Day: April 24, 2026
The pact involves an initial $10 billion from Google at Anthropic’s latest valuation of $380 billion. The remaining $30 billion is contingent on certain performance milestones, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
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Bloomberg was first to report the deal.
Anthropic said the agreement expands on a longstanding partnership between the two companies. Earlier this month, Anthropic secured 5 gigawatts worth of computing capacity as part of an announcement with Google and Broadcom that will start to come online next year. Anthropic could decide to add additional gigawatts of compute in the future.
Google provides access to Anthropic’s Claude models through its cloud division, which competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The company also offers custom chips called tensor processing units (TPUs) as an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
Meanwhile, Google’s Gemini is competing with Anthropic in the market for AI models and services.
The relationship between the two companies dates back to 2023, when Google invested $300 million in the AI lab for a stake of about 10%. Months later, Google poured in another $2 billion. Ahead of Friday’s announcement, Google’s investment in Anthropic exceeded $3 billion, and it reportedly owned a 14% stake in the company.
Now, the leading tech companies are investing tens of billions of dollars in the frontier AI labs — OpenAI and Anthropic — in funding rounds that far exceed any prior investments in startups. Much of that investment will return in the form of revenue.Anthropic’s latest deal with Google lands as the company has been working to address “inevitable strain” on its infrastructure that’s arisen from growing enterprise, developer and consumer demand for Claude. OpenAI has recently criticized its chief rival for failing to secure enough compute.
Google’s investment appears similar to a separate agreement that Anthropic struck with Amazon just weeks prior. The e-commerce giant invested $5 billion into the company, and agreed to invest up to $20 billion in the future tied to “certain commercial milestones,” according to a release.
“Our users tell us Claude is increasingly essential to how they work, and we need to build the infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing demand,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement at the time. “Our collaboration with Amazon will allow us to continue advancing AI research while delivering Claude to our customers, including the more than 100,000 building on AWS.”
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers and executives who departed from OpenAI. The company’s AI products, particularly its Claude Code assistant, have exploded in popularity over the last year. Anthropic’s annualized revenue has topped $30 billion.
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The U.S. Treasury Department is sanctioning multiple wallets tied to Iran, thereby freezing $344 million in cryptocurrency, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on X, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
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“I can confirm special envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be off to Pakistan again tomorrow morning to engage in talks, direct talks — intermediated by the Pakistanis, who have been incredible friends and mediators throughout this entire process — with representatives from the Iranian delegation,” she told Fox News, News.Az reports.
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Leavitt said the Iranians reached out, “as the president called on them to do,” and requested the in-person conversation.
CNN reported earlier Friday that Trump would be sending the pair for talks this weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and that Vice President JD Vance would be on stand by to travel to Islamabad if the talks progress.
“The vice president remains deeply involved in this entire process, and he’ll be standing by here in the United States, along with the president and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the entire national security team for updates,” Leavitt said.
“Of course, everyone will be on standby to fly to Pakistan if necessary,” she added.
Semi-official state media in Iran has denied reports that Araghchi is planning to negotiate with US officials in Pakistan.
“Currently there are no negotiations with the Americans on the agenda, and Mr. Araghchi’s trip to Islamabad is not for negotiations with the Americans but rather to discuss Iran’s considerations about ending the war with the Pakistani side,” Tasnim news agency reported.
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The move makes good on the Trump administration’s threat to impose secondary sanctions on companies and countries that do business with Iran. It’s also part of a ramped-up campaign to cut off Iran’s key source of revenue – its oil exports, News.Az reports, citing Al Jazeera.
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The US this month imposed a physical blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf waterway crucial to global energy supplies.
The sanctions come just a few weeks before President Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping are due to meet in Beijing.
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Organized by the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Belgium, the exhibition showcased photos of high artistic value reflecting Azerbaijan’s rich historical and cultural heritage, its centuries old multicultural values and the traditions of mutual respect and coexistence between different ethnic and religious communities, News.Az reports, citing local media.
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In his remarks, Ambassador Vagif Sadigov emphasized that multiculturalism is an important component of state policy in Azerbaijan.
