Thursday, 19 February 2026
OpenAI is nearing the completion of a funding round expected to exceed $100 billion, which would significantly enhance its resources for developing artificial intelligence tools. This record-breaking financing deal could raise the company's overall valuation to over $850 billion, surpassing initial expectations of $830 billion, while its pre-money value remains at $730 billion.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, announced that the company will invest ₹10 lakh crore (approximately $110 billion) over the next seven years to develop artificial intelligence and data infrastructure in India. Speaking at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Ambani highlighted the need for sovereign AI computing capacity to address the current constraints on domestic AI development. Reliance's telecom arm, Jio, is set to construct multi-gigawatt, AI-ready data centers, with over 120 megawatts expected to be operational in the second half of this year.
Cisco Systems and Qunnect have successfully demonstrated a quantum network spanning 17.6 kilometers of fiber optic cables between Brooklyn and Manhattan, achieving record entanglement swapping rates of over 1.7 million pairs per hour locally and 5,400 pairs per hour over deployed fiber. This collaboration utilized Qunnect's room-temperature quantum hardware alongside Cisco's software, marking a significant advancement towards scalable quantum communication in urban environments. The demonstration, conducted on Qunnect's GothamQ testbed, showcases a new spoke-and-hub model for quantum networks, potentially enhancing applications such as high-speed trading.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi that early versions of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could emerge within the next two years, potentially surpassing human capabilities in various fields. He highlighted India's significant role in this evolution, noting that over 100 million people in the country use ChatGPT weekly, with students making up a substantial portion of users. Altman emphasized the importance of democratizing AI development to prevent centralization of power and ensure broader societal input in shaping future technologies.
One email per day. Unsubscribe anytime.