Intel's $14.2B Fab 34 Buyback and OpenAI's $852B Valuation: Tech's Biggest Moves

The tech industry saw major financial moves this week as Intel agreed to pay $14.2 billion to repurchase Apollo's 49% stake in the Fab 34 joint venture in Leixlip, Ireland. The chipmaker plans to fund this acquisition through $6.5 billion in new debt issuance, marking a significant step in Intel's strategy to regain control over its manufacturing operations.

Meanwhile, OpenAI closed a record-breaking funding round, securing $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. The round was led by SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, and other major investors. OpenAI claims to be generating $2 billion in monthly revenue, with enterprise customers accounting for over 40% of that figure. The company projects reaching parity between enterprise and consumer revenue by the end of 2026.

In other funding news, Austin-based Coder raised $90 million in Series C funding led by KKR, following a $35 million raise in 2024. Kestra, an open-source workflow orchestration startup, secured $25 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. Depthfirst, aiming to build "general security intelligence" for vulnerability detection, raised $80 million in Series B funding at a $580 million valuation. Military autonomous ship builder Saronic raised $1.75 billion in Series D funding led by Kleiner Perkins at a $9.25 billion valuation.

Security Incidents and Technical Challenges

Anthropic confirmed it accidentally leaked part of Claude Code's source code due to "a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach." The company issued copyright takedown requests to remove over 8,000 copies of the leaked code. The exposed source revealed internal codenames and a "Self-Healing Memory" system.

Cisco suffered a cyberattack after threat actors used stolen credentials from the recent Trivy supply chain attack to breach the company's internal development environment and steal source code.

Mercor, an AI recruiting startup, confirmed it was affected by a supply chain attack involving the open-source project LiteLLM. The hacker group Lapsus$ claimed responsibility for accessing and stealing Mercor's data.

Regulatory and Policy Developments

Malta is opposing EU plans to centralize crypto supervision under the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), viewing it as a politically motivated assault on its success in attracting crypto firms.

The EU's main institutions - the Commission, Parliament, and Council - banned their staff from using fully AI-generated videos and images in official communications.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani reversed a 2023 ban on TikTok for city agencies, allowing its use with some restrictions.

Industry Trends and Analysis

Global VC investment hit a record $297 billion in Q1 2026, up 150% year-over-year. AI startups captured 81% of the funding, with just four companies raising 64% of the total.

Google researchers warned that quantum computers may crack elliptic-curve cryptography, which helps secure crypto wallets, with 20 times fewer resources than previously expected.

Oracle began conducting layoffs as the company continues to ramp up AI spending. As of May 2025, Oracle employed 162,000 people.

Product Updates and Launches

Google launched Veo 3.1 Lite, priced at less than 50% of Veo 3.1 Fast's price and designed for "high-volume video applications." The company also announced that all US users can now change their Google Account username, though limited to one change every 12 months.

Samsung launched Hearapy, a free Android app for combating motion sickness via a 100Hz sine wave tone. A 60-second session can provide up to two hours of relief.

Google is developing its own fitness band, aiming to compete with screenless wearable devices from companies like Whoop and Oura Health.

Market Performance

Snap's stock closed up 14.43% after activist investor Irenic outlined steps to boost its value sevenfold, including cutting staff by 21% and shutting down Specs.

South Korean chip shipments hit a record-high value of $32.83 billion in March 2026, up 151.4% year-over-year, pushing total exports to a record $86.13 billion, up 48.3% year-over-year.

Legal and Litigation

A proposed class action lawsuit alleges Perplexity AI shared its users' data with Meta and Google even in Incognito mode, violating California's privacy laws.

A US district court judge agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing an executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.

Emerging Technologies

Singapore's Grab Holdings became Southeast Asia's first ride-hailing provider to launch a driverless service in partnership with WeRide.

Apple announced it will release rare "backported" patches to protect iOS 18 users from DarkSword, a hacking technique that silently takes over iPhones running iOS 18.

Corporate Strategy

Microsoft announced it is on track to invest $5.5 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure in Singapore through 2029, following plans to invest over $1 billion in Thailand.

Sources indicate Microsoft is in talks with Chevron and investment fund Engine No. 1 over a roughly $7 billion Texas power plant that would initially generate 2.5 gigawatts of electricity.

Industry Consolidation

Intel's $14.2 billion buyback of Apollo's stake in Fab 34 represents one of the largest semiconductor manufacturing facility acquisitions in recent years, signaling Intel's renewed focus on vertical integration in chip production.