Apollo Global Management, known for leveraged buyouts and hefty financing deals, has started investing in AI and related hardware startups with the ambition to lend money to them in the future.

In one previously unreported deal, Apollo has already invested in the low tens of millions of dollars in Mercor’s latest funding round, which is set to value the data-labeling startup at $20 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. It has also invested in chip startup SiFive and in Hadrian, which says it’s building AI-powered factories, in transactions the companies disclosed earlier this year. It expects to make more investments in these categories, the people said.

The startup behind personal AI assistant Instinct is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of about $10 billion, people with knowledge of the deal said. Sequoia Capital and Benchmark have been in talks to lead the financing, the people said. Coatue Management has also been in talks to lead, according to one of the people.

The Information reported earlier this month that the startup is looking to raise new funding as the invitation-only agent faces constraints in compute capacity. As Instinct’s service has become more widely available, the number of users has grown to more than 100,000, according to one of the people.

The year-old startup behind Instinct, a personal AI assistant that’s caught fire with Silicon Valley insiders, is seeking more computing power, leveraging its early buzz as it faces new competition from giant Meta Platforms.

Over the last few weeks, Instinct, which launched to a select group of users earlier this year, has sometimes notified users that it is running at full capacity and “responses may be slower” as people use it for tasks such as negotiating bills and answering emails. More cash could help: the company is looking to raise $1 billion in new funding after recently raising $250 million, its founder and CEO Noah Shinn has recently told prospective investors, according to a person familiar with the statement.

Nvidia has agreed to invest $2 billion into Lancium, the power infrastructure developer behind the OpenAI and Oracle AI campus in Texas, and has agreed to commit another $1 billion as the developer secures additional planned power, The Information reported late Friday. The deal values Lancium ...

Nvidia has agreed to invest $2 billion into Lancium, the power infrastructure developer behind the OpenAI and Oracle AI campus in Texas, and has agreed to commit another $1 billion as the developer secures additional planned power, three people familiar with the transaction said. The deal values Lancium and its portfolio of land and power connections at around $10 billion in enterprise value, which includes the investment and its debt.

The $2 billion would give Nvidia a roughly 20% stake in the Blackstone-backed power developer. Nvidia’s stake could grow to around 30% with the additional $1 billion once more of Lancium’s campuses hit certain thresholds, including grid hookups, the people said. The deal is intended to help Nvidia secure multiple gigawatts of pending power rights for its chip customers’ data projects at a time when energy for AI data centers is becoming harder to come by.

CyrusOne, a data center operator owned by private equity giants KKR and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, is getting ready to interview and hire investment banks to advise on what could be one of the largest initial public offerings next year, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The IPO preparations indicate that some of the world’s largest asset managers are betting public investors will still want to buy shares of companies tied to the AI boom. CyrusOne could use the IPO to pay down debt borrowed to expand its data centers, while allowing private equity owners to cash out. KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners, which later became a unit of BlackRock, took CyrusOne private in early 2022 for $15 billion.

A jittery stock market isn’t the best environment for new public listings. But one young startup with deep ties to the AI boom is marching ahead with its IPO plans, at least for now.

Nscale, a UK-based AI cloud provider heavily backed by Nvidia, has been meeting with prospective investors recently and scheduled an investor day to pitch analysts and investors next week in New York, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s working with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan on the IPO, which could happen as soon as this fall, though Nscale could still choose to delay it.