AI Daily: Meta, Arm enter strategic partnership to scale AI efficiency

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP: Arm (ARM) and Meta (META) have announced a strategic partnership to scale AI efficiency “across every layer of compute – spanning AI software and data center infrastructure – to enable richer user experiences to billions of people worldwide,” the company said. The collaboration will enable AI across multiple types of compute, workload, and experiences that power Meta’s global platforms. The multi-year partnership builds on the ongoing hardware and software co-design efforts between the two companies. “AI’s next era will be defined by delivering efficiency at scale. Partnering with Meta, we’re uniting Arm’s performance-per-watt leadership with Meta’s AI innovation to bring smarter, more efficient intelligence everywhere – from milliwatts to megawatts,” Rene Haas, CEO, Arm says.

DATA CENTER: Meta announced that it is breaking ground on a new, AI-focused data center that can scale to a 1GW data center site. “Located in El Paso, Texas, this will be our 29th data center, and will help us to deliver top-tier AI models as we work to fulfill the possibilities of AI and build toward superintelligence,” Meta said. “We’re committed to playing a positive role in the long-term vitality of the communities that host our data centers, and are collaborating with local partners to fulfill this goal. Once the initial phase is completed, the first facilities will represent an investment of more than $1.5B and will support approximately 100 operational jobs. We anticipate that over 1,800 construction workers will be onsite at peak for this phase,” the company added. In total, Meta said it has invested over $10B in Texas and has more than 2,500 full-time employees across the state between our data centers, offices, and research lab.

CLAUDE HAIKU 4.5: Anthropic introduced Claude Haiku 4.5, its latest small model, now available to all users. “Claude Haiku 4.5 even surpasses Claude Sonnet 4 at certain tasks, like using computers. These advances make applications like Claude for Chrome faster and more useful than ever before,” the company said. “If you’re a developer, simply use claude-haiku-4-5 via the Claude API. Pricing is now $1/$5 per million input and output tokens.”

Anthropic also announced that Claude now integrates with Microsoft (MSFT) 365 and offers enterprise search across connected tools. “Connect Claude with Microsoft 365 using our MCP connector. By accessing your documents, communications, and calendar, Claude gains the context to collaborate more effectively-helping you reason through complex problems, make informed decisions, and take action faster,” the company said. “We’re also making it easier to access company knowledge through a dedicated, shared project that’s personalized with your company name. This project includes custom prompts to help Claude search effectively across your company’s tools, plus simple setup steps for connecting your essential work apps. Everyone in your organization gets automatic access to the project once an admin sets it up and connects your essential tools.” The Microsoft 365 connector is available today for all Claude Team and Enterprise plan customers. Administrators must first enable the connector for their organization before individual users can authenticate with their accounts. Enterprise search is enabled for all Team and Enterprise organizations. Admins customize the project and curate data sources for their organization before teams can use it.

NEW AI AGENTS: IBM (IBM) announced new AI agents now available on the Oracle (ORCL) fusion applications AI agent marketplace. The three new agents are designed to help Oracle fusion cloud applications customers achieve new levels of operational efficiency. In addition, IBM plans to release complementary agents for Oracle customers built with IBM watsonx Orchestrate for HR and supply chain. The new agents from IBM Consulting are built with Oracle AI Agent Studio and designed to help organizations automate processes and common workflows within Oracle fusion applications. The three new Oracle-validated agents, available on the Oracle AI Agent Marketplace, are: intercompany agent – automates the review of intercompany agreements; smart sales order entry agent – helps streamline the sales-order creation process by generating relevant data needed in the order-to-cash process; requisition to contract agent – addresses the complex workflow of converting purchase requisitions to contract purchase orders. IBM also intends to expand the ecosystem around Oracle fusion applications with the release of new supply chain and HR agents soon, joining an expanding portfolio of agents announced earlier this year.

OUTSIDE FUNDING: Elon Musk’s xAI is aiming to build and control the world’s most powerful data center and a massive natural gas plant to power it, The Information’s Theo Wayt and Miles Kruppa write. The scale of the project and xAI’s precarious finances are forcing the company into unusual financial arrangements that rely on outsiders to raise funding and shoulder much of the risk, the authors add. xAI wants to have as much control as possible over Colossus 2, its second supersize data center in Memphis. XAI’s desire to control its data centers is in contrast to rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which have partnered more extensively with outside cloud firms to get the computing power they need, they note. The publication further highlights that xAI is working on a $20B lease-to-own deal for Nvidia (NVDA) chips, has formed joint venture with Solaris Energy for a 1-gigawatt power plant. xAI’s precarious finances force reliance on outside funding and risk-sharing, the report adds.

EXEC DEPARTURE: Ke Yang, Apple’s (AAPL) executive in charge of developing an AI-driven web search is departing the company to join Meta Platforms, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported. The team he was leading, called Answer, Knowledge, and Information – or AKI – was said to be central to the major revamp planned for Apple’s Siri tool, the report stated.

AGENTFORCE: Salesforce (CRM) and Google (GOOG) announced an expansion of their strategic partnership, introducing a new wave of AI innovations designed to transform the enterprise. This collaboration brings Google’s Gemini models to the new Agentforce 360 Platform. The expanded partnership places employee productivity at the forefront, integrating Agentforce 360 with Google Workspace for sales and IT service and expanding the Salesforce Gemini integration, already available in Gmail, to more Google Workspace tools.

AI & ANALYTICS: Snowflake (SNOW) and Palantir Technologies (PLTR) announced a new partnership that integrates Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud with Palantir Foundry and Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform, or AIP. This partnership aims to enable customers in the commercial and public sectors to build more efficient and trusted data pipelines, faster data analytics, and AI applications. With the expanded integration between Foundry and Snowflake Iceberg Tables, joint customers can achieve bidirectional, zero-copy interoperability. Eaton (ETN) is leveraging the new Snowflake and Palantir partnership to build a best-in-class data foundation for its operations supported by AI-enabled workflows. The Snowflake and Palantir integration aims to enable customers like Eaton to deploy AI agents that can improve key metrics like business customer lifetime value and churn reduction, while simultaneously lowering costs and complexity.

RESPONSIBLE AI PRODUCTS: Spotify (SPOT) stated in a post to its corporate site, “AI technology is advancing quickly, bringing both new creative possibilities and challenges for the music industry. It’s critical for the music industry to join forces and act together to protect creativity while enabling innovation. Stamping out the worst outcomes of Gen AI is an essential piece of the puzzle. Last month, we shared steps we’re taking to stamp out spam, impersonation, and deception in the age of AI. We’ve also been hearing consistently from artists and their teams that emerging AI music products often don’t feel like they’re built to power their careers, their businesses, and their fan bases. Too frequently, they feel like short-term experiments built to compete with them, rather than long-term solutions designed to serve artists. That’s why Spotify’s focus has been on utilizing Gen AI technology to power features that connect fans and artists, like our AI DJ, personalized daylist, or AI Playlist, which help listeners discover their next favorite artists in new ways. Today, we’re announcing plans to collaborate with Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Believe to develop responsible AI products that empower the artists and songwriters they represent, and connect them with the fans who support them. (We hope to bring on additional rightsholders and distributors over time.) Some voices in the tech industry believe copyright should be abolished. We don’t. Musicians’ rights matter. Copyright is essential. If the music industry doesn’t lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation. Together with rightsholders, artists, and songwriters, we are making significant investments in AI research and product development.”