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Soho Farmhouse.
Sam Shead

LONDON — Hundreds of the biggest names in European tech rubbed shoulders with politicians and wealthy investors on the lawns of the Soho Farmhouse private members club in rural England on Thursday, at what was one of the first major tech events to happen in over a year.

Attendees of the annual Founders Forum event included the former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron (who lives just up the road), ex-Finance Minister George Osborne, and the past and present U.K. tech ministers: Ed Vaizey and Oliver Dowden, respectively.

Google’s Matt Brittin and Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn, the European bosses of the Silicon Valley heavyweights, showed up, as did the general manager for TikTok in Europe, Rich Waterworth, who previously ran marketing for YouTube on the continent. 

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zoom co-founder Eric Yuan beamed themselves in from the U.S. for video interviews, while DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman resurfaced after he exited the company in controversial circumstances to join Google. Mike Lynch, who is currently fighting extradition to the U.S. on fraud claims after selling his software start-up Autonomy to HP for over $11 billion, was also in attendance. Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp was due to attend but had to drop out after the U.K. pushed back the date for its full lockdown easing.

“Everyone I want to meet in Europe is here,” reads a quote from Schmidt on the event’s website. “Founders Forum has emerged as the go-to destination for tech in Europe.”

The founders and CEOs of apps like Monzo, Wise (formerly TransferWise), Citymapper, and many more also turned up to network and listen to talks on everything from existential risks that threaten to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth, to hiring top talent in the field of artificial intelligence.

Elsewhere, venture capitalists from firms with billions of dollars at their disposal — such as Sequoia, Index Ventures, Atomico and Balderton — were also present, as were some of the U.K.’s most active angel investors.

For many it was the first in-person tech event they’ve been able to attend in over a year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the day, people kept saying how “weird” it was to be there as they fist-bumped and elbow-bumped one another. Everyone had to record themselves taking a Covid-19 test and getting a negative result in an app developed by Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus before they were allowed to attend.

The ‘Davos of tech’

British Brent Hoberman, Co-Founder of PROfounders Capital, Chairman of made.com and Founder and Chairman of mydeco.com
Eric Piermont I AFP | Getty Images

Branded as “something like the Davos of tech” by The Guardian newspaper, Founders Forum is put on by serial entrepreneur and investor Brent Hoberman.

The former Eton and Oxford student, who co-founded Lastminute.com and the recently listed Made.com, is well-known for having one of the most impressive networks in the European tech scene and many of his friends and investments are invited to Founders Forum each year.

The organizers describe it as a private network of the world’s top-tier entrepreneurs, CEOs and investors from technology, media and digital.

Previous guests have included Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, former Apple design boss Jony Ive, broadcaster David Attenborough, and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Prince William, a member of the British royal family, has also attended. 

Normally held at the five-star Grove Hotel, this year marks the first time Founders Forum has been held at Soho Farmhouse. Aston Martins, Maseratis, Range Rovers and Teslas could all be spotted in the car park on the day of the event. 

“To have an event there is crazy money,” a member of Soho House, which owns Soho Farmhouse, told CNBC, asking to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the discussion.

For some, one of the highlights of the day was witnessing British jet suit inventor Richard Browning flying around a few feet above the ground.

After being fed throughout the day, Founders Forum guests were treated to freshly-grilled lobster, and strawberries and cream in the evening. On their way home, they were given goodie bags containing products from the likes of Cowshed and Charlotte Tilbury.

Timothy Armoo, the CEO of Fanbytes, a company that helps brands advertise through social video, told CNBC he really enjoyed the event.

“The quality of the conversations remained very high which was quite pleasing,” he said.

“With this being the first major event that people have been to in a while, there is the danger that it becomes more of a ‘catch up’ session for friends but that wasn’t the case at all. Meaningful connections were fostered and that’s what you’re looking for when you go to these events. I also really admired how they handled social-distancing rules, people were respectful and the pre-process of taking tests was quite comforting.”

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OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings to help accelerate enterprise AI adoption

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OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings to help accelerate enterprise AI adoption

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 8, 2025.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

OpenAI on Monday announced it is taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, a company that was launched by one of its major investors, Thrive Capital, in April.

The startup said it will embed engineering, research and product teams within Thrive Holdings’ companies to help accelerate their AI adoption and boost cost efficiency.

Thrive Holdings buys, owns and runs companies that it believes could benefit from technologies like artificial intelligence. It operates in sectors that are “core to the real economy,” starting with accounting and IT services, according to its website.

OpenAI, which is valued at $500 billion, did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement.

“We are excited to extend our partnership with OpenAI to embed their frontier models, products, and services into sectors we believe have tremendous potential to benefit from technological innovation and adoption,” Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings, said in a statement.

