Google and Microsoft heat up the AI race as OpenAI opens new front with big acquisition

It was all about AI at all the big events this week — Microsoft Build, Google I/O, Dell Tech World, Red Hat Summit and even Computex.

This time at I/O, Google appeared to get the upper hand, vibe-wise, with a flurry of new models and features, a vision of a universal AI assistant, and even plans for AI-powered AR glasses. Safe to say, it’s well behind the pack no longer. But Microsoft also unleashed a raft of new AI features and agents as well at Build.

OpenAI isn’t slowing down either, buying io, Jony Ives’ secretive AI startup, for $6.5 billion in stock. Will Ives create the AI-powered products at OpenAI that he couldn’t at Apple? Meantime, Anthropic keeps plowing ahead, releasing two new models this week. And a bit out of left field, Vast Data introduced an ambitious “AI Operating System” for the coming era of AI agents.

On the mainstream enterprise tech front, AI took center stage as well. At Dell Tech World, CEO Michael Dell doubled down on AI factories and AI edge opportunities. And IBM-owned Red Hat expanded its AI offerings at its summit.

Trump threatened Apple Friday with 25% tariffs on iPhones not made in the U.S. — even though that’s virtually impossible — as well as 50% tariffs on EU imports. So much winning.

No more Mr. Nice Guy: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang slammed U.S. AI export curbs on China, saying they simply slashed its market share there and caused Chinese companies to use homegrown chips.

Next week there are lots more earnings reports, first among them Nvidia, as well as Dell, NetApp, Salesforce, UiPath, Nutanix, Pure Storage, HP, Box, Okta, Zscaler and more.

Here’s all the news this week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:

AI and data: Microsoft and Google battle on AI

Microsoft Build was all about AI, of course…

At Build, Microsoft introduces GitHub Copilot coding agent that works like a developer

Microsoft expands Fabric and Azure data portfolio to simplify AI development

Microsoft launches tools to streamline AI agent development

AI agents unleashed in Windows with Model Context Protocol

Microsoft debuts Windows AI Foundry for local model development on AI PCs

NLWeb is Microsoft’s new, open-source tool that integrates generative AI search into any website

New Discovery AI from Microsoft targets faster science innovation and experimentation

Microsoft boosts AI platform security with new identity protection threat alerts and data governance

And so was Google I/O… of course…. But I share Quentin Hardy’s misgivings that so much of generative AI is being promoted as a way to automate what humans do. “The good from AI will come from tools which help us communicate with each other, not from software programs so convincing that they spoof everyone’s humanity,” he says, but that’s not mostly what we see from Google and others.

With a flurry of new model features, Google outlines plan to build a universal AI assistant

New AI Mode promises to make Google Search, and Shopping, much more intelligent

Google showcases a wave of AI-powered developer announcements at I/O 2025

At Google I/O, Firebase gets a host of new features, including AI app building enhancements

Google rolls out new multimodal AI features for Google Workspace

Google launches Beam platform for 3D enterprise video communication

Flow filmmaking platform headlines new wave of Google generative AI tools

Google debuts how Android XR Glasses will bring Gemini into everyday life

It’s no surprise that Google placed its DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis front and center to put forward his vision of where AI is going. But he was joined in his star turn at Google’s annual I/O conference Tuesday by a surprise guest: Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Brin, who returned to something like full-time work on AI in 2023, joined Hassabis to map out the “frontiers of AI” in an interview by Alex Kantrowitz, founder of the Big Technology newsletter and podcast. Some tidbits:

* Despite worry that data centers for AI might be getting overbuilt, Hassabis thinks there’s still many more needed — not just for training models but running them, especially with the advent of “thinking” models that need lots of compute at runtime.

* At the same time, Hassabis thinks there’s at least two more big breakthroughs in terms of algorithmic and other improvements to get to “artificial general intelligence,” a still-fuzzy term for when models become as smart as humans. And to put that in perspective, he thinks the “reasoning” models coming out are only part of one of those breakthroughs.

* But a big thing missing from these models is something humans take for granted: a knowledge of the physical world. Hassabis believes these “world models” will be crucial to getting to AGI, but it won’t be easy or quick to create them.

* So when will AGI arrive? Brin says just before 2030. Hassabis says just after. “Stop sandbagging,” Brin shot back.

* Why did Brin come back to Google? “For a computer scientist… there’s never been a greater problem or opportunity,” he said. “I’m across the street [at Google HQ) pretty much every day,” working on multimodal models such as Veo 3. “I tend to be pretty deep in the technical details.”

* This could be a bit of rewriting history, but Hassabis said Gemini was built to be multimodal from the start, not just text-based, which “made things harder at first,” but now Google, considered behind OpenAI and some others until, well, pretty much now, is seeing the fruits of that strategy.

* As Google makes a second bet on now AI-powered glasses, Brin admitted to making “a lot of mistakes” on the last attempt, the much-derided Google Glass, and has brought in others to make the devices this time. But this time, Hassabis said, there’s a killer app: the universal AI assistant he talked up during his keynote. AI eventually rescues everything, it seems.

Other new models and services

Anthropic launches new frontier models: Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4

Vast Data says it has built an operating system for large-scale agent deployment

At Computex, Nvidia debuts AI GPU compute marketplace, NVLink Fusion and the future of humanoid AI

Glean launches upgraded Glean Agents toolkit with new development tools And a deeper dive into Glean’s strategy for remaking enterprise search: Building systems of context: Glean expands agentic platform for AI-powered enterprise search

Report: Apple plans to make its large language models available to developers

Salesforce targets a more human touch for financial services firms, with AI agents

Neurologyca launches multimodal platform to create emotionally aware AI

Extreme Networks goes big on platform and AI at Connect 2025

Starburst targets AI bottlenecks with smarter data access and governance

Workday adds seven new AI agents to its cloud platform

DataOps.live debuts new Dynamic Suite data toolkit for Snowflake

Policy

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticizes US curbs on AI chip sales to China

US house passes 10-year moratorium on state AI laws

Money matters

OpenAI acquires Jony Ive’s io Products in $6.5B all-stock deal This is a huge burn on Apple, which had Ive for a long time and should have been using him to find opportunities at the intersection of AI and devices some time ago. Now it’s way behind. Still, it’s remarkably unclear what this device they’re talking about will actually do.

