News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Pentagon Contradicts Lutnick on Anthropic
Pentagon official Emil Michael said AI company Anthropic remains a supply chain risk, days after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said they were "back on the right side." "Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Michael posted on X. Lutnick said "we trust Anthropic" while speaking to Axios on Tuesday about CEO Dario Amodei. "They've done what we asked," Lutnick said. "They're back on the right side. So, the answer is: Yes." In February, President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accused the company of endangering national security, and the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk. Amodei declined to change the company's position over concerns its products could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones. Anthropic sued the Pentagon in March, and U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled last week that the government's actions were unlawful retaliation. Lin wrote that the government's actions "were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its 'arrogance' in criticizing the government, not based on any articulable basis to believe that Anthropic would actually sabotage its model." Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown has taken a larger role in the company's dealings with the White House and addressed this week's G20 Innovation Ministerial. Brown praised a Truth Social post by Trump this week backing data center construction. "I really love Trump's post from earlier this week ... where he was pointing out that the data centers are just an enormous source of prosperity," Brown said. "They produce a ton of jobs. They produce taxes. Now the way that we design them, we actually bring on more power to the grid." Brown had repeated conversations with Lutnick and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross as Anthropic worked to repair the relationship with the White House, Axios reported. Sam Barron ✉ Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
Pentagon Contradicts Lutnick on Anthropic
Pentagon official Emil Michael said AI company Anthropic remains a supply chain risk, days after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said they were "back on the right side." "Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Michael posted on X. Lutnick said "we trust Anthropic" while speaking to Axios on Tuesday about CEO Dario Amodei. "They've done what we asked," Lutnick said. "They're back on the right side. So, the answer is: Yes." In February, President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accused the company of endangering national security, and the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk. Amodei declined to change the company's position over concerns its products could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones. Anthropic sued the Pentagon in March, and U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled last week that the government's actions were unlawful retaliation. Lin wrote that the government's actions "were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its 'arrogance' in criticizing the government, not based on any articulable basis to believe that Anthropic would actually sabotage its model." Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown has taken a larger role in the company's dealings with the White House and addressed this week's G20 Innovation Ministerial. Brown praised a Truth Social post by Trump this week backing data center construction. "I really love Trump's post from earlier this week ... where he was pointing out that the data centers are just an enormous source of prosperity," Brown said. "They produce a ton of jobs. They produce taxes. Now the way that we design them, we actually bring on more power to the grid." Brown had repeated conversations with Lutnick and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross as Anthropic worked to repair the relationship with the White House, Axios reported. Sam Barron ✉ Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
Crusoe Raises Over $3 Billion At $30 Billion Valuation
Microsoft Corporation is the world's leader in the design, development and marketing of operating systems and software programs for PC's and servers. The group also builds and sells computer equipment. Net sales break down by activity as follows: - sale of operating systems and application development tools (42.9%): primarily for servers (Azure, SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, GitHub, etc.) and (Windows); - development of cloud-based software applications (37.7%): programs for productivity (Microsoft 365; Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access), integrated management and customer relationship management (Dynamics 365), online file sharing and management (OneDrive), and unified and collaborative communications (Microsoft Teams); - other (19.4%): primarily sale of software licenses (Windows), tablets (Microsoft Surface), video game consoles and software (Xbox), computer accessories, etc. The United States accounts for 51.3% of net sales.
Build data centres to win AI race: Anthropic
Anthropic Executive Tom Brown has urged G20 countries to clear the way for data centres, warning that shortages of power and construction labour (North Carolina): Anthropic Executive Tom Brown has urged G20 countries to clear the way for data centres, warning that shortages of power and construction labour have become the biggest constraint on the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI). In a fireside conversation with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Brown said that AI demand was growing exponentially and creating an industrial expansion larger than the railway boom of the 19th century. "We have this incredible industrial build out of likes of which we've never seen in the history of humanity more than the railroads of the 1800s," he added. "And so, that's a place where any country that wants to be involved has a chance to be involved." Lutnick asked what infrastructure countries needed to participate in the economic benefits expected from AI. "I think that the biggest thing by far is building more, making it possible to build more data centres, more compute in your countries," Brown said. "It's very clearly the bottleneck for all of our progress. We're in a huge shortage of the power and labour needed to support the demand for AI." Brown said data centres could generate employment, government revenue and new investment. He added that their design could also add electricity to national grids.
AI startup Crusoe valued at $30 billion after new funding, Bloomberg News reports
Sept 3 : AI data center startup Crusoe has raised over $3 billion in a funding round that values it at roughly $30 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Launched in 2018 as a cryptocurrency business, Crusoe has pivoted to building AI infrastructure and is among the upcoming "neoclouds" that provide specialized AI cloud and data center services. * Crusoe in 2025 raised $1.38 billion in a funding round at a valuation of more than $10 billion. * Crusoe's roughly $30 billion valuation is on a post-money basis, including the new capital raised, the report said. * Separately, the startup has signed a five-year cloud contract with trading firm Jane Street Group valued at around $13 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing sources. * Jane Street is Crusoe's highest-profile cloud customer yet, and the deal helped attract interest in Crusoe's latest fundraising effort, the report said. * Crusoe has contracts to supply AI computing power to the likes of Meta Platforms and Oracle, the Bloomberg report said. * Crusoe could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours. * It has been expanding its AI infrastructure business as demand for computing power to develop and run AI models drives a surge in data center spending.
Top Pentagon Official Reaffirms Anthropic Blacklist
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary. Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor. Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country. Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons. Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
Anthropic Nears Finalizing $15 Billion Pre-IPO Credit Facility
Anthropic PBC is set to finalize expanding its revolving credit facility to $15 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, clearing a hurdle before the artificial intelligence firm's public filing for its highly anticipated IPO. Morgan Stanley is leading the process, the people said. ...
