|
NEWS OpenAI secures a contract with US DOD OpenAI appears to have a US DOD deal worth up to $200m. Earlier this year it created ChatGPT Gov. Now it has just launched a larger initiative - OpenAI for Government. People say that government is a late adopter of technology, but this seems in line with the rest of the market. It feels like a long time since Silicon Valley companies had employee rebellions against defence work - in 2018 thousands of Google employees successfully protested the company’s contracts with the US military. This year Google quietly deleted a 7-year-old pledge from its AI principles web page, which promised the company would not design AI for weapons or surveillance. Now it’s competing against OpenAI for the dual-use market. Meanwhile, the US government is trying to stop its employees from using Chinese AI for government work. We’ve come a long way. Ukraine and Great Britain launch joint production of drones Ukraine and Great Britain announced a new initiative for the joint production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Britain will finance the purchase of Ukrainian drones manufactured at British enterprises for the first three years. Joint production of drones will allow British defence companies to quickly develop and manufacture high-tech UAVs. This reminds me of how Detroit lent its assembly line logic to the Allies in the 1940s. Detroit became known as the "Arsenal of Democracy" during World War II because its automobile manufacturing infrastructure was repurposed to produce vast quantities of war materials for the Allies. Ukraine’s drone industry has had three years of the harshest QA imaginable, now they’re exporting the manufacturing playbook. As the UK scales up its defence spending and prepares to deter Russia that knowledge will be indispensable. Meanwhile, Kongsberg, a Norwegian defence prime, is opening an office in Kyiv - a sign that incumbents see something they can’t quite build in-house. UK will increase cyberattacks against Russia and China Britain is to ramp up its offensive cyberattacks against states such as Russia and China, the UK defence secretary recently announced. It’s the first time a minister has been so explicit about launching a cyberattack on another country. This is notable less for its novelty than for its framing. Offensive cyber is not a new capability, but publicising its use marks a strategic shift from treating cyber as a covert adjunct to positioning it as a primary instrument of national strategy. In a world with increasingly porous boundaries between war and peace, that is both pragmatic and overdue. FUNDRAISING Applied Intuition, an American developer of autonomous vehicle software, raised a $600m Series F co-led by Blackrock and Kleiner Perkins. Logos Space Services, an American developer of a 4,000 satellite broadband constellation, raised a $50m Series A round led by U.S. Innovation Technologies. Senra Systems, an American developer of robotic manufacturing equipment for aerospace and industrial companies, raised a $25m Series A round co-led by Dylan Field and CIV, alongside previous investors General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz. Sanlayan Technologies, an Indian developer of advanced electronic systems for defence, raised a $22.4m Series A. Onebrief, a American developer of software for military staff collaboration and operational planning, raised a $20m Series C extension at a $1.1B valuation led by Battery Ventures. Tadaweb, a Luxembourg developer of an intelligence platform to search, track, and analyze public online information, raised a $20m round co-led by Arsenal Growth and Forgepoint Capital International. OrangeQS, a Dutch developer of integrated systems to make quantum computing chip testing more efficient, raised a €12m seed round led by Icecat Capital. Lux Aeterna, an American developer of a reusable satellite platform designed to return payloads from orbit, raised a $4m pre-seed round led by Space Capital.
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
|