What's up: SoftBank Invests $2 Billion in Intel; enter the Palantir mafia; Palo Alto Networks founder retires.

Good morning. Databricks is finalizing a funding round that would value it at $100 billion, a 61% increase from its last funding round in December.

The latest fundraising surge by the data analytics company is a reminder of how AI, and by extension AI-centric infrastructure companies, are set to reshape enterprise expectations.

A portion of the new funds will go towards product development, including building databases specifically designed for AI agents, rather than for human users, the WSJ’s Angel Au-Yeung reports.

Databricks, which makes money by renting out analytics, AI and other cloud-based software that taps AI-ready data for companies to build their tools, has been actively expanding into the AI agent space. In May the company agreed to acquire Neon, a cloud-based database platform that developers—and AI bots—use when building apps and websites.

In the race to help organizations operationalize AI, the company, like its peers, feeds on talent. Databricks also plans to use the infusion of capital to keep up in the AI talent wars, Chief Executive Ali Ghodsi tells the WSJ. The company, which currently has nearly 9,000 employees, says it will finish the year having added 3,000 to its head count.

Intel shares have tumbled more than 50% since the start of last year as chip maker copes with a product line industry analysts say is outdated for the AI infrastructure boom that has lifted Databricks as well as rivals Nvidia and AMD.

Several players are trying to change that.

SoftBank Group has agreed to invest $2 billion in Intel, a boost from the private sector that coincides with a U.S. government rescue effort for the embattled chip maker.

The investment would give the Japanese firm ownership of about 2% of the company

Meanwhile, the White House is in talks with Intel for a 10% U.S. government stake, a dramatic turn in the weeks-long saga that started when President Trump called for the chip maker's CEO to resign over his China ties. 

While the structure and terms of the equity investment haven’t been finalized, one option would convert some of the money that Intel was slated to receive from the 2022 Chips and Science Act into an equity stake.

Trump makes tech business his business. The move was the latest effort by the White House to dictate affairs of some of the biggest U.S. firms. President Trump recently secured a commitment by Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to pay the government 15% of their chip sales in China in exchange for export licenses.

Over the weekend more than 500 humanoid robots took part in the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, competing in sporting events, but also real-world tasks such as delivering luggage,

Some were remarkably fast and agile, but most were clumsy and inconsistent. Throwing away nine pieces of trash in a mock hotel room took more than 17 minutes for one robot competitor. In a pharmacy simulation, a robot spent nearly five minutes grabbing three boxes of medicine.

Alumni from Palantir, the data analysis firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, have either started or are leading more than 350 tech companies, one former employee tells the WSJ. The founders lean on other ex-Palantir executives and engineers for support and financing, tapping the network for hiring and funding.

A reputation for producing good operators. Alumni, who refer to themselves as the Palantir mafia, credit success to their common strategy, developed at Palantir, called “forward-deployed engineering.” Like consultants, Palantir software engineers often travel to their clients and embed themselves. Once there, they use technological acumen to help solve their clients’ thorniest and most vexing problems.

“The magic of Palantir was we took proper software engineers, the type who had offers from Google and Facebook, and put them on planes and sent them to where the customers were,” said former Palantir engineer and Hex Technologies founder Barry McCardel. “That’s not for everyone, and that’s ok.”

Palo Alto Networks founder Nir Zuk has left the board and retired as chief technology officer, the cybersecurity company said Monday as it laid out guidance for another year of projected revenue and profit gains.

Oracle’s long-time chief security officer, Mary Ann Davidson, is leaving the company in the wake of a reorganization, Bloomberg reports. Davidson joined Oracle in 1988.

HR tech giant Workday in a blog post Friday said hackers compromised a third-party CRM platform housing customer personal information.

Foxconn said on Monday it plans to manufacture data centre equipment with Japan's SoftBank at the Taiwanese firm's former electric vehicle factory in Ohio, part of the Stargate project to advance U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, Reuters reports.

Google agreed on Monday to pay a $35.8 million fine in Australia after the consumer watchdog found it had hurt competition by paying the country's two largest telcos to pre-install its search application on Android phones, excluding rival search engines.

A Google Cloud survey showed that 87% of videogame developers are using artificial intelligence agents to streamline and automate tasks, as the industry focuses on optimizing costs following a wave of record layoffs, Reuters reports. Most of the respondents in the report, published on Monday, said AI was helping automate cumbersome and repetitive tasks, freeing developers to focus on more creative concerns.

President Trump on Monday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet face to face with him at a peace conference in a long shot U.S.-led bid to end the 3½-year-long war in Ukraine. (WSJ)

Union leaders for Air Canada’s flight attendants said members would return to work after a deal was reached to end a strike that grounded hundreds of flights, hitting around 500,000 customers. (WSJ)

An antitrust lawyer who was dismissed last month from the Justice Department accused senior officials of cutting deals with favored lobbyists and undermining the independence of antitrust enforcement. (WSJ)

The Trump administration has restored a public website that tracks federal spending, marking a victory for lawmakers who complained that the White House was using the blackout to freeze funding without public disclosures. (WSJ)

This September, The WSJ Technology Council will convene senior technology leaders to examine how AI is reshaping organizations—redefining teams and workflows, elevating technology’s role in business strategy, and transforming products and services. Conversations will also delve into AI’s evolving security risks and other fast-emerging trends shaping the future.

Select speakers include:

Carolina Dybeck Happe, COO, Microsoft
Severin Hacker, CTO, Duolingo
Yang Lu, CIO, Tapestry
Tilak Mandadi, CTO, CVS Health
Helen Riley, CFO, X, Google's Moonshot Factory

September 15-16 | New York, NY
Request an invitation | Participants and program

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.