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This Week's Tech Stories That Actually Matter

Nvidia Just Crushed Earnings and Proved AI Skeptics Dead Wrong

Nvidia reported $57 billion in Q3 revenue on Wednesday. Up 62% year-over-year. Data center revenue alone hit $51.2 billion. CEO Jensen Huang said Blackwell chip demand is "off the charts" and announced $500 billion in orders locked through 2026.

Wall Street expected $62 billion guidance for Q4. Nvidia gave them $65 billion instead. The stock jumped 5% after hours.

Cloud providers have completely sold out GPU capacity. Every major AI lab is fighting for chips. And Huang spent the earnings call dismissing "AI bubble" concerns with numbers that speak louder than skeptics ever could.

When the most important company in AI tech beats expectations while sitting on half a trillion in future orders, the bubble debate is over. Nvidia just proved the infrastructure build is real, massive, and nowhere near done.

Google vs OpenAI: The Real Battle Just Started (And Everyone Called It Wrong)

The AI war everyone thought was over? It's just heating up. Google announced Gemini 3 this week as the competition with OpenAI reaches critical mass.

Here's what nobody saw coming: Google's catching up fast. Their vertical integration advantage -- custom TPUs, cheaper inference -- is starting to matter. OpenAI's model lead has shrunk from 6 months in 2024 to basically zero by November 2025.

The consumer AI battle isn't about who builds the best model anymore. It's about who can deploy it cheaper, faster, and at scale. Google has distribution. OpenAI has mindshare. The fight's now about everything else.

VCs Deployed $6+ Billion This Week Like the Money Printer Never Stopped

Lambda landed $1.5 billion Series E for AI cloud infrastructure. Kalshi grabbed $1 billion for its predictions market platform. Luma AI secured $900 million Series C for multimedia AI.

Physical Intelligence raised $600 million Series B for robotics AI. Function Health pulled in $298 million Series B for proactive health and longevity. Genspark got $275 million Series B for agentic AI web search.

Suno raised $250 million Series C for AI music creation. Profluent secured $106 million Series B for generative AI protein design.

Eight companies raising over $100 million in a single week. AI infrastructure, robotics, health tech, predictions markets, music generation, protein design. The capital isn't chasing hype anymore. It's building the entire AI stack across every vertical imaginable.

Kraken's $800M Raise and $20B Valuation Proves Crypto's Back (With a Suit and Tie)

Crypto exchange Kraken raised $800 million across two rounds in November -- $600M at $15B valuation, then another $200M from Citadel Securities at $20B. They confidentially filed for IPO targeting Q1 2026.

Revenue? Over $1.5 billion in 2024. Q3 2025 alone brought in $648 million -- more than double year-over-year. And get this: Kraken raised only $27 million in primary capital before these rounds. That's capital efficiency that makes SaaS companies jealous.

When one of crypto's biggest players brings in Ken Griffin's Citadel and aims for a public listing, that's not retail hype. That's institutional capital betting big on regulated crypto infrastructure. The wild west is getting zoning laws.

Ramp Raised $300M at $32B Valuation -- Its Fourth Round This Year

Fintech darling Ramp closed $300 million from Lightspeed at a $32 billion valuation this week. That's up from $13 billion in March. Fourth fundraise in 2025. Let that sink in.

The numbers back it up: $1 billion+ annualized revenue. 50,000+ customers (doubled in 12 months). Positive free cash flow. They're processing over $100 billion in annual purchases through AI-powered expense management and AP automation.

When a seven-year-old startup raises four times in one year and still achieves profitability, you're not looking at hype. You're watching corporate finance infrastructure get rebuilt in real-time. Every mid-market company using legacy systems is a target. Ramp's moving at blitzscale speed while printing money.

Nokia Bets $4B on U.S. AI Infrastructure

Nokia announced a $4 billion plan to invest heavily in U.S. AI infrastructure, highlighting the global race to build out power and network capacity for advanced AI systems. The ongoing challenge of scaling power grids fast enough for the AI industry is emerging as a critical bottleneck that could reshape who ultimately has access to frontier AI capabilities.

Cloudflare Had a Very Bad Day (Then Bought Replicate)

November 18 brought an internal Cloudflare system error that caused widespread internet outages, affecting major platforms like X and ChatGPT. The disruption was attributed to a database permissions change that crashed core services, highlighting the internet's fragility.

Days later, Cloudflare announced plans to acquire AI platform Replicate. The strategic move aims to create the most seamless AI cloud for developers, enabling quick and easy deployment of AI models to millions of users worldwide via the Cloudflare Workers platform.

TL;DR:  That's your week. Nvidia crushed skeptics, Google caught up, crypto got institutional, fintech went blitzscale, and the internet proved fragile. The future keeps accelerating.

Cheers,
Oleg👊

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