Record funding, defense deals, and shifting global AI markets

This cluster tracks an explosion of AI capital and its geopolitical spillover: OpenAI closes record-breaking funding rounds and a $50 billion cloud pact with Amazon, while infrastructure players like Encord and application startups like Gushwork raise fresh money to build the data and growth layers of the ecosystem. At the same time, AI is pulled deeper into state power structures, with OpenAI agreeing to deploy models on a classified government network and Anthropic preparing to fight a Pentagon supply‑chain risk label in court. These moves are already rippling through markets—from India’s IT giants facing AI headwinds to new initiatives like Nature’s “AI for Discovery” prize—signaling that AI investment, regulation, and market impact are now tightly intertwined worldwide.