Snowflake gains momentum with solid earnings and revenue beats

CoreWeave shares soar 19% after larger-than-expected $2B debt offering

Alation acquires Numbers Station to expand AI agent capabilities for enterprise data workflows

LMArena raises $100M at $600M valuation to expand AI benchmarking platform

Big-data visualization company Domo smashes Wall Street’s targets and its stock soars

Microsoft-backed Builder.ai set for bankruptcy after cash seized (per Bloomberg)

DataHub gets $35M in funding to provide the context needed for AI reliability and safety

Agentic workspace provider Sweep raises $22.5M Series B round

AI tax startup Filed bags $17.2M to turbocharge tax return processing

Pay-i launches with $4.9M to ease AI application cost tracking

PiLogic raises $4M to build precision AI models for space applications

There’s even more AI and big data news on SiliconANGLE

Around the enterprise: Dell and Red Hat embrace AI

At Dell Technologies World, AI was also the star:

Welcome to the AI factory era: A preview of Dell Technologies World 2025

Michael Dell on AI factories, edge innovation and the next phase of digital transformation

Dell builds out its AI offerings with an emphasis on on-premises deployment

TheCUBE analysis from Dell Tech World: Edge emerges as the heart of enterprise innovation

Dell builds out the AI infrastructure engine to power the incoming industrial revolution

Dell and Nvidia level up Dell AI Factory for agentic use cases

And guess what? Same at Red Hat Summit:

Red Hat Expands AI offerings with inference server and validated models

Red Hat Linux gets a gen AI upgrade and other administrative goodies

Red Hat expands hybrid cloud capabilities with AI assistant, edge manager and AMD partnership

Other new products and services

OpenAI to build gigawatt Stargate data center in the UAE

Qualcomm to launch data center processors that link to Nvidia chips

Innatera unveils mass-market neuromorphic microcontroller for AI-powered edge sensors

Docker launches Hardened Images to secure enterprise software supply chains

New Sentry logging feature adds structured logs to error tracking workflow

Money matters

Sanmina to acquire ZT Systems’ manufacturing business from AMD

Intel mulls selling edge and networking group (per Reuters)

Despite strong earnings beat, Workday’s stock wobbles on disappointing guidance

Autodesk shares rise on upbeat earnings results and positive guidance

Zoom beats first-quarter estimates on earnings and revenue

Gravitee raises $60M to help developers tame API complexity

We have lots more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps

Cyber beat: Microsoft and agencies take down Lumma malware

Attack & response

Global law enforcement and Microsoft take down Lumma malware infrastructure

Cybersecurity researcher discovers database with millions of login credentials

Money matters

Palo Alto Networks stock slips despite earnings and guidance beats

TrustCloud raises $15M to boost AI and go-to-market for security assurance

BreachRx raises $15M to expand intelligent incident response platform

New services

JFrog and Nvidia partner on secure software supply chain for Enterprise AI Factory

Druva expands Azure support with cloud-native protection for SQL and Blob Storage

Exabeam and Vectra AI partner to improve threat detection and cloud visibility

Picus Security launches Exposure Validation to help teams focus on exploitable vulnerabilities

Atera debuts IT Autopilot to offload Tier 1 tasks from technicians

Strider upgrades Spark platform to deliver faster threat intelligence against nation-state attacks

Operant AI launches Woodpecker to bring open-source red teaming to AI and cloud environments

More cybersecurity news here

Elsewhere around tech: Quantum rising

Apple reportedly planning to launch smart glasses in late 2026

D-Wave launches the Advantage2 quantum computer with more than 4,400 qubits

Report: Circle could potentially be acquired by Coinbase or Ripple for $5B+

Regeneron to buy 23andMe out of bankruptcy for $256M

Sam Altman’s World raises $135M in token sale to a16z and Bain Capital Crypto

Another tech IPO: Hinge Health prices IPO at $32, the top end of expected range

And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy

Comings and goings

Infrastructure management platform env0 revamped its management team. Steve Corndell succeeds co-founder Ohad Maislish as CEO. David Kopans becomes chief financial officer, Chris Graham is new chief marketing officer, Yaron Yarimi is VP of R&D, Maya Aquadro is VP of customer success, and Luis da Silva Rodrigues is VP of sales.

Low-code company OutSystems appointed Woodson Martin CEO, replacing founder and longtime leader Paulo Rosado.

Credential security firm Dashlane named enterprise product veteran Christophe Frenet chief product officer.

Discern Security appointed cybersecurity veteran Evgeniy Kharam chief strategy officer.

Enterprise network security firm Titania appointed Ian Robinson CPO.

What’s next

Events

Snowflake Summit, San Francisco, June 2-5: SiliconANGLE and theCUBE will be onsite with all the news, analysis and interviews.

Databricks Data+AI Summit, San Francisco, June 9-12: SiliconANGLE will be onsite with all the news.

Earnings

Tuesday, May 27: Box, Okta

Wednesday, May 28: Nvidia, Salesforce, Nutanix, Pure Storage, HP, Synopsys, C3 AI, SentinelOne

Thursday, May 29: Dell, NetApp, UiPath, Marvell Semi, Zscaler, PagerDuty, Elastic

Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram