#1OpenAI Closes a Mind-Bending $122 Billion Round at an $852 Billion Valuation
OpenAI finalized the largest private funding round in history, with Amazon ($50B), SoftBank ($30B), and Nvidia ($30B) as anchor investors — plus $3B from retail investors. The company reports $2B in monthly revenue and 900M weekly ChatGPT users. Proceeds will fund global compute buildout and a unified "AI superapp" merging ChatGPT, Codex, and agentic tools.
Source: [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-31/openai-valued-at-852-billion-after-completing-122-billion-round) / [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/31/openai-not-yet-public-raises-3b-from-retail-investors-in-monster-122b-fund-raise/)
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#2OpenAI Quietly Kills Sora — and Disney Found Out an Hour Before the Public Did
The Sora app shuts down April 26; the API follows in September. Despite a flashy launch, Sora's user base collapsed below 500K while burning ~$1M/day on compute costs. Sam Altman's decision to pull the plug — which blindsided Disney, who had committed $1B to a partnership — signals that AI video generation hasn't cracked the unit economics problem.
Source: [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/29/why-openai-really-shut-down-sora/) / [Variety](https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/openai-shutting-down-sora-video-disney-1236698277/)
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#3Google Drops Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05/sec — Right as Sora Goes Dark
Google launched Veo 3.1 Lite through the Gemini API, cutting video generation costs to under a third of its predecessor. At 720p and $0.05/second, it's aimed squarely at high-volume developer workloads. The timing — same week Sora dies — is not subtle.
Source: [Google Blog](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ai/veo-3-1-lite/) / [9to5Google](https://9to5google.com/2026/03/31/veo-3-1-lite/)
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#4AI Supply Chain Under Attack: LiteLLM Compromise Hits Mercor and Thousands More
Threat actor TeamPCP poisoned PyPI versions of LiteLLM (downloaded millions of times daily), injecting a three-stage backdoor to harvest credentials. AI recruiting startup Mercor confirmed it was hit, and hacker group Lapsus$ is now claiming possession of 4TB of Mercor data — including source code, a 211GB user database, and 3TB of video interviews and identity documents.
Source: [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/31/mercor-says-it-was-hit-by-cyberattack-tied-to-compromise-of-open-source-litellm-project/) / [SC Media](https://www.scworld.com/brief/ai-startup-mercor-confirms-security-incident-linked-to-litellm-supply-chain-attack)
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#5Newsom Signs First-of-Its-Kind AI Executive Order — With a Direct Shot at Trump
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order requiring AI vendors doing state business to implement safety, privacy, and bias guardrails within 120 days. It also mandates watermarking of AI-generated media and, pointedly, reserves California's right to override any Trump administration AI vendor blacklists. This is the clearest state-federal AI governance showdown yet.
Source: [California Governor's Office](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/03/30/as-trump-rolls-back-protections-governor-newsom-signs-first-of-its-kind-executive-order-to-strengthen-ai-protections-and-responsible-use/) / [KTLA](https://ktla.com/news/california/newsom-signs-executive-order-requiring-ai-companies-to-have-safety-privacy-guardrails/)
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#6Oracle Cuts 20–30K Jobs While Doubling Down on AI Infrastructure
Oracle is laying off tens of thousands of workers in the US and India while aggressively expanding AI data center capacity. It's a pattern repeating across enterprise tech: human labor out, compute in. The workforce reductions are being positioned as a reallocation toward AI-driven operations.
Source: [Tech Startups](https://techstartups.com/2026/04/01/top-tech-news-today-april-1-2026/)
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#7Ghana Approves $250M National AI Computing Centre
Ghana's government greenlit a $250 million investment to build a national AI infrastructure hub, positioning itself as Africa's leading AI development center. The move follows a broader pattern of emerging economies making sovereign bets on AI compute rather than depending entirely on US or Chinese cloud providers.
Source: [TechAfrica News](https://techafricanews.com/2026/04/01/ghana-approves-250m-ai-centre-to-power-digital-transformation/)
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**Big Picture**
Today's news is a study in consolidation and fragility. OpenAI's $122B war chest confirms the infrastructure arms race is accelerating — but Sora's quiet death is a reminder that capital doesn't guarantee product-market fit, especially when compute costs are brutal. Meanwhile, the LiteLLM supply chain attack is a flashing red light: the AI stack is increasingly built on open-source dependencies that are poorly secured and massively exploitable. The Newsom executive order and Ghana's sovereign AI bet both reflect the same anxiety from different directions — nobody wants to be at the mercy of whoever controls the infrastructure layer. The theme of the day: power is concentrating fast, and everyone else is scrambling to not be left dependent.