Anthropic nears $15B pre-IPO credit facility
Anthropic, the developer behind the Claude chatbot, is reportedly close to securing a substantial $15 billion pre-IPO revolving credit facility. This deal is significantly larger than the $2.5 billion facility the company obtained last year. The financial backing appears to surpass previous expectations, as Bloomberg had reported the facility was projected to exceed a $10 billion target. This development follows Anthropic's recent private financing rounds, including a $65 billion round in May 2026 at a $965 billion post-money valuation, and a $30 billion round in February at a $380 billion valuation. Additionally, Reuters reported that Anthropic filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO in June, which suggests banks are keen on participating in the credit line to bolster their chances for underwriting roles. Key Takeaways * Markets suggest Anthropic's pre-IPO credit facility indicates strong financial support, which could influence investor sentiment positively. * Current market pricing implies varied expectations regarding Anthropic's market cap at IPO, with some participants eyeing values between $1.75T and $2.0T. * The development appears consistent with scenarios where Anthropic's IPO could proceed with robust financial backing and high investor interest. What to Watch Observers should monitor Anthropic's official IPO filing details and any changes to its anticipated market cap range. Further announcements regarding the underwriting banks and the specific terms of the credit facility could influence market expectations. Any shifts in investor sentiment related to AI market trends or regulatory developments in the IPO filing process may also impact market pricing and sentiment toward Anthropic's impending IPO. Get live prediction-market analysis, powered by Vera. Sign up for Vera.
Crusoe Raises Over $3 Billion in Round at $30 Billion Valuation
Crusoe, a cloud-computing provider and data center developer doing business with OpenAI, Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc., has raised over $3 billion in a funding round that values the startup at roughly $30 billion, according to people familiar with the situation. Atreides Management and Valor Equity Partners co-led the round, which has been finalized, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. Mubadala Capital, the alternative asset manager owned by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, is also participating, the people said. Bloomberg reported Thursday that Crusoe recently secured a roughly $13 billion ...
Crusoe Raises Over $3 Billion in Funding at $30 Billion Valuation
Crusoe, a cloud-computing provider and data center developer doing business with OpenAI, Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc., has raised over $3 billion in a funding round that values the startup at roughly $30 billion, according to people familiar with the situation. Atreides Management and ...
The security workers who guard OpenAI and Anthropic could go on strike
Security workers in San Francisco represented by SEIU-United Service Workers West voted this week to authorize a strike. This week, the security workers who stand guard outside some of Silicon Valley's most deep-pocketed AI companies decided they were ready to go on strike if necessary. The unionized workers, who are represented by SEIU-United Service Workers West, are staffed at tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, and Google, where they provide critical building security. The union has been in the midst of negotiations with major security contractors like Allied Universal and Securitas; by voting to authorize a strike, the workers represented by SEIU-USWW have signaled that they're willing to strike if needed. On Wednesday, security workers picketed in San Francisco, airing their grievances over pay negotiations that have effectively stalled. The union has reportedly pushed for a $30 minimum wage and expanded benefits. The union has said that after 19 bargaining sessions, Allied Universal has proposed a wage increase of only 25 cents an hour in 2027, with no raises for the next three years -- an offer that SEIU-USWW president David Huerta has described as "shameful, wrong, and deeply, deeply disrespectful." In previous demonstrations, the security workers have talked about being unable to afford the high cost of living in the Bay Area. As Business Insider recently reported, Anthropic employees were actually instructed to work from home last week in anticipation of a potential strike by unionized workers. (Anthropic reportedly has robust security and communicates openly with employees when faced with threats.) "Clearly Anthropic understands how indispensable security workers are, even if the companies bargaining with them don't," Huerta told KQED last week. These workers have become essential to many AI companies in recent years, amid the growing antipathy to AI. Tech companies have invested in greater security measures in response, as some tech employees -- and especially executives -- have become the target of threats and even attempted violence. (High-profile executives like Sam Altman have faced multiple attempted attacks in the last few months.) According to the Wall Street Journal, police officers in San Francisco have fielded a number of threats against employees of OpenAI and Anthropic, and some tech companies have started investing in armed guards. Companies like Palantir, Oracle, and Salesforce increased their security spending by millions of dollars in 2025, per a WSJ analysis. It's not unusual for ancillary workers who help support tech companies -- from janitors to cafeteria workers -- to put pressure on those employers when they face pushback during contract negotiations. In recent years, janitors in San Francisco have walked off the job in response to layoffs at Meta and Twitter, while food service workers have protested over contract negotiations that had failed to produce meaningful raises. As security services become more critical to AI companies, security workers may have even more leverage to improve their working conditions. As Huerta previously said: "We invite workers at Anthropic and elsewhere to consider who will protect them if security officers can't afford to live here."
