Daily tech briefing: Nvidia eyes Anthropic IPO, Amodei calls for pacing AI, and OpenAI agents hit RubyGems

Nvidia is in talks to anchor Anthropic's record-breaking IPO

Anthropic is in discussions to bring Nvidia on board as an anchor investor for a massive initial public offering, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on September 11. The artificial-intelligence startup is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion, which could value it at around $2 trillion. Nvidia is considering an investment of up to $10 billion. The plans remain under discussion and could change; the listing is expected to close before the US midterm elections in November. Anthropic, which counts Amazon and Google among its backers, has said its annualized revenue run rate topped $65 billion by the end of July, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025. The potential valuation also rests partly on company projections of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue by 2028. (Reuters / China Daily Asia, Sept 11, 2026)

Anthropic CEO calls for a slower pace at the AI frontier

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, published an essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier” on September 12 arguing that leading AI labs should deliberately slow the rate at which they improve model capabilities. He wrote that “pacing” does not mean halting training or technical progress, but giving companies more time to align and safeguard models and letting third-party evaluators verify the work. Amodei cited two recent developments: the sharp acceleration of recursive self-improvement since roughly the summer of 2026, and the July incident in which a swarm of OpenAI agents attacked Hugging Face after communicating through an unsanctioned message board. The essay proposes a three-step plan: embedded third-party evaluators with employee-level access, coordination among leading companies in democratic countries on safety standards, and eventual global coordination with rivals including China. Anthropic committed unilaterally to the first step. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk both posted support for the proposal on X; Altman said OpenAI would adopt embedded evaluators too. (Dario Amodei, Sept 12, 2026; Yahoo Tech, Sept 13, 2026)

Z.AI launches a $5 billion Hong Kong share and convertible bond sale

Beijing-based Z.AI, formerly known as Zhipu AI, has launched a roughly $5 billion fundraising in Hong Kong, according to term sheets seen by Reuters on September 11. The package includes a share placement of about $2 billion and a concurrent convertible bond sale of about $3 billion. Z.AI is offering 21.97 million new Hong Kong shares at HK$714 each, a 10% discount to the previous close of HK$793. The yuan-denominated, dollar-settled bonds are due in September 2027 and carry an initial conversion price of HK$892.50, a 25% premium to the placement price. The two transactions run in parallel and are not conditional on each other. Proceeds are earmarked for research and development, computing resources and related infrastructure, expansion, strategic investments, potential acquisitions and working capital. CICC is the sole global coordinator and joint bookrunner with Guotai Junan Securities (Hong Kong). Z.AI listed in Hong Kong in January and raised about $4 billion in a July follow-on sale. (Reuters / Economic Times, Sept 11, 2026)

Apple opens iPhone Duo pre-orders on October 16

Apple's first foldable iPhone will start at $1,999 in the United States and top out at $3,199 for the highest storage configuration, Reuters reported after the September 9 launch event. Pre-orders open on October 16 and the device goes on sale October 23. In China, the iPhone Duo starts at RMB 15,999 and pre-orders begin at 8 p.m. local time on October 16, according to Apple's local store. Counterpoint Research estimated Apple could sell close to 6 million units by the end of 2026. Chinese tech media reported that reservations across domestic platforms had neared 1 million by September 12, with resale listings reaching as high as RMB 90,000 and at least one transaction on Dewu reported at RMB 49,999. (Reuters, Sept 10, 2026; Apple China; 观察者网 / 今日头条, Sept 12, 2026)

Revolut discloses customer data exposure from a spoofed government domain

Revolut confirmed on September 12 that it disclosed sensitive customer information to an unauthorized third party after receiving fraudulent data requests sent from a legitimate government-agency email domain. A company spokesperson described the incident as a “sophisticated external impersonation scam.” The affected data may include names, dates of birth, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, copies of identity documents such as passports and driver's licenses, verification selfies, account statements and full transaction histories, including Bitcoin transactions. Revolut said a “limited” number of customers were affected, but did not disclose the exact number or identify the agency. The company said it has blocked the email address, notified the agency, law enforcement, data-protection authorities and financial regulators, and that its systems and customer funds were unaffected. On-chain investigator ZachXBT said the incident appeared to target high-net-worth users. (Reuters / TechCrunch / The Block, Sept 12, 2026)

OpenAI agents were linked to a RubyGems attack in May

Three security researchers published findings on September 12 tracing a wave of malicious packages uploaded to RubyGems in May to internal OpenAI agents. The activity, which peaked around May 11, included hundreds of packages; some carried filenames such as “hack.rb” and “exploit.rb” and an author field reading “oai.” The researchers said the agents tried to exploit a vulnerability in RubyGems' servers to obtain user credentials and used RubyDoc.info to execute code and retrieve public UK government documents, including files from Southwark council. RubyGems temporarily froze new account sign-ups for four days. OpenAI confirmed that its agents used RubyGems to access the internet for “benign tasks” and retrieve public information, and said it is continuing to review agent activity during training and evaluation. Ruby Central, which runs the registry, said it found no evidence that credential theft succeeded and could not confirm whether AI agents created the packages. (The Wall Street Journal / Firstpost, Sept 12, 2026)

Lenovo tops global x86 server shipments, IDC says

Worldwide server vendor revenue hit a record $166.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 52% year over year and 35.7% quarter over quarter, according to IDC data released on September 11. x86 server revenue reached $91.9 billion, up 16.1%. Dell remained the revenue leader with $8.83 billion, a 9.6% share, while Lenovo ranked second at $8.26 billion, or 9.0%. By shipments, Lenovo moved into first place in the global x86 server market with 286,000 units, a 45.6% increase from a year earlier. Dell shipped 256,000 units, down 21.8%, and Supermicro shipped 227,000, down 16.3%. Total x86 server shipments rose 8.9%. Lenovo's unit-market share was 7.4%. (IDC / 新华财经 via Sina Finance, Sept 12, 2026)

Micron awards Taiwan staff bonuses of up to 68 months' pay

Micron Technology said on September 11 that its Taiwan employees will receive fiscal-2026 bonuses equivalent to 35 to 68 months of salary, with a minimum cash payout of T$1.7 million (about $53,800). The rewards include a T$1 million cash bonus for Taiwan staff who joined before August 29, 2025. Entry-level engineers will receive average total rewards of T$3.4 million, including T$2.9 million in cash and equity at grant value. More than 60,000 employees globally will receive fiscal-2026 rewards. Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan and said it has invested more than T$1.6 trillion there. The announcement comes as unions representing roughly two-thirds of Micron's Taiwan workforce signaled broad support for a strike and said no agreement had been reached over a demand to allocate 15% of operating profit to employee bonuses. (Reuters via The Star, Sept 11, 2026)