Other top speakers included photographer Etibar Jafarov; Philippe Humblé, professor at the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); political analyst Michel Ivor.
The exhibition also included classical music samples by Azerbaijani and foreign composers performed by Azerbaijani musicians in Belgium.
Visitors showed great interest in the exhibition.
The event was also highly valued as an important initiative for promoting Azerbaijan’s cultural heritage and multicultural values internationally.
The exhibition brought together diplomats, researchers, Belgian and European Union officials, public representatives, cultural figures, and members of the Azerbaijani community.
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Speaking at a promotion program at the Dolmabahce Working Office in Istanbul, Erdogan stated that the Istanbul Park circuit will host the racing series for five consecutive seasons through 2031, News.az reports, citing Xinhua.
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“The return of Formula 1 to Istanbul Park will provide significant value to the championship,” Erdogan said, adding that the event would offer “exciting and high-quality racing” for global fans.
The announcement was preceded by a symbolic run through central Istanbul, with an F1 car travelling from Galataport, a major cruise liner hub on the Bosphorus Strait, to the Presidential Working Office in Dolmabahce.
Located on the outskirts of Istanbul’s Asian side, Istanbul Park circuit previously hosted Formula 1 from 2005 to 2011 and saw brief returns in 2020 and 2021. The new agreement marks a major milestone for Türkiye’s sports and tourism sectors.
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He will battle for gold medal in the me’s 57kg weight class, News.Az reports, citing local media.
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Azerbaijan is represented at the European Championships with 25 wrestlers. Greco-Roman wrestlers Hasrat Jafarov (67kg) and Gurban Gurbanov (82kg) seized the titles, while Nihat Mammadli (60kg), Rashad Mammadov (55kg), and Islam Abbasov (87kg) won bronze medals. In women’s wrestling, Gunay Gurbanova (59kg) placed third.
The championships will run until April 26.
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Cosmobilis moved ahead after an auction for Munich-based WRC Promoter was held by existing rights holders Red Bull and German investment firm KW25 earlier this year, the people said, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
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If negotiations and financing are concluded successfully, a deal could be announced in the summer, one person said.
The sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential, said there remained a chance of no deal.
A Cosmobilis spokesperson declined to comment. WRC, Red Bull and KW25 did not reply to requests for comment.
The likely price for WRC Promoter is expected to be less than 500 million euros ($585 million), one person said.
Eric Boullier, co-founder and CEO of Cosmobilis’ Circle unit, is leading the bid, the people said. Boullier, who did not respond to requests for comment, was previously Lotus Formula One — now Renault-owned Alpine — principal and was racing director of McLaren from 2014 to 2018.
Motorsport’s governing body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), announced last year a tender process to replace Red Bull and German investment company KW25 as commercial rights holders of the World Rally Championship after Reuters reported preparations for a sale. FIA did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The WRC races on four different continents with 14 rounds this year. Its reigning champion is France’s Sebastien Ogier. Since 2022, WRC Promoter has also organised the European Championship and the Rallycross Championship.
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The Amazon-backed nuclear reactor developer raised $1.02 billion in its initial public offering on Thursday by selling 44.3 million shares in its upsized offering at $23 apiece, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
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The stock opened at $30.11.
The listing marks a critical capital milestone for X-Energy as it races to deploy its “Xe-100” small modular reactors (SMRs), which are viewed by industry analysts as a vital solution for the first commercial SMR electrons to hit the U.S. grid by the end of the decade.
The X-Energy debut is supported by notable tailwinds in the power sector, as tech giants and data center developers pivot toward advanced nuclear energy to power energy-intensive artificial intelligence infrastructure as well as meet 24/7 carbon-free energy goals.
Nuclear reactor developers can offer reliability that solar and wind – hampered by intermittency – cannot yet match.
X-Energy Chief Executive Clay Sell said being a public company afforded it a number of benefits, including transparency with its customers and investors, equity to reward employees, and the ability to invest in and support its supply chain as it builds up its business in the coming years.
“We wanted to take this opportunity to build a larger balance sheet that allows us to reduce the risk of getting to scale.”
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