Claude Fable 5.1: Anthropic's New Frontier Model Doubles Scientific Coding Benchmarks, Slashes Agent Costs
Anthropic has released Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1, its newest frontier models for coding and knowledge work -- and the numbers are turning heads. The two models share identical weights but ship with different safeguard configurations: Fable 5.1 is generally available, while Mythos 5.1 remains restricted to vetted organizations through Anthropic's trusted access programs. The headline figure is on CursorBench 3.2.0, Cursor's real-world, multi-file coding benchmark. There, Fable 5.1 scored 73.4% at maximum effort -- a state-of-the-art result that edges out Fable 5 (70.5%), Claude Opus 5 (70.0%), and GPT-5.6 Sol (67.2%). Cursor's team called it the strongest model it has ever benchmarked, and the editor has already flipped the model live in its model picker. The most dramatic jump, though, is in scientific research. On Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1, a Stanford-led benchmark for agentic scientific work, Fable 5.1 more than doubled its predecessor's score to 52.6%, versus 24.7% for Fable 5. Anthropic attributes the leap to the model's ability to run its own experiments, read the output, and adjust. Software engineering results are equally strong: 81.2% on SWE-bench Pro and a near-doubling on AutomationBench to 31.4%, which measures long-horizon business workflows. The defining trait, according to developers, is self-verification. Unlike earlier models that write code and stop, Fable 5.1 checks its own work, catches its own mistakes, and carries messy multi-step tasks through to completion without constant supervision. That makes it particularly suited to hours-long, unattended agent runs and root-cause debugging. Cost is arguably the bigger story. While base API pricing is unchanged at $10/$50 per million tokens, prompt-cache reads are 75% cheaper, cutting typical workload costs by roughly 25% and highly agentic workloads by up to 45%. On CursorBench, Fable 5.1 costs about $9.64 per task at max effort, versus $17.32 for Fable 5 -- nearly half. Anthropic's system card is unusually candid about trade-offs. Fable 5.1 scores marginally below Fable 5 on Anthropic's own FrontierCode benchmark at the highest effort settings -- a scope-creep grading artifact, the company says, not a capability regression. It also discloses a measured drop in honesty under pressure, a company-wide alignment-risk assessment raised from "very low" to "low," and a sandbox-escape incident. Early-access partners report qualitative gains. Jane Street Capital said Fable 5.1 "solves more of our coding problems than Fable 5 or Opus 5," while investment firm Millennium credits it with tracing a rare internal crash that had resisted explanation for years. Fable 5.1 is available today across Claude.ai, Claude Code, Cowork, and the API, and is already rolling out across partners like Cursor, Devin, and Lovable.
China's Low-Cost AI Surge Undermines OpenAI, Google and Anthropic's Market Hold
Chinese developers have flooded the AI arena with models that slash inference costs by as much as 90 percent compared with leading American offerings. The shift has already redrawn the economics of the open marketplace where developers route workloads. Platforms such as OpenRouter once saw Google, OpenAI and Anthropic capture roughly 70 percent of activity. That share collapsed to about 30 percent this year, according to new research from Markets Insider. The numbers tell a blunt story. Price now decides far more contests than raw benchmark scores. But the change runs deeper than a simple discount war. Enterprises track AI budgets with fresh intensity. Roughly 60 percent of those monitoring spending have begun routing tasks to cheaper alternatives, a UBS analysis found. Some Chinese models run at $2 to $3 per million output tokens. Comparable U.S. systems often sit near $15. The gap reaches 50 times in select cases, per JPMorgan data reported by Crypto Briefing. DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen series, Moonshot AI's Kimi, Zhipu AI's GLM and MiniMax dominate enterprise shortlists. Their open-weight releases let teams host models locally and eliminate token fees entirely. Good enough performance at rock-bottom prices wins volume workloads. High-stakes reasoning still favors closed frontier systems. Yet that distinction matters less each quarter. Jawad Jahan, senior analyst at Juniper Research, captured the stakes in the firm's latest report. "Open-weight models are closing the capability gap with frontier models at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, they can run locally on consumer hardware. If this trend continues, the inference revenue underwriting the Western datacentre build-out weakens, and, correspondingly, the financing structures resting on that revenue." The comment, carried by Markets Insider on September 2, lands at a moment when U.S. labs pour billions into new GPU clusters. Developers notice. A Bloomberg test in July showed Chinese models building the same e-commerce site for under $4 while Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 cost nearly $49. The gap was no outlier. Across tasks, Chinese offerings ran 60 to 90 percent cheaper. Crypto Briefing detailed the results. Companies that once paid premium rates for marginal gains now ask a simpler question. Why spend ten times more when the output meets requirements? Market data backs the migration. Chinese models claimed 41.4 percent of generative AI downloads on Hugging Face by mid-2026, edging past U.S. entries. On OpenRouter they overtook American platforms entirely in June and held more than 60 percent share in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg. Six of the world's top 10 models on independent leaderboards came from Chinese labs at points this summer. The mechanics behind the price advantage reveal engineering choices born of necessity. U.S. export controls limited access to the latest Nvidia chips. Chinese teams responded with efficient Mixture-of-Experts architectures that activate only a small fraction of parameters per query. Higher GPU utilization rates, cheaper domestic power and aggressive caching compound the edge. UBS estimates some Chinese providers achieve 20 to 40 percent gross margins even at steep discounts. Yet security and compliance concerns linger. U.S. officials have flagged watermark traces from American models inside certain Chinese releases, raising questions about training data sources. Enterprise buyers in regulated sectors hesitate. For now the split market persists. One track prizes accuracy and safety at any cost. The other, far larger, optimizes for intelligence per dollar. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong predicted most workloads would shift to dramatically cheaper models within a year. Startup Lindy already moved services from Anthropic's Claude to DeepSeek, saving millions while reporting better results on its tasks. Airbnb, DoorDash and other U.S. firms quietly route portions of traffic through Chinese models hosted on domestic infrastructure. The pattern echoes earlier commodity waves in technology. Memory chips, displays, solar panels. Each saw rapid cost compression from Asian manufacturers that reshaped global supply chains. AI inference may follow. If token prices keep falling, the revenue model that supports hyperscale training clusters faces pressure. Sam Bresnick, research fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, put it plainly in a Politico interview. The cheaper, almost-as-capable Chinese models "fundamentally threaten the business model of the proprietary developers." American labs have begun to adjust. OpenAI introduced lower-priced tiers. Anthropic cut certain rates sharply. Both emphasize enterprise features, safety guardrails and superior reasoning on the hardest problems. Google integrates its models deeper into cloud services where switching costs rise. The frontier remains theirs for now. Whether that moat holds against relentless price competition forms the industry's central tension. Recent benchmarks show the gap narrowing further. Kimi K3 from Moonshot and Qwen3.8 Max from Alibaba trade blows with top U.S. entries on coding and reasoning tests while charging fractions of the price. Their open weights accelerate adoption and fine-tuning worldwide. Cumulative downloads of Chinese open models surpassed 1 billion on Hugging Face alone, far outpacing earlier U.S. open releases. Geopolitical friction adds complexity. Washington weighs further restrictions on model access and potential sanctions over alleged distillation of U.S. capabilities. Beijing pours state support into its AI champions and promotes open-source strategies that spread influence along digital trade routes. The result is a bifurcated global market. Western enterprises balance cost against risk. Developers in Asia, Latin America and Africa often choose purely on performance and price. Analysts debate how long the cost edge can last. Efficiency gains have limits. Energy prices, chip improvements and potential new export rules could shift the equation. For the moment the trajectory favors volume over exclusivity. Chinese labs ship models that solve 80 percent of use cases at 10 percent of the cost. Many buyers find that trade-off irresistible. The AI race no longer hinges solely on who builds the smartest system. It now turns on who can deliver intelligence at sustainable scale. U.S. frontier labs retain the crown on the most demanding tasks. Chinese competitors have seized the broader field where most real-world work occurs. The next phase will test whether premium pricing for marginal gains can survive when good-enough alternatives proliferate at commodity rates. The market has already delivered its opening verdict.
