Nvidia-backed AI lab Lila Sciences hits $1.3 billion valuation after new funding

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Lila Sciences, a fast-growing AI startup focused on scientific discovery, has raised $115 million in an extension of its Series A round led by Nvidia’s venture arm, pushing its valuation above $1.3 billion, the company told Reuters. The latest investment brings Lila’s total Series A funding to $350 million and its cumulative capital raised to $550 million, underscoring investors’ confidence in AI for science.

Founded in 2023 by Flagship Pioneering, Lila aims to create what it calls “scientific superintelligence” — a network of specialized AI systems paired with automated laboratories capable of running continuous experiments. Its investors include General Catalyst and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Lila said the funds will speed up the rollout of its AI Science Factories, vast facilities equipped with robotic instruments controlled by AI. The company recently signed a 235,500-square-foot lease in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the largest new lab spaces in the Greater Boston area this year.

The startup plans to open its AI platform to commercial customers, allowing companies in energy, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals to use its automated systems for scientific discovery. Unlike traditional AI labs focused on internet data, Lila’s approach generates proprietary experimental data, which it says is key to the next era of AI-driven innovation.

CEO Geoffrey von Maltzahn said the company’s mission is to accelerate the scientific method itself. “It will set in motion the scientific method in a new form,” he said, describing how Lila’s technology has already produced thousands of discoveries across life sciences, chemistry, and materials research.

Oracle to deploy AMD’s MI450 AI chips in major cloud expansion

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Oracle announced plans to integrate Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) upcoming MI450 artificial intelligence chips into its cloud infrastructure, with deployment scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The companies said the initial rollout will include 50,000 processors, with further expansion expected through 2027 and beyond.

The partnership marks a major win for AMD, securing another top-tier client for its next-generation AI chips, while giving Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) a competitive boost in the global race to provide compute power for AI model training and deployment. “Demand for large-scale AI capacity is accelerating as next-generation AI models outgrow the limits of current clusters,” the companies said in a joint statement.

The announcement comes as demand for AI hardware surges amid the explosion of applications like ChatGPT. AMD’s shares rose over 3% in premarket trading, defying broader market weakness driven by renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, while Oracle’s stock slipped about 1%.

AMD recently unveiled a multi-year deal with OpenAI to supply the same MI450 chips, in an agreement that gives the ChatGPT developer an option to acquire up to 10% of AMD. The companies are also collaborating on a 1-gigawatt AI data facility based on the chip architecture.

The new AI superclusters at Oracle will use AMD’s “Helios” rack design, a fully integrated system combining GPUs and CPUs, mirroring Nvidia’s own rack-scale solutions. The deal underscores AMD’s ambition to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the high-performance AI hardware market.

Crypto traders rush to hedge after record $19 billion market wipeout

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After the largest crypto liquidation in history, investors in the options market are scrambling to protect themselves from another potential collapse in bitcoin and ether, bracing for heightened volatility following last week’s dramatic sell-off.

More than $19 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated last Friday as panic selling and thin liquidity triggered violent swings. Analysts said the 24-hour liquidation was nine times larger than the February 2025 crash and 19 times greater than the 2020 and FTX meltdowns combined. The sell-off was sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese imports and threats of export controls on critical software.

Bitcoin plunged as low as $104,782, down over 14% from its recent record high of $126,000. It has since recovered to around $115,700. Ether also dropped more than 12%, while altcoins such as DOGE, HYPE, and AVAX saw losses exceeding 50% before partially rebounding.

Options traders have since piled into put contracts — which grant the right to sell — at strike prices of $115,000 and $95,000 for bitcoin and $4,000 and $3,600 for ether, signaling rising bearish sentiment through year-end, according to data from Derive.xyz.

Despite the turmoil, on-chain analyst Willy Woo said bitcoin’s investor flows have remained relatively stable compared to other assets, suggesting capital may be rotating from altcoins into bitcoin rather than exiting crypto altogether. Still, analysts caution that bitcoin must overcome key resistance levels before regaining upward momentum.