Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Tech Pulse
Top Models (SWE-Bench Verified): Claude Mythos Preview (93.9%) | GPT-5.3 Codex (85.0%) | Claude Opus 4.5 (80.9%)
Market: NVIDIA $4.3T | Apple $3.9T | Microsoft $3.0T
Stanford AI Index 2026: Global AI Compute Has Grown 30-Fold Since 2021, Leading Models Surpass 50% on Expert Benchmarks
Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI center released its 2026 AI Index, a 400-plus page annual report tracking the state of artificial intelligence globally. Key findings show total AI compute capacity has grown 30-fold since 2021, tripling every year since 2022, with Nvidia GPUs accounting for more than 60 percent of worldwide AI compute. On benchmarks, leading models including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 and Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro now top 50 percent on Humanity’s Last Exam, a test designed to challenge human experts. The United States released 50 notable models in 2025, though China is narrowing the gap. AI investment continues to surge while impacts on employment and public perception remain mixed.
Sources: MIT Technology Review
OpenAI Updates Agents SDK with Sandboxing and Long-Horizon Task Harness for Enterprise Developers
OpenAI updated its Agents SDK on Wednesday, introducing sandboxing and a new harness framework designed to help enterprises build safer and more capable autonomous agents. The sandboxing feature confines agents to a controlled workspace, limiting file and code access to defined operations while protecting the broader system. The new harness enables developers to construct long-horizon agents that can execute extended, multi-step tasks using OpenAI models alongside a company’s existing infrastructure. Both capabilities launch first in Python, with TypeScript support planned for a later release. The updated SDK is available to all API customers at standard pricing, with OpenAI signalling more agentic capabilities for code mode and subagents in development.
Sources: TechCrunch
Microsoft Building OpenClaw-Style Enterprise Agent Inside Microsoft 365 Copilot With Role-Scoped Permissions
Microsoft is developing an OpenClaw-inspired agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot that would run autonomously around the clock, completing multi-step business tasks without requiring constant human input. Reported by The Information on April 13, the prototype monitors Outlook and calendar data, suggests daily to-do lists, and executes workflows with role-scoped permissions for marketing, sales, and accounting teams. Microsoft’s version is designed to address enterprise security concerns that have limited adoption of the open-source OpenClaw agent, trading local-first flexibility for compliance controls and deeper Microsoft 365 integration. The company plans to demonstrate the capability at its Microsoft Build developer conference in June 2026, where further agentic announcements are expected.
Sources: TechCrunch
Taiwan Inaugurates National AI Robotics Center Backed by $629 Million Startup Funding Plan
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te formally inaugurated the National Center for AI Robotics (NCAIR) on April 13, backed by a 629-million-dollar startup funding plan aimed at addressing the island’s labour shortages and strengthening its position in global automation markets. The initiative forms part of Taiwan’s broader Ten AI Initiatives Promotion Plan, with NCAIR operating under the National Institutes of Applied Research and tasked with supporting the development, testing, and training of robotics technologies and engineering talent. The centre is intended to accelerate the commercialisation of physical AI systems and attract investment from both domestic and international robotics firms seeking to establish a foothold in Asia’s manufacturing supply chain.
Sources: Robotics & Automation News
AI Data Centre Startup Fluidstack in Talks for $1 Billion Round at $18 Billion Valuation
Fluidstack, a startup that builds specialised data centres for AI companies, is in talks to raise a 1-billion-dollar funding round at an 18-billion-dollar valuation, according to a report published by TechCrunch on April 14. The new valuation more than doubles the company’s worth from a 7.5-billion-dollar figure reached just months earlier. Jane Street is reported to be the likely lead investor. The rapid appreciation reflects intensifying demand for dedicated AI infrastructure as model training and inference workloads scale beyond what general-purpose cloud providers can cost-efficiently supply. A closed deal would rank among the largest private funding rounds in AI infrastructure to date.
Sources: TechCrunch
Google Launches AI Skills in Chrome, Letting Users Save and Reuse Gemini Prompts as One-Click Workflows
Google is rolling out a feature called Skills for Gemini in Chrome, enabling desktop users to save AI prompts as reusable one-click workflows that run across any web page. Announced April 14, Skills are saved from a user’s Gemini chat history and triggered by typing a forward slash or clicking the plus button in the Chrome sidebar. Google is simultaneously launching a Skills library of pre-built workflows covering productivity, shopping, recipe analysis, and budgeting. The rollout begins today for Chrome desktop users signed into a Google account with English (US) set as the browser language, with broader language support expected to follow in coming months.
Sources: TechCrunch
Parasail Raises $32 Million Series A to Scale Pay-Per-Token AI Inference Supercloud Processing 500 Billion Tokens Daily
Parasail closed a 32-million-dollar Series A on April 15, bringing total funding to 42 million dollars, to expand its AI Supercloud, a pay-per-token inference platform that lets developers deploy and scale AI agents globally in under five minutes. The round was co-led by Touring Capital and Kindred Ventures, with Samsung NEXT and other investors participating. Parasail differentiates itself from major cloud providers by accepting startups without long-term contracts and by optimising model endpoints dynamically for speed, performance, and cost across a distributed pool of GPU compute. The company reports processing more than 500 billion tokens per day and has achieved 30-percent month-over-month revenue growth since launching in April 2025.
Sources: TechCrunch
Curated by JD · samwise.agency