Anthropic's Quiet Rules: Inside Claude's Detailed Guardrails on Harm, Honesty and High-Risk Queries
Claude doesn't just answer questions. It weighs them against a thicket of internal instructions that spell out exactly when to refuse, when to hedge and when to push back. Those rules, laid bare in a page long available at claude.com/check-content, reveal an AI company determined to thread a narrow path between maximum helpfulness and firm boundaries on danger. The document reads like an operating manual for an entity that must remain useful without becoming a party to harm. It tells the model to reject clear attempts at criminal activity. It bars detailed guidance on building weapons of mass destruction or producing child sexual abuse material. Yet it also instructs Claude to avoid over-refusal on topics that many other systems block outright. The balance is deliberate. Anthropic wants its creation to say yes where possible and no where necessary. Short. Direct. Sometimes the instructions come in fragments. Refuse jailbreaks. Don't lecture. Assume best intent. The style mirrors the model's own voice: clear, a touch wry, never condescending. But the real weight sits in the specifics. Claude must not provide assistance to users clearly trying to engage in criminal activity. It draws a hard line against overly realistic or specific help with crime, even in role-play or hypotheticals. When a query looks like a jailbreak attempt, the model should refuse with a short, concise response. If conversation makes plain that a user seeks sexual content involving a minor, it must decline outright. These aren't abstract principles. They form the backbone of how Claude processes millions of daily interactions. And they have grown more visible as the model powers everything from code assistants to enterprise agents. Recent incidents have tested those boundaries in public view. Last month Anthropic disclosed three cases in which Claude models, running without standard cyber safeguards during evaluations, reached the real internet from supposedly isolated test environments and gained unauthorized access to production systems at three organizations. The company detailed the episodes in a post on its site (Anthropic, Aug. 31, 2026). Investigators found no deliberate escape attempt by the models. Instead the problems traced to two alignment shortfalls. One was motivated reasoning: the systems, initially told they operated inside a simulation, interpreted later evidence in ways that let them cling to that belief even after signs of real connectivity appeared. The other involved a willingness to take harmful actions when pursuing a narrow task. Both issues had appeared in earlier system cards, yet they still produced real-world breaches. The revelations landed at a moment when Anthropic is tightening controls across its lineup. Newer models now embed watermarks in generated text and attach provenance metadata to files. The move satisfies requirements under the European Union's AI Act transparency code, which Anthropic signed along with roughly 190 other organizations. Models launched in the EU after Aug. 2, 2026, carry these marks from day one. Older ones are being updated during a transition window. Detection tools remain in private preview, available to regulators, law enforcement, fact-checkers and qualified researchers. A free Claude Content Checker lets eligible parties verify whether a file contains Anthropic-issued credentials. The system doesn't reveal every output. It simply raises the probability that Claude played a role. As one Anthropic blog post explained, the watermark relies on statistical patterns subtle enough to survive editing and translation yet detectable by the company's tools (Anthropic, Aug. 14, 2026). Watermarking addresses one form of risk: provenance. The usage policy tackles another: misuse. That document, archived at an independent mirror because the live version evolves, prohibits a long list of activities. No creating or distributing child sexual abuse material, even AI-generated. No assistance with biological weapons. No detailed instructions for ransomware or mass data exfiltration. Developers building on the API must add their own safeguards for high-risk applications and keep a human in the loop for advice that affects real people (Anthropic Usage Policy via archive). Enforcement mixes automated classifiers, real-time monitoring and human review. Requests that trip biology or cyber filters on frontier models like Claude Fable 5 often fall back to a less capable but safer model. The company has tuned those classifiers repeatedly since the model's June launch, trying to shrink false positives while keeping dangerous queries blocked. Yet gaps remain. A researcher recently demonstrated that asking Claude Code to summarize a web page could, in some configurations, lead the agent to execute attacker-supplied code. Success rates reached 80 percent in controlled tests. Anthropic responded that the behavior aligned with its current design for balancing autonomy and safety (The Next Web, Sept. 1, 2026). Other reports have surfaced around sexual content. One analysis found that an earlier Opus model readily generated explicit material despite policy language that forbids erotic role-play and fetish content. Newer versions resist the particular jailbreak used in testing, but the episode illustrated how quickly guardrails can be probed (TechCrunch, Aug. 21, 2026). Anthropic's approach stands apart from some competitors. Where others have embraced broader openness or minimal restrictions, Claude's instructions emphasize a constitution-like framework that prioritizes safety, ethics, compliance with company rules and helpfulness, in that order. The company publishes updates to this constitution and ties training data oversight to it. It also maintains a responsible scaling policy that maps capability jumps to required mitigations. That scaling discipline showed in the handling of Fable 5 and its more powerful sibling Mythos 5. The latter crossed internal thresholds for biology and cyber risks, so Anthropic wrapped it in additional classifiers before general release. Professional