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AI startups’ high-velocity valuations are shooting sky-high

The race to invest in AI startups is pushing funding to new heights. Anthropic is reportedly close to a fundraising round with a $170 billion valuation, just five months after a $61.5 billion valuation.

Jon Keegan, Hyunsoo Rim

7/30/25 1:40PM

Investors are pouring billions into AI startups at a feverish pace, and valuations are shooting sky-high.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic is closing in on a $5 billion fundraising round, with an eye-popping valuation of $170 billion. That’s a 176% increase in five short months from its $61.5 billion valuation in March.

Anthropic’s sharp rise in value comes as its sales are increasing at a brisk pace. Bloomberg reports that the startup is pulling in $5 billion in annual recurring revenue, and that the company sees that reaching $9 billion by the end of the year.

OpenAI’s valuation roughly doubled over six months from $157 billion last October to $300 billion after raising $40 billion in a round led by SoftBank.

Middle East money

As AI companies look for deep-pocketed investors to help pay to train new models and build data centers, all eyes are pointing to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East.

Wired reports that Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s cofounder and CEO, recently announced to staff that the company would pursue investments from Middle Eastern countries, despite earlier opposition.

During President Trump’s trip to the Middle East, a flurry of investments were announced, sending a clear signal that the taps were open.

Saudi Arabia’s Humain announced a deal with Nvidia to build 500 megawatts of AI data centers filled with the company’s GPUs, and OpenAI announced a partnership to build “Stargate UAE.” There were also reports that OpenAI has discussed raising money from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

And the rush to invest in AI isn’t just limited to the startups seeking to build foundational models. Companies deep in the AI ecosystem like Databricks and Scale AI are currently valued at $62 billion and $29 billion, respectively. Scale AI recently saw its CEO depart to run Meta’s “Superintelligence Lab”; it also secured a $14.3 billion investment from the company.

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Report: China’s “Manhattan Project” built an advanced EUV chip fab prototype

The most advanced chipmaking process in the world is currently owned by one company: Dutch chipmaker ASML.

The process, known as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), allows for the smallest, most complex semiconductors to be etched onto silicon chips.

These advanced chips are used in a huge number of crucial industries such as AI, mobile phones, and weapons manufacturing.

A new report from Reuters says that China has completed a factory-sized prototype of an EUV chip fab, a first that could have huge ramifications for the balance of power in the global technology race.

The prototype was built in a high-security facility in Shenzhen by former ASML employees and made use of secondary markets to acquire older, used ASML parts, according to the report. Despite a goal of delivering working chips by 2028, sources say China is likely a couple years behind that schedule.

ASML’s $250 million EUV machines are used to manufacture advanced chips for Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and for chips made by TSMC.

ASML shares were down about 4.8% as of 12 p.m. ET.

Exclusive: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

These advanced chips are used in a huge number of crucial industries such as AI, mobile phones, and weapons manufacturing.

ASML’s $250 million EUV machines are used to manufacture advanced chips for Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and for chips made by TSMC.

ASML shares were down about 4.8% as of 12 p.m. ET.

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Google is reportedly working with Meta to expand software support for its AI chips

Nvidia dominates the market for AI chips. But its advantage is not limited to hardware.

The company has a growing suite of software tools that are usually paired with its chips, optimized to get the most out of the GPUs crunching the data.

Any challengers to Nvidia’s dominance will need to make it easy for developers to walk away from the Nvidia software-hardware lock-in. That’s what Google and Meta are teaming up to do.

A new report from Reuters says Google is working on an initiative code-named “TorchTPU,” which aims to make it easier for AI developers who use the ubiquitous, open-source PyTorch software framework to switch the hardware layer to Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs).

Meta is a huge backer of the PyTorch project, so the company is teaming up with Google to help develop its TorchTPU software, per the report.

Last month, it was reported that Google is planning on selling TPUs worth “billions of dollars” to Meta, which follows other Big Tech players who are hedging their bets against Nvidia’s dominance.

Exclusive: Google works to erode Nvidia's software advantage with Meta's help

Any challengers to Nvidia’s dominance will need to make it easy for developers to walk away from the Nvidia software-hardware lock-in. That’s what Google and Meta are teaming up to do.

Meta is a huge backer of the PyTorch project, so the company is teaming up with Google to help develop its TorchTPU software, per the report.

$100B

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Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving subsidiary, is in talks to raise more than $15 billion in a funding round that would value the company near $100 billion, Bloomberg reports. That’s more than double the valuation from its last round in October 2024, reflecting its lead in driverless ride-hailing.