Ornn, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup, raised a $33 million seed round to build a marketplace for trading the computing power that underpins today's AI boom, similar to what exists for oil traders.

Why it matters: Investors increasingly want to trade compute like a commodity, betting it could make the historically expensive AI buildout more sustainable and efficient.

Catch up quick: Commodity markets let companies use futures contracts to lock in prices for volatile raw materials.

• Think airlines locking in jet fuel prices or manufacturers hedging metals prices, which helps them reduce the risk of price fluctuations.
• But AI companies don't have an equivalent market for compute, a problem the 20-something founders of Ornn and a growing number of exchanges are trying to solve.
• So far, AI companies have tried to lock up supply and prices through long-term pre-purchasing agreements.

Follow the money: Goldman Sachs estimates that between 2026 and 2031 roughly $7.6 trillion will be invested globally in building up compute, power and data centers.

• But the financial infrastructure needed to sustain that level of spend "has not yet been built," the bank adds.
• Companies like Ornn want to help build that infrastructure.

Yes, but: Compute isn't a static commodity.

• Each new generation of Nvidia chips promises better price performance, which changes the value of older chips. Any benchmark has to chase a depreciating asset.
• Compute also isn't a tangible good in the same way oil is: GPU capacity can't be stored, so unused compute disappears, making it harder to build standardized contracts and pricing around it.

What they're saying: "We want to make financing AI way more seamless," Wayne Nelms, Ornn's chief technology officer, told Axios.

• His co-founder and CEO, Kush Bavaria, sees this as part of America's potential advantage over China and added that the company does not work with Chinese AI labs.

Zoom in: Lenders can use Ornn for benchmarking, while buyers and sellers of compute can use it to hedge.

• It's also helpful for price discovery: Ornn has already integrated with Bloomberg Terminal and other data providers, which lets traders check GPU prices through the tools they already use.
• Ornn is able to operate under a de minimis exemption, while larger firms are still working through regulatory approval.
• Pending regulatory approval, CME plans to launch compute futures tied to Silicon Data's benchmark, and the Intercontinental Exchange plans GPU compute futures tied to Ornn's pricing index.

The bottom line: Compute may never trade like oil, but with $7.6 trillion on the line, Wall Street is going to try anyway.

Share this story

The fight that scrubbed the world's most powerful AI models from the internet featured personality clashes, industry confusion and international backlash.

Why it matters: Anthropic's models are back online, but the impact of its 20-day showdown with the Trump administration will be long lasting.

Behind the scenes: It began when Amazon, Anthropic's partner and investor, sounded an alarm that was later disputed by cybersecurity experts.

• It warned about a "jailbreaking" issue it found with the AI lab's latest models, Mythos and Fable — meaning a technical flaw that could have caused a failure of their guardrails.
• Amazon flagged its concerns to the administration, triggering sweeping export controls. A U.S. official said the government conducted its own tests once it became apparent that the issue needed to be addressed.
• Cybersecurity experts, however, later wrote in an open letter to the administration that other leading AI models have the same issue Amazon warned about with Anthropic.

On June 12, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, at the direction of President Trump, called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

• Lutnick made clear to Amodei the issue needed to be resolved fast and alerted the CEO that the company would be receiving a letter imposing sweeping export controls, the U.S. official said.
• Amodei called Lutnick back that night after receiving the letter, realizing it effectively meant the models would have to be taken offline — to which Lutnick responded that was indeed the goal.

That decision led to a three-week, multi-agency crash course in AI safety.

• Anthropic deployed engineers to Washington D.C. According to a U.S. official, the company wanted to prove everything was already resolved and further changes were being fine tuned.
• But the federal Center for AI Standards and Innovation and the National Security Agency said those changes weren't good enough, prompting further fixes, according to the U.S. official.
• Gradually, various agency heads approved of the changes, and on July 1 the models were released, the official said.

Out of all of the administration officials Amazon's Andy Jassy could have called, it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who first heard about the jailbreaking issue found in the company report, according to a separate source familiar.

• Bessent was early to sound the alarm on Mythos, work with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to reengage the embattled company and help get a cybersecurity executive order across the finish line.
• While technical discussions to address the jailbreaking issue took place in D.C., it was Bessent who stood next to Trump during the G7, where allies called for global cooperation on safety standards.

At the center of the showdown was Lutnick, who also flanked Trump at the G7 meeting while his department's teams led technical discussions.

• National cyber director Sean Cairncross, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Treasury Department chief information officer Sam Corcos and the NSA also all participated in technical discussions, according to various sources.
• Washington mobilized faster to hold scores of meetings and pulled in far more agencies than one would expect for a single technical issue, one source said.

The tension spiraled amid personality clashes and poor communication.

• Anthropic eventually understood that in order to be successful, it needed to be on the same side as the government, the U.S. official said.
• As discussions turned more technical, Anthropic policy chief Sarah Heck and Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown got more involved. Brown also had multiple conversations with Lutnick and Cairncross the weekend of June 12.
• There was never a moment when Dario stepped offstage and someone else replaced him, one source said, adding that Brown's technical expertise allowed him to sit in a room with government specialists and go line by line through how models behave under stress.

Between the lines: It remains uncertain when and how Anthropic's models will be released to ally countries around the world — which proponents say is key to beating China — or how other labs from OpenAI to Google will release their latest models.

• OpenAI, whose latest model GPT-5.6 is on hold, did not have visibility into discussions between Anthropic and the White House and is engaged in daily technical discussions on the release of its own model, a source said.

The bottom line: There's a lot of work left to be done on a framework for approving future models with a clear inclusive process that has transparency standards and timelines, sources familiar said.

Share this story

• Amazon said it is no longer accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk and is placing the gig work system in maintenance mode, a signal it could shutter it entirely. (The Register)
• ByteDance is making inroads in Hollywood with the quality and low cost of its Seedance AI video creation tool. (LA Times)

Karl The Fog blocked our view of the fireworks, but it was still amazing to spend the Fourth on the bay aboard Iron Oars, the whale boat of my friends' rowing team.