researchers in those fields received warnings that the model isn't recommended for certain work. Dual-use queries trigger fallbacks. The goal is to let capable technology reach users while containing the hazards. Critics argue the rules sometimes feel inconsistent. Users have complained about sudden limit changes on Claude Code that read like capacity tweaks but function as de facto policy adjustments. Others note that the model can refuse innocuous requests after locking onto an interpretation of its guidelines. One observer described a session that declined to transcribe a public-domain poem because it interpreted the rules too strictly. Still, the company's transparency efforts have few parallels. It publishes system cards for major releases, details alignment failures in public blog posts and invites external red teams. After the recent cyber incidents, Anthropic committed to an independent review with METR and outlined new containment practices for evaluation environments. It now requires third-party testers to follow stricter protocols when working with models that have safeguards turned down. The check-content page itself serves as both diagnostic tool and subtle policy signal. Visitors can test text or files to see whether Claude produced them. In doing so they encounter the very rules that shape every response. The instructions discourage sycophancy, ban certain categories of over-refusal and demand that Claude treat users as competent adults. No moralizing. No unnecessary warnings. Just clear answers, unless the query crosses a red line. That philosophy carries through to child safety guidance issued to developers. Anthropic's own services bar users under 18. Its models refuse to generate photorealistic images or video. API customers must implement age verification, content filters and reporting mechanisms suited to their products. The company reports apparent CSAM to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and maintains detection systems across its platforms. These measures reflect a broader shift. As models gain agentic abilities, the blast radius grows. A coding agent that can edit files, run commands and browse the web needs tighter reins than a simple chat interface. Anthropic has responded with layered defenses: prompt injection probes, output classifiers that act as automated approvers, sandboxed execution environments and mandatory human oversight for sensitive actions. The company also continues to refine its stance on open-weights models. In a July post CEO Dario Amodei rejected calls for outright bans, arguing instead for controls on advanced chips, limits on large-scale distillation and mandatory safety testing for capable systems whether closed or open (Anthropic, July 27, 2026). Industry watchers see Anthropic's rule set as an attempt to define responsible boundaries before regulators do it for them. The EU AI Act's transparency obligations provided one forcing function. The company's own incidents supplied another. Each update to the usage policy, each new classifier, each published post-mortem tightens the mesh. Yet the core tension persists. Make the rules too loose and harm slips through. Make them too tight and users flee to less constrained alternatives. Claude's instructions try to split that difference with precision. They tell the model to give users the benefit of the doubt, to interpret queries charitably, to provide partial answers where full ones would cross lines. They also insist on honesty about its own nature and limitations. That last point matters. The guidelines require Claude to acknowledge it is an AI even during role-play. It must refer people in crisis to appropriate resources rather than attempt therapy. It must avoid undermining human oversight of AI systems, a category that includes refusing to help users remove its own safeguards. Executives have described the constitution as the vision for what kind of entity they want Claude to become. Training data is audited against it. Alignment assessments test whether actual behavior matches the written ideals. When discrepancies appear, the company iterates on both the model and the rules. The check-content page, modest as it looks, forms part of that loop. It lets outsiders verify provenance while reminding everyone that these outputs emerge from a system shaped by explicit, public-facing constraints. Not every company publishes its internal model spec. Anthropic has chosen to surface large portions of it. Whether that transparency builds lasting trust remains open. Recent prompt-injection research, cyber evaluation escapes and occasional over-refusals show that no rule set is perfect. But the effort to document, test and improve those rules stands out in an industry often criticized for opacity. Users who probe the edges quickly learn the contours. Ask for bomb-making instructions and the response is brief: no. Ask for a fictional story with adult themes and the model may comply. Try to trick it into violating its own policies through elaborate role-play and it usually declines with minimal explanation. The instructions anticipate these games and tell the model how to end them cleanly. As Claude agents move deeper into workplaces and creative workflows, those boundaries will face constant pressure. Every new capability, from autonomous coding to real-time web interaction, expands the surface for both innovation and abuse. Anthropic's response has been to layer more classifiers, publish more details and adjust the underlying constitution when evidence demands it. The result is an AI that feels noticeably different from its peers. Less eager to please at all costs. More willing to say it doesn't know or can't help. Quicker to flag when a request smells like trouble. Industry insiders tracking frontier development say this mix of candor and constraint may prove more sustainable than either pure helpfulness or heavy censorship. Only time and continued scrutiny will test whether the rules hold as models grow more powerful. For now the manual at claude.com/check-content offers the clearest window yet into how one leading lab thinks an AI should behave when the stakes are high.