It’s the latest example of OpenAI’s circular dealmaking.

In recent months, the company has taken stakes in infrastructure partners like Advanced Micro Devices and CoreWeave.

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The partnership is structured in a way that aligns the incentives of OpenAI and Thrive Holdings long term, according to a person familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details are private.

If Thrive Holdings’ companies succeed, the size of OpenAI’s stake will grow.  

It also acts as a way for OpenAI to get compensated for its services, according to another person familiar with the agreement who declined to be named because the details are confidential.

“This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what’s possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations to revolutionize how businesses work and engage with customers,” OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said in a statement.

OpenAI also announced a collaboration with the consulting firm Accenture on Monday.

The startup said its business offering, ChatGPT Enterprise, will roll out to “tens of thousands” of Accenture employees.

WATCH: OpenAI taps Foxconn to build AI hardware in the U.S.

OpenAI taps Foxconn to build AI hardware in the U.S.

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Runway rolls out new AI video model that beats Google, OpenAI in key benchmark

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Runway rolls out new AI video model that beats Google, OpenAI in key benchmark

Mustafa Hatipoglu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence startup Runway on Monday announced Gen 4.5, a new video model that outperforms similar models from Google and OpenAI in an independent benchmark.

Gen 4.5 allows users to generate high-definition videos based on written prompts that describe the motion and action they want. Runway said the model is good at understanding physics, human motion, camera movements and cause and effect.

The model holds the No. 1 spot on the Video Arena leaderboard, which is maintained by the independent AI benchmarking and analysis company Artificial Analysis. To determine the text-to-video model rankings, people compare two different model outputs and vote for their favorite without knowing which companies are behind them.

Google’s Veo 3 model holds second place on the leaderboard, and OpenAI’s Sora 2 Pro model is in seventh place.  

“We managed to out-compete trillion-dollar companies with a team of 100 people,” Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela told CNBC in an interview. “You can get to frontiers just by being extremely focused and diligent.”

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Runway was founded in 2018 and earned a spot on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list this year. It conducts AI research and builds video and world models, which are models that are trained on video and observational data to better reflect how the physical world works.

The startup’s customers include media organizations, studios, brands, designers, creatives and students. Its valuation has swelled to $3.55 billion, according to PitchBook.

Valenzuela said Gen 4.5 was codenamed “David” in a nod to the biblical story of David and Goliath. The model was “an overnight success that took like seven years,” he said. 

“It does feel like a very interesting moment in time where the era of efficiency and research is upon us,” Valenzuela said. “[We’re] excited to be able to make sure that AI is not monopolized by two or three companies.” 

Gen 4.5 is rolling out gradually, but it will be available to all of Runway’s customers by the end of the week. Valenzuela said it’s the first of several major releases that the company has in store.

“It will be available through Runway’s platform, its application programming interface and through some of the company’s partners,” he said.

WATCH: We tested OpenAI’s Sora 2 AI-video app to find out why Hollywood is worried

We tested OpenAI’s Sora 2 AI-video app to find out why Hollywood is worried

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Nvidia takes $2 billion stake in Synopsys with expanded computing power partnership

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Nvidia takes  billion stake in Synopsys with expanded computing power partnership

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Synopsys partnership: 'It's a huge deal'

Nvidia on Monday announced it has purchased $2 billion of Synopsys‘ common stock as part of a strategic partnership to accelerate computing and artificial intelligence engineering solutions.

As part of the multiyear partnership, Nvidia will help Synopsys accelerate its portfolio of compute-intensive applications, advance agentic AI engineering, expand cloud access and develop joint go-to-market initiatives, according to a release. Nvidia said it purchased Synopsys’ stock at $414.79 per share.

“Our partnership with Synopsys harnesses the power of Nvidia accelerated computing and AI to reimagine engineering and design — empowering engineers to invent the extraordinary products that will shape our future,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the release.

Synopsys stock climbed 3%. Nvidia shares rose slightly.

Tune in at 9:30 a.m. ET as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi join CNBC TV to discuss the partnership. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.

Nvidia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom because it makes the graphics processing units, or GPUs, that are key to building and training AI models and running large workloads.

Synopsys offers services including silicon design and electronic design automation that help its customers build AI-powered products.

“The complexity and cost of developing next-generation intelligent systems demands engineering solutions with a deeper integration of electronics and physics, accelerated by AI capabilities and compute,” Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi said in a statement.

The partnership is not exclusive, which means that Nvidia and Synopsys can still work with other companies in the ecosystem.

Both companies will hold a press conference to discuss the announcement at 10 a.m. ET.

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Nvidia CEO: AI is going to transform every single industry

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