Anthropic’s $200 Claude Code subscription could consume up to $5,000 in compute per user, according to Cursor’s internal analysis reported by Forbes. The numbers reveal just how aggressively AI companies are subsidizing their coding tools and what that could mean for prices once these tools become essential.
OpenAI and Oracle have decided not to expand their data center site in Abilene, Texas, beyond the planned 1.2 gigawatts. Oracle has leased eight buildings at the location for OpenAI, designed to house around 400,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, but only two have been completed so far.
Oracle had pushed to get OpenAI into six more buildings, but both sides passed because the additional power supply wouldn't be available for at least a year. Instead of expanding the current Blackwell generation, OpenAI plans to buy Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips for a different data center. According to Bloomberg, Nvidia is now trying to get Meta to fill the vacant space, though those talks are still in the early stages.
OpenAI's compute manager Sachin Katti described the Stargate site as already one of the largest AI data center campuses in the country. "We considered expanding it further, but ultimately chose to put that additional capacity in other locations," Katti writes, adding that OpenAI is currently developing more than half a dozen sites across several US states.
Anthropic's coding tool Claude Code now supports local, scheduled tasks through a new /loop command. Users can set up recurring jobs at fixed intervals—minutes, hours, or days—that run in the background as long as Claude Code is active and auto-delete after three days. The feature uses standard cron expressions and the local time zone. One-time natural language reminders like "remind me at 3 PM to push the release branch" are also supported, with up to 50 scheduled tasks per session.
Anthropic developer Thariq Shihipar gives the example of checking error logs every few hours, with Claude Code automatically creating pull requests for fixable bugs. The feature gets especially interesting when connected to other data sources, he says. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny adds use cases like auto-monitoring pull requests with self-fixing or generating morning Slack summaries. A detailed guide is available here.
Claude Code recently received updates adding automated desktop functions, remote control for smartphones, and memory.
Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are assuring customers that Anthropic's AI technology will remain available outside of defense projects, CNBC reports, citing company spokespeople. None of the three have issued public statements.
Microsoft said its legal team reviewed the classification and concluded that Anthropic products, including Claude, can stay available through M365, GitHub, and Microsoft's AI Foundry, except for the US Department of War. Google continues offering Claude through Vertex AI, Amazon through Bedrock and GovCloud.
The reassurances come amid an ongoing dispute between Anthropic and the US Department of War, which designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk. CEO Dario Amodei called the designation legally untenable and said his company plans to fight it in court. Some defense contractors have already told employees to switch to alternatives like OpenAI.
According to the Washington Post, Claude was still used in the recent US attack on Iran despite the designation. The transition to other AI models is expected to take six months, with OpenAI among the new partners.
Anthropic is launching the Anthropic Marketplace, a storefront where corporate customers can buy third-party software built on Anthropic's AI models. Launch partners include Snowflake, Harvey, and Replit. Anthropic isn't taking a commission, and customers can put a portion of their existing annual Anthropic spend toward these tools.
The strategy mirrors what Amazon does with the AWS Marketplace or Microsoft with Azure: Anthropic is positioning itself as the orchestrator of a growing AI software ecosystem. By waiving commissions and letting customers tap existing budgets for third-party tools, the company makes it easy to stay in its ecosystem.
The commission waiver is less generous than it sounds, though. Every marketplace app runs on Anthropic's models, so partners already pay for the model capacity they use. Anthropic doesn't earn from the marketplace itself (yet), but it profits from the growing demand for its models that the marketplace generates. Interested partners can sign up for the waiting list.
OpenAI launches "Codex Security," an AI-powered security agent built to find vulnerabilities in software projects. The tool, formerly known as "Aardvark," is now available as a research preview for ChatGPT Enterprise, Business, and Edu customers, free for the first month. Codex Security analyzes code repositories, builds a project-specific threat model, and tests any vulnerabilities it finds in isolated test environments, OpenAI says.
During the beta phase, OpenAI says the system cut false positives by more than 50 percent and reduced redundant alerts by 84 percent in one case. Over the past 30 days, Codex Security scanned more than 1.2 million commits and flagged 792 critical vulnerabilities.
OpenAI has also reported vulnerabilities in open-source projects, including OpenSSH, GnuTLS, GOGS, Thorium, and Chromium, with 14 CVEs issued so far. A program for open-source maintainers is set to expand. More details on getting started are available in the documentation.
Anthropic also recently shipped its own cybersecurity tool, sending cybersecurity stocks into the red.
Anyone worried about an AI bubble now has more reason for concern: Softbank is looking to borrow up to $40 billion, primarily to finance its stake in OpenAI, Bloomberg reports. If the deal goes through, it would be the largest pure dollar borrowing in the Japanese conglomerate's history. The bridge loan would run for about twelve months, with four banks—including JPMorgan Chase—underwriting it. Negotiations are still ongoing.
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is making a massive bet on artificial intelligence. Beyond the $30 billion earmarked for OpenAI, the company has already poured over $30 billion into the startup and held roughly eleven percent of its shares as of late December. To fund these investments, SoftBank sold off Nvidia shares, among other assets.
The scale of AI-related borrowing is becoming hard to ignore. According to the Financial Times, OpenAI's partners have racked up a combined debt of around $96 billion. Bank of America data shows the five major tech companies took on $121 billion in new debt—four times the usual amount. The Bank of England flagged growing risks at the end of 2025, noting that only three percent of consumers actually pay for AI services so far.
OpenAI is launching "ChatGPT for Excel," a beta add-in that lets users create, edit, and analyze spreadsheets through natural language. The tool runs on the new GPT-5.4 model, which OpenAI says is specifically optimized for financial tasks like modeling, scenario analysis, and data evaluation.
OpenAI tested its own models alongside Opus 4.6 on an internal benchmark designed to evaluate real investment banking tasks, such as building a three-statement model with correct formatting and sources.
| Model | Average Score (higher is better) |
|---|---|
| GPT-5 | 0,437 |
| GPT-5.2 Thinking | 0,684 |
| GPT-5.2 Pro | 0,717 |
| GPT-5.4 Thinking | 0,873 |
| Opus 4.6 | 0,641 |
OpenAI is also rolling out financial data connections for providers like FactSet, Moody's, S&P Global, and LSEG. ChatGPT for Excel is initially available in the US, Canada, and Australia for Business, Enterprise, Pro, and Plus users. A version for Google Sheets is planned to follow.
Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude is adding more than a million new users daily. Mike Krieger shared the milestone on X. The Instagram co-founder joined Anthropic in 2024, initially as Chief Product Officer, and now leads the AI lab's new experiments division.
The surge likely has several drivers. In the consumer space, Anthropic has benefited from the ongoing Pentagon controversy, where the company is widely considered the moral winner compared to OpenAI.
At the same time, AI adoption is growing across the board. Since October 2025, annualized revenue for both companies is estimated to have roughly doubled—from $13 billion to $25 billion for OpenAI, and from $7 billion to $19 billion for Anthropic. That said, both companies are still burning through cash, with massive costs and liabilities offsetting those revenue figures.