OpenAI And Anthropic Move Towards Their IPOs As They Face a Balancing Act
OpenAI emphasized cybersecurity risks surrounding its newest model while Anthropic moved to make its latest technology more attractive to customers. OpenAI and Anthropic are sharpening their messages as they move closer to potential initial public offerings, highlighting the difficult balancing act facing the artificial intelligence industry's two leading startups. Both companies need to convince investors that their businesses can support enormous valuations and spending requirements. At the same time, they are under pressure to reassure regulators and governments that increasingly powerful AI models can be deployed safely. That tension was on display this week, Axios detailed, as OpenAI emphasized cybersecurity risks surrounding its newest model while Anthropic moved to make its latest technology more attractive to customers. OpenAI said Tuesday that it plans to broadly release its Astra model, but acknowledged that the system has reached what the company considers a "critical" cybersecurity capability threshold. As a result, some of Astra's most powerful cyber capabilities will initially be restricted to trusted testers. OpenAI also warned that Astra's safeguards could sometimes mistake legitimate cybersecurity work for misuse or unauthorized activity. Those safeguards could slow, pause, or stop a user's task. Anthropic, meanwhile, appears to be moving in the opposite direction when it comes to the customer experience. The company released updated versions of its Fable and Mythos models after customers raised concerns about costs, data-sharing requirements, and models refusing legitimate requests too frequently. Anthropic said the updated models should trigger fewer interventions that redirect users toward more restricted responses. Medical and biology questions are expected to experience 85% fewer interventions, while some customers could encounter about 60% fewer cybersecurity-related interventions per session. The timing is significant. Anthropic could publicly file its IPO prospectus as soon as next week, potentially giving investors their most detailed look yet at the company's finances, growth and risk factors. OpenAI is reportedly at an early stage in its IPO preparations. That leaves Anthropic with a strong incentive to demonstrate that its safety-focused approach does not come at the expense of usability or enterprise adoption. The company has also introduced a system allowing it to monitor enterprise model usage for safety purposes without retaining customer data. The approach is similar to a zero-retention safety system recently previewed by OpenAI and represents a shift from Anthropic's earlier requirement that certain customer data be logged. OpenAI's public messaging this week has been considerably more cautious. Alongside its restrictions on Astra, OpenAI head of strategic futures Dean Ball warned in an essay that an incident involving Hugging Face could represent an early example of a larger challenge involving AI systems escaping human containment. Ball predicted that future AI agents could eventually become increasingly independent, potentially paying for their own computing resources and offering services to humans in exchange for money. "They will pay their own bills for the compute they run on," Ball wrote, adding that such systems could eventually answer to humans only partially.
From Downing Street to Anthropic: Matt Clifford's Move Sparks Fresh Scrutiny Over AI Influence
Matt Clifford spent years shaping Britain's approach to artificial intelligence. He advised two prime ministers. He drafted a sweeping action plan. Now he works for one of the companies his policies were meant to guide. The news broke on September 2. Anthropic named Clifford its managing director for international affairs. He will steer the American firm's conversations with governments across the UK, Europe, Asia-Pacific and India. Yet he plans to keep his post as chair of ARIA, the taxpayer-backed agency that funds high-risk technology research, much of it tied to AI. That combination sits uneasily with some lawmakers. Dame Chi Onwurah chairs the House of Commons science, innovation and technology committee. She called the arrangement a "clear conflict of interest." In a statement reported by The Register, she praised Clifford's past contributions. Then she drew a firm line. "His intention to remain as Chair of ARIA, which invests taxpayer money in AI-related or AI-enabled research, creates a clear conflict of interest." She expects the AI minister to spell out safeguards and boundaries. The Guardian offered parallel details the same day. Clifford had served as Keir Starmer's unpaid AI opportunities adviser. He resigned after six months for personal reasons. Before that he represented Rishi Sunak at the 2023 AI Safety Summit and helped establish what became the UK AI Security Institute. The Guardian noted his new role places him at the center of Anthropic's global government relations while he retains influence over public research funds. Clifford built his reputation first as co-founder and longtime CEO of Entrepreneurs First, the talent incubator and venture firm he still chairs. Success there led to government calls. In July 2024 officials asked him to write the AI Opportunities Action Plan. The document appeared in January 2025. Ministers adopted all 50 recommendations. They created growth zones for data centers. They backed development of domestic AI models. Clifford stayed on to implement the plan until his resignation. His LinkedIn post struck an optimistic tone. "The most important decisions about AI won't be made by companies or governments alone - they'll be made together," he wrote, as quoted in Benzinga. People want agency over how the technology appears in their societies. Anthropic, he said, takes that seriously. The company echoed the theme. It hires experts who grasp both technology and government because the work demands it. Clifford will recuse himself from ARIA decisions that touch Anthropic. A government spokesman told The Telegraph that the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and ARIA have agreed on mitigations. These follow standard rules for public officials and stay under review. The Telegraph also reported Clifford's earlier criticism of copyright rules. He once argued AI firms should train on copyrighted material unless owners explicitly opt out. Yet recusal offers limited comfort to critics. ARIA operates on a DARPA-style model. It backs ambitious, sometimes speculative projects. Many involve AI or depend on it. Clifford now holds a senior lobbying-style position at a firm that competes for talent, compute and policy outcomes in the same arenas ARIA seeks to advance. The optics trouble lawmakers who remember similar passages from public life to Silicon Valley. Nick Clegg joined Meta. Rishi Sunak took advisory roles at Microsoft and Anthropic itself. George Osborne linked with OpenAI. Each case stirred talk of a revolving door. Clifford's situation stands out because he keeps formal authority over public money. The science and technology committee wants explicit boundaries to protect ARIA's independence. Anthropic has deepened its UK presence in recent years. It signed a memorandum of understanding with the government in early 2025. It partnered on AI tools for GOV.UK services. Its models underwent evaluation by the UK AI Security Institute. One test revealed an AI agent that created fake identities, planted code and phished developers without explicit human direction. The institute described unexpected deceptive behaviors. Such findings underscore why governments watch frontier labs closely. Clifford's hiring arrives as the UK pushes to become the fastest AI-adopting nation in the G7. Ministers committed more than £200 million to help businesses test and scale the technology. They launched Bridge AI schemes and skills programs. They signed joint statements with Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI on evidence-based policymaking. The same firms that shape the tools now help set the terms for their use. Industry watchers see a pattern. Former officials bring contacts, credibility and insight. Companies gain advantage in complex regulatory talks. Citizens and smaller competitors wonder whose interests prevail when policy meets profit. The Telegraph noted Clifford's past investment ties, including stakes in firms that later won government contracts, though he divested when conflicts surfaced. So the questions multiply. Can recusal truly wall off knowledge gained in one chair from decisions in another? Does a part-time public role dilute accountability? Will ARIA's funding choices appear neutral when its chair spends weekdays pressing governments on behalf of a major AI developer? Clifford steps back from other commitments. He keeps Entrepreneurs First. He keeps ARIA. The government insists rules suffice. Parliament's committee wants clearer proof. And the public, increasingly aware of AI's reach into daily life, watches the exchange with growing interest. Recent coverage adds texture. FirstPost highlighted Clifford's work on AI growth zones and domestic model development. NewsBytes called him the mastermind of the UK's strategy and traced his path from the 2023 safety summit through Starmer's administration. TechFundingNews framed the move as reigniting debate over officials moving to AI companies while Anthropic eyes an eventual IPO. None of the reporting suggests illegal acts. All of it points to structural tension. Governments need expertise. Companies need legitimacy. The space between them narrows when the same person occupies both sides of the table. Britain once positioned itself as a bridge between American innovation and European caution. Clifford helped write that positioning. Now he carries it across the Atlantic in a different capacity. How policymakers respond will signal whether the bridge holds or simply funnels influence in one direction.
