Latest AI news — September 20, 2026

Trump: an “AI Force” and a new AI czar — no details yet. On Saturday on Truth Social he said he will create an “AI Force” (likened to Space Force) and soon name an AI czar. He wrote that they will not “hinder or stifle” industry growth; misconduct would be handled with existing criminal and civil tools. The White House gave no structure, authority, or nominee. It would be his second AI czar (David Sacks left in the spring). The post came ahead of the upcoming Trump–Xi meeting. Source: Reuters, Washington Post.

Anthropic: IPO slips from October to November. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Anthropic moved its planned public listing from October to November. Advisers say that leaves room to show Q3 results; the decision reportedly predates the latest pacing debate. Secondary reports cite a ~$2 trillion valuation and a raise of up to ~$100 billion — estimates, not an official filing. Source: WSJ, Asia Business Daily.

OpenAI: ~$278 billion negative free cash flow through 2030. The Financial Times, citing a company presentation: about $278 billion in negative FCF from 2026–2030, while compute/infrastructure spend could reach ~$856 billion. Revenue would rise from ~$36 billion (2026) toward ~$350 billion (2030). Softer than the May ~$305 billion gap; the March $122 billion round, per the presentation, would run out around 2028. OpenAI’s current valuation is ~$852 billion; in a new round it would seek above $1.2 trillion. Source: Anadolu Agency (FT), Bloomberg.

StepFun: Step 5 Preview API is live. The Beijing lab opened the API on September 20: ~600 billion parameters sparse MoE, ~27 billion active per token, 1M context, vision. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index it scores 44 (level with Kimi K3 Max); list price ~$1 / $2.70 per million input/output tokens. Full open weights are promised for October 15. Source: StepFun, AI Weekly.

Lovable acquires Sutro — reliability and “explainable” software. On September 18 Sweden’s Lovable announced it bought Sutro, which built a language/compiler/backend platform so application behavior and business rules are explicit. Founder Tomáš Halgaš and three engineers join; Halgaš will lead technical evangelism. Price undisclosed; Sutro winds down as a separate product. Source: Lovable.