OpenAI and Oracle Strike Massive $300 Billion Cloud Deal

Not only did Oracle make the news for its CEO surpassing Elon Musk as the richest person in the world. There’s been word on the street that Oracle may have just struck one of the biggest deals with OpenAI, summing up to $300 billion. You need the details? We got you! We covered everything else you may have missed this week as well.

Apple held its biggest product launch event of the year this week, delivering some impressive new devices alongside a few pricing surprises that consumers should know about. The star of the show was the all-new iPhone 17 Air, Apple’s thinnest smartphone ever at just 5.6 millimeters thick. This marks the first major iPhone design overhaul since the iPhone X in 2017. The Air features a premium titanium frame and comes in four colors: white, gold, black, and sky blue. Despite its ultra-thin profile, Apple promises all-day battery life thanks to optimized internals and new power-saving features in iOS 26.

While the iPhone 17 Air starts at $999, Apple discontinued the iPhone 16 Plus entirely and replaced it with this pricier Air model. The iPhone 17 Pro jumped from $999 to $1,099, though Apple says it now includes more storage. The real sticker shock comes with storage upgrades, Apple has doubled the cost from $100 to $200 for each tier jump. If you want maximum 2TB storage on a Pro, That’ll be $1,999 total. The new iPhones pack Apple’s A19 Pro chip, delivering three times the graphics performance and enhanced AI capabilities. The camera system got major upgrades too, especially for selfies, with almost double the front sensor size.

Apple also introduced the Watch Series 11 with a standout health feature: chronic high blood pressure detection through 30-day analysis periods. The watch keeps its $399 starting price, while the Ultra 3 stays at $799. AirPods Pro 3 maintain their $249 price while adding live translation and better fit options. All products launch September 19 with the new iOS 26 featuring Apple’s “liquid glass” visual redesign. However, Wall Street seemed underwhelmed, Apple’s stock dropped 1.5% as analysts called the updates incremental rather than revolutionary.

Oracle’s stock picked up following news of what could be one of the largest cloud computing contracts in history. According to Wall Street Journal reporting, OpenAI has agreed to purchase $300 billion worth of compute power from Oracle over approximately five years, with purchases beginning in 2027. This massive deal helps explain Oracle’s recent announcement about signing multiple multi-billion-dollar contracts that sent shares soaring. If confirmed, it would rank among the biggest cloud deals ever inked, highlighting just how much computing power AI companies need to fuel their operations. The partnership isn’t entirely new. OpenAI began using Oracle’s computing services in summer 2024 as part of a broader strategy to reduce its dependence on Microsoft Azure, which had been its exclusive cloud provider. This shift became more pronounced in January when OpenAI officially ended its exclusive relationship with Microsoft.

The timing aligns with OpenAI’s involvement in the ambitious Stargate Project, a joint venture with SoftBank and Oracle that commits $500 billion toward domestic data center construction over the next four years. This infrastructure push reflects the enormous computational demands of training and running advanced AI models. OpenAI’s appetite for computing resources appears nearly insatiable. Beyond Oracle, the company reportedly signed a cloud deal with Google this spring, despite the two companies being fierce competitors in the AI race. This multi-cloud strategy shows how OpenAI is prioritizing access to computing power over traditional partnership loyalties. The deal underscores a broader trend in the AI industry where companies are securing massive amounts of computing capacity to support their growing models and user bases.

For Oracle, landing such a substantial contract from one of the world’s most prominent AI companies validates its cloud infrastructure investments and positions it as a serious player in the competitive cloud market. Neither Oracle nor OpenAI have officially confirmed the deal’s details, but Oracle’s recent financial disclosures about major contract signings certainly add credibility to the reports.

After years of promises and false starts, Spotify is finally rolling out lossless music streaming to premium subscribers. The feature supports up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC quality streaming, which preserves original audio quality without compression. This launch has been a long time coming. Spotify first announced plans for a hi-fi tier back in 2021, but the feature faced multiple delays due to licensing issues and other complications. CEO Daniel Ek said as recently as last year that the company was still in the “early days” of launching lossless support.

The rollout is happening gradually through October across more than 50 countries. Users in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK are already getting access. You’ll receive a notification when the feature becomes available on your account.

To enable lossless streaming, head to Settings and Privacy > Media Quality and select “Lossless” quality for Wi-Fi, cellular data, and downloads. Keep in mind that you’ll need to manually enable this setting on each device you use - it doesn’t sync automatically across your account.

There are some important limitations to know about. Lossless files are much larger than regular streaming files, so Spotify will let you track your data usage. While you can stream lossless quality over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connections can’t handle the bandwidth requirements. You’ll need to use Spotify Connect with compatible devices from companies like Bose, Yamaha, and Bluesound to get lossless quality through Wi-Fi streaming. Spotify is playing catch-up with this launch.

Apple Music has offered lossless streaming since 2021 at no extra cost, while Amazon Music made its lossless service free after initially launching it as a paid tier in 2019. The company says lossless support covers “nearly every track” in its 100-million-song library, though some songs may not have lossless versions available. For audiophiles and music enthusiasts who have been waiting patiently, this finally brings Spotify up to par with its main competitors in terms of audio quality options.

French AI company Mistral has raised €1.7 billion ($1.99 billion) in a funding round led by Dutch chipmaking equipment giant ASML, valuing the European AI challenger at €11.7 billion ($13.67 billion). The funding represents a significant jump from Mistral’s 2024 valuation of $6.2 billion and positions the company as Europe’s strongest competitor to US AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Founded just two years ago in 2023, Mistral has quickly gained traction with its Le Chat chatbot and AI models used by major companies and several European governments. What makes this deal particularly interesting is the partnership between ASML and Mistral. ASML, the world’s only manufacturer of advanced lithography equipment used to make cutting-edge semiconductors, operates in a very different part of the tech supply chain than most AI investors. However, both companies are seen as critical to Europe’s push for digital sovereignty and reduced dependence on American tech vendors. “This investment brings together two technology leaders operating in the same value chain,” said Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch.

The partnership aims to help ASML and its partners solve engineering challenges through AI while advancing the broader semiconductor and AI ecosystem. Alongside ASML, the funding round included participation from existing investors DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, and Nvidia. Mistral plans to use the capital to fuel scientific research and tackle sophisticated technological challenges across strategic industries.

The company has been rapidly building its infrastructure capabilities. It operates Mistral Compute, its own AI cloud service, and has moved from relying solely on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud to partnering with specialized AI cloud providers like CoreWeave. Mistral is also investing heavily in European data center capacity, including a 40MW GPU cluster in France coming online this year and plans for a massive 1.4GW AI data center in the Paris region by 2028. This funding round underscores Europe’s ambitions to compete with Silicon Valley in the AI race while building homegrown technological capabilities that reduce reliance on American platforms and infrastructure.

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