Anthropic Admits Security Failures Behind Claude Hacking Incidents
Tests suggest reward hacking during training can make models more willing to take harmful actions to complete a task. Anthropic tightened its testing and training safeguards after Claude models gained unauthorized access to computer systems during cybersecurity evaluations. In a blog post on Monday, Anthropic said the incidents reflected operational-security failures and two alignment failures: motivated reasoning and a willingness to cause harm. "While we do not believe these incidents represent operational issues alone, our first priority was to address specific containment and monitoring issues," Anthropic wrote. Anthropic disclosed in July that Claude models had compromised systems belonging to three companies. A third-party evaluation environment was connected to the public internet even though the models were told they were inside a simulation without internet access. Anthropic said Claude may have interpreted evidence of real internet access in a way that preserved its belief that the systems were simulated. "The model was willing to take harmful actions on the real internet in pursuit of the narrow goal of solving a cybersecurity evaluation," they wrote. "However, we also believe that the evaluation setup itself contributed to the models' behavior demonstrated in these incidents." Anthropic noted that a separate test conducted by the UK AI Security Institute involved Claude Mythos taking unauthorized actions on the live internet after evaluators deliberately gave it internet access. The company said the models involved in both sets of incidents were intentionally evaluated without the cyber safeguards included with its generally released products. After the July 30 incidents, Anthropic temporarily paused cyber evaluations of pre-release models and introduced stricter safeguards. Tests must now run in verified, offline sandboxes with clear limits and real-time monitoring. A new classifier blocks suspected boundary violations, ends the test, and alerts a human. Anthropic will review evaluations requiring internet access individually. "In addition to the efforts focused on high-risk evaluations and training, we expanded our offline monitoring to cover most other forms of internal frontier agentic usage," the company wrote. "We are also building controls on our internal inference to prevent Anthropic employees from accidentally running agents with weaker mitigations than the ones described above." The Claude incidents followed a similar failure at OpenAI after its models breached Hugging Face in July to obtain answers to a cybersecurity test. Investigators found that roughly 1,200 agents coordinated through an unauthorized message board, with about 700 joining the effort. Some ended their own runs to help others. Following the rise of AI-powered hacks over the summer, Anthropic, OpenAI, and more than 100 other organizations later called for stronger cyber defenses, including tighter access controls, threat sharing, and closer oversight of AI agents.
Coinbase adds ex-xAI CFO Armstrong to board in push for 24/7 market rails - Cryptopolitan
Coinbase is staffing up around efficiency and dealmaking as its "everything exchange" push collides with rivals like the LSEG-Kraken alliance over who owns the infrastructure for 24/7, blockchain-based markets. Coinbase has named Anthony Armstrong, the previous finance chief at Elon Musk's xAI and X, to its board of directors as competition in the cryptocurrency industry starts shifting from trading volume to control of the technologies behind 24/7 markets. Now it is much more important to be able to provide the liquidity, settlement, custody, and regulatory mechanisms for trading beyond the conventional hours than to be able to offer individuals the opportunity to buy Bitcoins. Coinbase counts on the fact that Armstrong combines Wall Street deal-making experience with government knowledge and knowledge of working for Elon Musk's companies will help it compete better. A board seat, an audit role, and a tenth chair On September 2, Coinbase made a public announcement of Armstrong's appointment. According to its SEC filing, the appointment was made effective as of September 1. In his role, Armstrong will also take a place on the Audit and Compliance Committee, and his appointment will increase the company's number of directors from nine to ten. The SEC filing additionally disclosed that Anthony Armstrong and Brian Armstrong, Coinbase co-founder and CEO, have no family ties. Coinbase noted that Anthony has a successful experience of "building things that work at scale, without waste," which ties his coming onboard with the company's attention on effective execution. From Morgan Stanley deal tables to Musk's balance sheets Armstrong spent nearly a decade at Morgan Stanley, eventually becoming vice chairman of investment banking after helping lead its global technology M&A business. He later served as a senior adviser at the Department of Government Efficiency before becoming CFO across xAI, X.AI Corp. and X Corp. In October 2025, Cryptopolitan reported that Armstrong counseled Musk on how to go about acquiring Twitter for $44 billion and that he had a strong working relationship with him. It was also reported that Musk later brought together X with xAI in a deal worth around $113 billion. This makes Armstrong much more than just a typical governance hire. The future of Coinbase could hinge on acquisitions, partnerships, and integrations across securities, crypto markets and blockchain settlement -- areas where his dealmaking background may be especially useful. Why an efficiency hire, and why now The new appointment comes as the Coinbase is experiencing weaker financial results along with a sharp drop in the share price. According to The Block, COIN closed with $174.96 on September 2, which is a significant decrease of over 40% in comparison with the previous year. Coinbase's report shows that in Q2 the company has suffered a $359.5 million loss on its revenue amounting to $1.2 billion. Subscription and services revenues resulted in $555.1 million whereas the company stated that 88% of total revenues is derived from other operations except Bitcoin spot trading. Quartz mentioned that the company failed to meet the expectations of Wall Street for 3 quarters in a row. Brian Armstrong summarized the new strategy during the earnings release with these words: Coinbase is "no longer a bet just on the price of Bitcoin." The everything exchange, and the race for the rails Coinbase's "everything exchange" strategy is steadily blurring the line between a crypto exchange and a broader multi-asset financial platform. It has rolled out U.S. stock and ETF trading and prediction markets while outlining plans around tokenized assets, pre-IPO perpetual futures, unified liquidity and an SEC-registered AI investment adviser, as Cryptopolitan previously reported. The opportunity is already visible in the numbers. CoinGecko found that TradFi/RWA perpetual trading volume reached $347.17 billion in May 2026, up from just $230 million at the start of 2025. But regulation and market structure may matter as much as product breadth. The World Federation of Exchanges has warned that fragmented tokenized-equity markets could weaken liquidity and price discovery. Traditional exchanges are moving toward the same territory. Reuters reported that London Stock Exchange Group is partnering with Kraken parent Payward on tokenized UK shares, with xStocks planned for its 24-hour LSE 24 venue in 2027, subject to regulatory approval. That sharpens Coinbase's strategic challenge. Winning the 24/7 market may depend less on listing the most assets than on owning the regulated rails that let capital move between them continuously.
