NEWS
Fireworks raises US $ 1.505 billion Series D as enterprise demand for specialised AI accelerates
Fireworks has raised US $ 1.505 billion in a Series D funding round, reaching a valuation of US $ 17.5 billion as demand grows for enterprise AI built on customised open models rather than relying solely on closed systems.
The investment was led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures and TCV, with participation from existing investors including Evantic, Lightspeed Venture Partners and NVIDIA.
The company said it has surpassed US $ 1 billion in annualised revenue run rate, representing fivefold growth since its previous funding round. Daily tokens served increased from 15 trillion to more than 40 trillion, highlighting rising enterprise adoption of specialised AI.
Fireworks Chief executive Lin Qiao said organisations increasingly wanted models trained on proprietary data, workflows and customer knowledge to deliver faster responses at lower cost while maintaining greater control over intellectual property.
Fireworks said 95 % of tokens processed across its platform now came from specialised models. The company plans to use the funding to expand engineering teams, increase global compute capacity and strengthen partnerships with Microsoft and NVIDIA, supporting customers building tailored AI systems for production environments worldwide.
The platform offers more than 200 text, image and multimodal models and supports new open releases within hours of launch.
Management said the additional capital would help meet accelerating enterprise demand as businesses increasingly combine frontier and open models for real-world applications, balancing performance, flexibility and cost efficiency.
The funding also reinforces investor confidence in infrastructure providers enabling customised artificial intelligence deployments across industries at global scale over the coming several years ahead together.
Atlas Energy Solutions scales AI-powered driverless trucking across the Permian Basin
Atlas Energy Solutions is expanding the use of AI-powered autonomous trucks across the Permian Basin, marking another milestone in the Digital Transformation of oilfield logistics through its partnership with Kodiak AI.
The company has extended driverless operations to a second load-out point along its 42-mile Dune Express sand conveyor system, allowing simultaneous autonomous deliveries from sites in Texas and New Mexico. The expansion increases geographical coverage, improves customer responsiveness and supports growing demand for proppant transportation.
Atlas and Kodiak also plan to grow the autonomous fleet from 28 driverless trucks to 100 vehicles by mid-2027. The companies expect the trucks to begin operating on public roads in early 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and operational milestones.
Since launching driverless operations in 2024, the fleet has completed around 7,000 deliveries, transported more than 450,000 tons of sand and accumulated over 23,500 driverless operating hours during the first quarter of 2026. On July 20, the autonomous fleet achieved a record 176 deliveries in a single day.
Earlier this year, the partners completed what they described as the industry’ s first autonomous triple-trailer trucking operation, moving more than 135 tons in a single driverless journey.
Atlas said the programme combines mining, AI-powered transportation and digital logistics management to improve efficiency, reduce operational risk and lower costs for energy producers. Kodiak said the expanding deployment demonstrated that autonomous trucking had moved beyond pilot projects into commercial operations, providing a scalable model for applying Physical AI to heavy industrial logistics across the energy sector. www. intelligentcio. com
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