News — 2026-07-02

Together AI announced an $800 million Series C financing round led by Aramco Ventures, pushing its valuation past $8 billion. The San Francisco‑based startup, which offers an open‑source AI cloud platform, said the new capital will fund compute expansion and accelerate its inference‑engine technology. Investors also included Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, Nvidia, March Capital, Pegatron and SentinelOne’s S Ventures.Read more

Google unveiled Nano Banana 2 Lite, an AI image generator that produces results in about four seconds per prompt. The speed lets users treat the tool like a rapid sketchpad, reducing the need for painstaking prompt refinement. While the Lite version trails the full‑size Nano Banana 2 in fine detail, reviewers found its output comparable for most creative tasks, making it ideal for brainstorming and high‑volume production.Read more

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in early talks with the U.S. government to give the federal government a five‑percent ownership stake in OpenAI and other leading artificial‑intelligence companies. The proposal, reported by the Financial Times, aims to smooth political hurdles and share the upside of the AI boom with the public. Altman’s plan would extend to rivals such as Google, Anthropic, Meta and xAI, and could involve sovereign wealth funds like Alaska’s Permanent Fund. Any agreement would still need congressional approval.Read more

OpenAI is in early talks to give the U.S. government a 5 percent ownership stake in the company, a move aimed at easing tensions with the Trump administration and addressing public concerns over artificial intelligence. The proposal, first pitched to former President Donald Trump last year, could be worth roughly $42.6 billion based on the firm’s latest $852 billion valuation. Officials say similar stakes might be offered to other U.S. AI firms, though details remain unsettled. The plan arrives amid heightened government scrutiny of AI models, export controls and broader debates about how to capture the sector’s wealth for the public.Read more

A Taiwanese court ordered the detention of two Super Micro managers on June 30, accusing them of falsifying export documents for high‑end AI servers built with Nvidia GB300 chips. The arrests follow a May seizure of 50 such servers and a June raid on Super Micro’s Taiwan office, marking the third enforcement action against the company in recent months. Super Micro said it is cooperating with authorities, placed the employees on administrative leave, and maintains it is not the target of the investigation. No formal charges have been filed yet.Read more