Google scuttled OpenAI’s negotiations to purchase AI coding firm Windsurf (formerly Codeium), by agreeing to pay roughly $2.4 billion to license the startup’s core technology, hire co-founder and CEO Varun Mohan and bring a passel of employees with him to Alphabet. The license is non-exclusive and Google is not taking a stake in Windsurf. Days after the Google deal, AI startup Cognition announced it would be acquiring Windsurf (both startups are backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund). Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen and some members of the Windsurf R&D team are moving to Google to work primarily with DeepMind on agentic coding. The $2.4 billion covers licensing fees and compensation. Continue reading Cognition Acquires Windsurf Following Google Licensing Deal

Amazon is increasingly betting on artificial intelligence as the key to its future growth. The company plans to spend $100 billion on data centers over the next decade — significantly more than it will spend on e-commerce and warehouse infrastructure. This is largely due to market forces. Thirty-year-old Amazon rode the e-retail wave to maturity, and the company’s AWS cloud service is now the new growth engine, driving the firm past $2 trillion in market value last week. The fifth U.S. company to hit that milestone is said to be building a new chatbot it hopes will surpass ChatGPT. Amazon also announced it has hired David Luan, co-founder of AI firm Adept. Continue reading Data and AI Propel Amazon to $2 Trillion Market Capitalization