Key points
- Voters reject data center ballot measures, and Texas governor-elect Caneosa's promised slowdown leaves hyperscalers facing roadblocks.
- OpenAI's new policy blueprint drops NDAs and renames data centers 'compute campuses'.
- Marvell's $115bn all-stock acquisition of Lumentum is one of the largest tech deals ever, with inflated AI valuations distorting venture investing.
Midterm blue wave threatens AI data center boom
Funding and deals
- Marvell. Signed an all-stock deal to acquire Lumentum for $115bn, one of the largest tech acquisitions ever, compared with Microsoft's $68.7bn purchase of Activision Blizzard.
- CrowdStrike. Paid $400m for Fiddler AI and $95m for Dreadnode in one announcement expanding its AI security work, as hosts see consolidation in cybersecurity.
- Elo Elo Story TV. Raised $80m in a Series C from Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal for microdramas, a format with more than 118m monthly viewers.
News
- Voters reject data center ballot measures. Measures to speed data center construction were almost all voted down. Anthony Ha says anti-AI and anti-data-center sentiment was a big part of the Democrats' success, and Sean O'Kane says tech expects roadblocks ahead, especially in Texas.
- OpenAI drops NDAs for compute campuses. Its policy blueprint ends NDA requirements and renames data centers compute campuses. Anthony Ha calls it an attempt to shed a toxic phrase, while Sean O'Kane doubts the rebrand changes anything.
- Wall Street turns against AI data center spending. Anthony Ha says investors are no longer excited about funding new compute, a financial incentive not to build. O'Kane notes CoreWeave's falling stock and debt, Anthropic's large debt package and SpaceX's $40bn of new debt.
- Canva and Squarespace cut about 20% of staff. Canva cut more than 1,200 people and both companies shed about a fifth of their teams, tied to post-pandemic overhiring and Canva's first revenue slowdown. Its CEO wants less sub-specialization and more AI use. O'Kane warns of burnout.
- Musk's $500m GOP donation yields nothing. Sean O'Kane says Musk, one of the biggest data center builders, was the Republican Party's largest donor at $500m or more and got basically nothing, with his businesses in a state that turned heavily Democratic.
- Hyperscalers weigh building outside the US. Meta's Dina Powell McCormick told the Wall Street Journal tech conference that every hyperscaler is asking whether it must build outside the United States. Kirsten Korosec says the industry really wants regulatory certainty.
- Google tests orbital data centers. Google launched a first small-scale test of an orbital data center, Project Suncatcher. O'Kane says space appeals because there is no nimbyism and no environmental regulator to chase you down.
- PHP flaw found by humans, not AI. Anthony Ha corrects an earlier claim, crediting TechCrunch colleague Zach Whitaker and human researchers in an OpenAI program who used AI tools to explore the exploit.