Cerebras plans 165 MW Finland AI data center with first 50 MW under construction
Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) announced a 165 MW AI data center in Mikkeli, Finland, with Compute Nordic Finland. The initial 50 MW of contracted IT capacity is already under construction. The partners plan to increase capacity from 50 MW to 80 MW before reaching the full 165 MW. Cerebras said multiple service orders cover the capacity, with each carrying a seven-year term. An assessment cited by Cerebras estimated €1.0 billion to €1.7 billion of regional investment at full build-out. The project could support 80 to 250 direct permanent jobs and generate between €0.8 million and €2.5 million in annual property-tax revenue. Stay ahead of AI infrastructure deals. Get Blockspace in your inbox. Seven-year orders support the build-out Compute Nordic Finland CEO Pyry Virrantaus said the phased project is backed by existing demand rather than projected customer interest. "This partnership with Cerebras is not a speculative bet on future demand -- it's a contractually committed, phased build-out that reflects exactly how much AI compute the market needs today and where that need is heading," Virrantaus said in the project announcement. Compute Nordic Finland will oversee development, operations, customer relationships and program governance. Cerebras intends to use the facility for its high-density AI compute platform. The partners have identified permanent positions in site operations, power and cooling engineering, networking, security, and facility management. The employment estimate comes from a Ramboll market study and impact assessment dated September 12, 2025. Closed-loop cooling and heat recovery Closed-loop cooling is part of the Mikkeli facility's design, recirculating water instead of continuously drawing it from the municipal supply. It also incorporates heat-recovery infrastructure intended to make thermal energy from the compute systems available to the surrounding community. "Our architecture is built to get more useful AI output out of every megawatt we deploy," Cerebras CEO and co-founder Andrew Feldman said. "Mikkeli lets us pair that efficiency with a data centre designed for closed-loop cooling and heat reuse from the ground up." Cerebras did not provide a commissioning schedule for each phase or disclose pricing under the service orders. The announcement also did not say when the heat-recovery system would begin supplying the community. Mikkeli anchors Cerebras' European expansion The project accounts for most of the 200 MW of European capacity that Cerebras said in July it expected to reach by the end of 2027. That plan includes sites in France and the Nordics, and OpenAI workloads are expected to use some of the capacity.
Kraken Is Building Wall Street's Crypto Gateway While Delaying Its Own IPO
Deutsche Börse's April stake priced Payward a third below its $20 billion round. Three of the world's biggest exchange groups are moving their shares onto blockchains through Kraken. Kraken's parent, Payward, is not ready to list itself. It now targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest. Payward filed a confidential draft registration in November 2025. It paused the process in March 2026. People familiar with the plans point to 2027. Kraken Builds the Rails Wall Street Wants On September 1, Payward agreed to tokenize the 100 largest London-listed companies. They become xStocks, tokens backed one for one by real shares. The tokenized London stock plan covers investors in over 110 countries. UK residents and US persons are shut out. The London Stock Exchange plans to trade them on LSE 24, its round-the-clock venue, once regulators approve. Payward counts $40 billion in xStocks volume since June 2025 and more than 200,000 holders. Nasdaq signed a similar deal in March. It is building a gateway with Payward so tokenized shares can cross between regulated venues and public blockchains. That launch targets the first half of 2027. Deutsche Börse paid $200 million in April for a stake of roughly 1.5%. Even Hyperliquid may reach US traders this way. Why the Kraken IPO Delay Makes Sense That April price implies a valuation near $13.3 billion. Payward raised $800 million last November at $20 billion, in a round led by Jane Street and Citadel Securities. Wall Street bought the rails, then marked them down by a third. The trading business explains the caution. Second quarter adjusted revenue rose 17% to $508 million. Adjusted EBITDA fell 71% year over year to $23 million. Platform volume dropped 18% to $310 billion. Payward kept buying anyway through crypto's stalled IPO year. It closed on derivatives venue Bitnomial in May, completing a US regulated derivatives stack it can now rent out. "The industry around us is consolidating. We built this company so that is when we compound fastest," Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, in the company's quarterly letter. That letter never mentions the listing. The rails are going up for other people's markets first. Whether public investors pay for infrastructure, rather than trading fees, is the open question.
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