writes. Cheers to that. \u2014AN<\/p>\n

Dell shares soar 39% after it reports an 88% revenue jump<\/p>\n

Holy cow, Batman. Dell just had a day like no other.<\/p>\n

The pioneering gadget purveyor led by its namesake Michael reported fiscal first quarter results on Thursday that included its fastest sales growth since it returned to the public markets in 2018.<\/p>\n

Dell posted Q1 earnings per share of $4.86 on revenues of $43.8 billion. Wall Street analysts were looking for EPS of $2.94 on revenues of $35.4 billion.<\/p>\n

That actual revenue figure is almost 88% higher than it was during the same period a year ago. Previous quarters since its 2018 IPO, which came after five years of Dell as a private company, never topped 39%.<\/p>\n

So why the blowout quarter? Artificial intelligence, of course. Dell is selling servers with Nvidia chips faster than it can slap them together. AI server revenue increased 757%\u2014that\u2019s no typo\u2014from one year ago to $16.1 billion. Everyone from enterprises to neoclouds to sovereign governments is buying.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which: Earlier this week the Pentagon announced that Dell had won a five-year, $9.7 billion contract to supply Microsoft software and services to the U.S. military. That helps, too.<\/p>\n

Dell forecasts Q2 earnings of $4.80 on revenues of $44.5 billion; Wall Street is looking for EPS of $2.98 on revenues of $35 billion. As for the full year forecast, Dell updated its AI revenue figure to $60 billion, up 20% from the previous projection, and total revenue to about $167 billion. To quote the old comic books: Pow! \u2014AN<\/p>\n

Waymo unveils the Ojai robotaxi<\/p>\n

OK, so it\u2019s no hot yoga class en route to a \u201cspiritual vortex<\/a>.\u201d But Waymo\u2019s new Ojai robotaxis promise a lifestyle upgrade where it matters most: the work commute.<\/p>\n

The vehicles, built in partnership with Geely-owned Chinese electric automaker Zeekr, promise a more<\/a> spacious cabin, a more robust accessibility feature set, and Waymo\u2019s sixth-generation driving tech for riders in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Waymo says the Ojai\u2014which to my eyes looks a bit like the Nissan NV200 you\u2019ll see in yellow livery all over New York City\u2014is its first purpose-built robotaxi. It shows. There are charging ports, cup holders, and three digital displays. The floor is flat and low for easier entry. There\u2019s braille, screen-reader compatibility, and extra handles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the fleet operator, the vehicle is easier to clean and modular to maintain. The simpler, cheaper, more snow-friendly autonomous driving hardware is welcome, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all part of the Alphabet-owned company\u2019s attempt to stay ahead of its competition. With almost 4,000 vehicles on the road, Waymo is the undisputed king of robotaxis in the U.S., well ahead of Amazon\u2019s Zoox and Tesla.<\/p>\n

However, in the bigger pond that is the rest of the globe, Waymo is far from being the biggest fish. As the U.S. company angles to operate in Canada and tests vehicles in Japan and the U.K., it\u2019s watching Chinese firms in particular\u2014Baidu, Pony.ai, and WeRide\u2014add new countries to their own launch plans.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the good news: It\u2019s early days in the category. Most major markets haven\u2019t yet given robotaxis the greenlight, which means it\u2019s anyone\u2019s ballga\u2014er, spiritual vortex. \u2014AN\u00a0<\/p>\n

More tech<\/p>\n

\u2014The EU may intervene in chip supply chains<\/a> by, for example, forcing chipmakers to override contracts during shortages.<\/p>\n

\u2014TikTok\u2019s new music industry strategy:<\/a> Cut out the record labels!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014IBM commits $10 billion to quantum computing.<\/a> Coming in 2029: A large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.<\/p>\n

\u2014Amazon scraps AI usage leaderboard<\/a> after human workers invent tasks to goose their scores.<\/p>\n

\u2014California sues 23andMe<\/a> for allegedly failing to protect user data in a 2023 breach.<\/p>\n

\u2014Europe fines Temu \u20ac200 million<\/a> for allegedly failing to sufficiently stop the sale of illegal products.<\/p>\n

\u2014Adversaries are targeting U.S. military personnel<\/a> using leaky commercial location data. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. A refreshing bit of news out of China this morning, where JD.com founder Liu Qiangdong promised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[32278,1483,321,53,970,725,2784,6861,10639,2618,24534,2008,756,3476],"class_list":["post-55157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-23andme","tag-alphabet","tag-amazon","tag-anthropic","tag-california","tag-dell-technologies","tag-european-union","tag-european-commission","tag-fortune-tech","tag-ibm","tag-jd-com","tag-no-copyright","tag-tiktok","tag-waymo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}