Plus: Nvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face; Zoph joins Google DeepMind as VP
Welcome to a Saturday edition where the legal and corporate landscapes are shifting beneath our feet.
POLICY
⚖️ Judge Lin blocks Anthropic blacklist
Judge Rita Lin ruled the US Department of Defense acted unlawfully when it designated Anthropic a supply chain risk. Judge Lin said the Defense Department had acted unlawfully to order firms that do business with the US military to boycott Anthropic.
The details:
Judge Lin declared that the administration's actions violated the First Amendment by punishing Anthropic for disagreeing with the government.
Judge Lin said the moves against Anthropic violated the company's due process rights.
Judge Lin invalidated a February social media post by Hegseth stating that no military contractors are allowed to conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.
Nvidia has agreed to buy open-source platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. Deal talks began after Hugging Face received acquisition interest from another suitor.
The details:
A source familiar with the matter told CNBC they could confirm acquisition by Nvidia has been part of ongoing and recent talks.
Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue blamed engineering mistakes for a recent attack on Hugging Face.
Hugging Face recently reached approximately $150 million in annualized revenue.
Barret Zoph is a co-founder of artificial intelligence startup Thinking Machines Lab. Zoph made a brief return to OpenAI after leaving Thinking Machines earlier this year.
The details:
Zoph will join Google DeepMind as Vice President of Research.
Zoph previously served as Vice President of Research at OpenAI.
Zoph spent six years at Google as a research scientist in Google Brain.