AI Daily: Tech firms told by China to prep Nvidia H200 orders

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.

NVIDIA H200 ORDERS: Chinese regulators have signaled that major tech firms, including Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (TCEHY), and ByteDance, can begin preparing orders for Nvidia’s (NVDA) H200 AI chips, indicating Beijing is close to formally approving these AI components, Bloomberg reports. Approval is contingent on companies purchasing a certain amount of domestic chips, though specific targets have not yet been set, the publication notes.

MANUS PROBE: Beijing is deepening an investigation into Meta‘s (META) acquisition of Chinese-founded AI startup Manus, raising the risk that regulators will seek to alter or even unwind the deal if wrongdoing is found, Bloomberg reports. Chinese officials are investigating potential violations of rules governing cross-border currency flows, tax accounting and overseas investments, in addition to whether the takeover violated tech export or national security regulations.

RECURSIVE: Famed artificial intelligence researcher Richard Socher is in talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a new startup called Recursive that’s focused on building more advanced AI systems, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg’s Rebecca Torrence and Natasha Mascarenhas report. The financing would value Recursive at roughly $4B, not including the money put in, said the people.

SAKANA AI: Google (GOOGL) is set to make an investment in Sakana AI and the companies will also partner in a move that will let the Japanese AI developer better utilize Google’s large language models in its own product development, Nikkei Asia’s Hayato Kishimi reports.