AI Leaders Weekly Briefing

January 16, 2026

OpenAI, Meta, and xAI committed billions to infrastructure and compute power, while Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI proceeded, and Anthropic expanded globally, and more.

• OpenAI secured multibillion-dollar agreements, including a deal with Cerebras Systems for 750 megawatts of ultra-low-latency compute power and a joint $1 billion investment with SoftBank in SB Energy to expand infrastructure for its Stargate project. ¹²³⁴⁵
• Meta emphasized its infrastructure buildout, signing major agreements for 6.6 gigawatts of nuclear power to supply US data centers, announcing the 'Meta Compute' initiative, and initiating layoffs in Reality Labs to refocus on AI hardware development. ^67891011
• Elon Musk's xAI faced significant international and domestic regulatory scrutiny, including probes in California and the UK and blocks in Malaysia and Indonesia, over the creation of sexualized deepfakes by the Grok chatbot, even as xAI announced a new $20 billion data center in Mississippi. ^{121314151617181920}
• A federal judge ordered Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft to proceed to trial, as OpenAI simultaneously faced multiple lawsuits alleging that ChatGPT encouraged users to commit suicide and was required by a court to produce discovery evidence. ^212223242526
• Anthropic expanded its global footprint by appointing a Managing Director for India ahead of a Bengaluru office opening and launched Anthropic Labs, an internal incubator, following a C-suite reorganization, while reportedly banning xAI developers from accessing its Claude models. ^2728293031
• OpenAI announced new consumer-focused initiatives, including ‘ChatGPT Health,’ amid rumours that the company may also be developing AI-powered earbuds, while rival Mistral AI secured a pivotal agreement with the French Ministry of Armed Forces to develop a sovereign military AI capability. ^{323334353637383940}
• Other notable developments included Chinese rival DeepSeek preparing to launch its next-generation V4 coding model, ElevenLabs crossing $330 million in annual recurring revenue, and OpenAI hiring back key technical staff from former CTO Mira Murati s Thinking Machines Lab. ^{41424344454647484950515253545556575859606162}

Sources

1. OpenAI’s $10B Cerebras Deal Promises 15x Faster AI Speed eweek.com
2. Exclusive | OpenAI Forges Multibillion-Dollar Computing Partnership With Cerebras wsj.com
3. OpenAI partners with Cerebras OpenAI
4. OpenAI, SoftBank invest $1 billion in SB Energy as Stargate buildout expands thehindu.com
5. OpenAI, SoftBank to Invest $1 Billion in SB Energy wsj.com
6. Meta turns to nuclear for AI power neimagazine.com
7. Meta plans 1,500 job cuts as focus towards AI and data centres surges businesstoday.in
8. Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin engadget.com
9. Meta unveils 'Meta Compute' initiative to build AI infrastructure reuters.com
10. Meta partners with U.S. nuclear companies to power AI data centres thehindu.com
11. Meta just bought enough nuclear to power 5 million homes qz.com
12. xAI sued by mother of one of Elon Musk's children over sexual images afr.com
13. Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules theguardian.com
14. Musk's xAI promises new restrictions for sexualized AI images on Grok derstandard.de
15. Musk dealt blow over Grok deepfakes, but regulatory fight far from over reuters.com
16. Musk’s xAI Faces California AG Probe Over Grok Sexual Images news.bloomberglaw.com
17. California Investigates Elon Musk’s xAI Over Sexualized Images nytimes.com
18. New $20 billion xAI data center coming to Mississippi yahoo.com
19. Musk’s X Probed by UK Over Grok’s Thousands of Sexualized Images finance.yahoo.com
20. Malaysia and Indonesia become first to block Musk’s Grok over AI deepfakes apnews.com
21. OpenAI and Microsoft lose last chance to avoid trial with Elon Musk japantimes.co.jp
22. When Chats Become Evidence: Court Affirms Order Requiring OpenAI to Produce 20... natlawreview.com
23. ChatGPT served as suicide coach in man s death, lawsuit alleges yahoo.com
24. Musk vs OpenAI trial set for April 27: US court - The Economic Times m.economictimes.com
25. ChatGPT Killed a Man After OpenAI Brought Back “Inherently Dangerous” GPT-4o, Lawsuit Claims futurism.com
26. Judge gives all clear for Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI to head to trial: 'We look forward to presenting all the evidence' thecooldown.com
27. 'Thrilled & Excited': After 24 Years With Microsoft, Irina Ghose Moves To Anthropic To Lead India Operations freepressjournal.in
28. Anthropic appoints Irina Ghose as Managing Director of India Anthropic
29. Anthropic shakes up C-suite to expand its internal incubator theverge.com
30. Anthropic introduces Anthropic Labs Anthropic
31. Elon Musk's xAI cofounder Tony Wu sends email to employees, says: Anthropic has banned us, this is a.. timesofindia.indiatimes.com
32. OpenAI s Sweetpea Earbuds To Use Samsung s 2nm Exynos Chip, Titan ASIC Launching By The End Of The Year wccftech.com
33. Defense: Why France chooses Mistral AI for its sovereign "combat AI" blog-nouvelles-technologies.fr
34. OpenAI is reportedly working on AI-powered earbuds with ChatGPT integration livemint.com
35. OpenAI buys tiny health records startup Torch for, reportedly, $100M techcrunch.com
36. OpenAI announces health forum discussion OpenAI
37. Mistral AI signs an agreement with the Ministry of the Armed Forces for a sovereign military AI mac4ever.com
38. OpenAI Bridges the Gap Between AI and Medicine with the Launch of “ChatGPT Health” markets.financialcontent.com
39. The Ministry of the Armed Forces signs a framework agreement with Mistral AI linformaticien.com
40. OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Health, Expanding AI’s Role in Healthcare greekreporter.com
41. DeepMind launches TranslateGemma DeepMind
42. China’s Alibaba Links Qwen AI App to Vast Consumer Ecosystem wsj.com
43. Thinking Machines Lab CTO Barret Zoph returns to OpenAI in surprise move neowin.net
44. Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab Removes CTO theinformation.com
45. Two More AI Staffers Depart Murati's Thinking Machines theinformation.com
46. Inside OpenAI's Raid on Thinking Machines Lab wired.com
47. OpenAI expects another 'seismic shock' from China amid speculation of new DeepSeek release thestar.com.my
48. ElevenLabs announces partnership with Deutsche Telekom ElevenLabs
49. New generation flagship large model DeepSeek V4 to be released around Chinese New Year: AI programming capability surpasses Claude eet-china.com
50. Mistral announces next phase of Morocco partnership Mistral
51. DeepMind updates Veo 3.1 Ingredients to Video DeepMind
52. Microsoft Warns China’s DeepSeek AI Captures Market Share in Global South at 2-4x Rate winbuzzer.com
53. ElevenLabs announces $330M ARR ElevenLabs
54. ElevenLabs Launches Scribe v2 Realtime: A Breakthrough in Ultra-Low Latency Speech-to-Text quasa.io
55. ElevenLabs: $330M Crossed in ARR bloomberg.com
56. Alibaba’s Qwen family hits 700 million downloads to lead global open-source AI adoption scmp.com
57. Anthropic introduces Cowork research preview Anthropic
58. Anthropic launches Cowork, a Claude Code-like for general computing arstechnica.com
59. Anthropic advances Claude for healthcare and life sciences Anthropic
60. DeepSeek set to launch next-gen ‘V4’ model - The Information streetinsider.com
61. ElevenLabs introduces Scribe v2 ElevenLabs
62. DeepSeek to launch new AI model focused on coding in February, The Information reports reuters.com