GenAI Daily - February 15, 2026: Chinese AI Surge, Canada-Germany Alliance, Massive Anthropic Round

Top Story

Chinese Tech Giants Challenge Western AI Dominance with New Model Releases

China's biggest tech companies have launched advanced AI models this week that underscore how Chinese firms are keeping pace with U.S. rivals.

Alibaba's DAMO Academy unveiled RynnBrain, an AI model designed to help robots comprehend the physical world, with video demonstrations showing robots counting oranges and retrieving milk from a fridge.

ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 and Kuaishou's Kling 3.0 represent the latest advances in AI video generation, with Seedance 2.0 videos showing realistic imagery fully created with AI.

Hugging Face researcher Yakefu noted that "Seedance 2.0 is one of the most well-rounded video generation models I've tested so far," delivering satisfying results on the first try with simple prompts.

Why it matters: These releases signal that Chinese AI capabilities are closing the gap with Western competitors, potentially reshaping competitive dynamics in both enterprise and consumer AI markets as global companies evaluate model alternatives.

Key Developments

Canada and Germany Launch Sovereign Technology Alliance to Counter AI Dependencies

Canada and Germany signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on Artificial Intelligence and launched the Sovereign Technology Alliance to strengthen cooperation on advanced technologies, building on their December 2025 Digital Alliance.

The Alliance aims to deepen coordination with trusted partners to strengthen sovereign AI capacity and reduce strategic technology dependencies through practical cooperation on advanced technologies.

The ministers discussed opportunities to collaborate with leading research organizations advancing safe-by-design AI systems, including Canada's LawZero, founded by Turing Prize winner Professor Yoshua Bengio.

Impact: This alliance represents growing momentum for Western democracies to build AI capabilities independent of potential adversaries, signaling increased government investment in domestic AI infrastructure.

Anthropic Raises Record $30 Billion at $380 Billion Valuation

Anthropic has secured a $30 billion Series G funding round at a $380 billion post-money valuation, making it one of the highest-valued AI companies globally with revenue run-rate now exceeding $14 billion.

The financing was led by Singapore's GIC and Coatue, with substantial co-investment from D.E. Shaw, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, Iconiq Capital, and MGX, along with participation from Microsoft and Nvidia.

This represents the largest venture deal of 2026 so far, underscoring investors' confidence in Anthropic's approach as it races against rival OpenAI in the generative AI space. TechCrunch

Impact: This massive funding round intensifies the AI arms race and validates enterprise demand for alternatives to OpenAI, potentially accelerating competition in foundation model development.

MTN and Huawei Deploy World's First Large-Scale Alpha Antenna Network

MTN Ghana and Huawei completed the world's first large-scale deployment of the Alpha Antenna, achieving a 6.8% rise in regional traffic while improving operations and maintenance efficiency by 30x.

The Alpha antenna drives a paradigm shift in network operations by enabling closed-loop capabilities for "real-time retrieval, precise control, and dynamic optimization" - transitioning from passive manual intervention to a proactive, AI-powered model.

This successful collaboration has laid a foundation for future AI-driven intelligent networks, injecting fresh momentum into Africa's digital transformation. Huawei

Impact: This deployment demonstrates practical AI infrastructure improvements in emerging markets, potentially accelerating global adoption of AI-powered network management systems.

Product Launches

• ARK Ecosystem Arkie AI: Web3-focused AI agent designed as a productivity tool rather than entertainment chat, capable of analyzing data, evaluating projects, and identifying risks within the ARK ecosystem (The Manila Times)

• Intuit Construction Edition: AI-native ERP solution for the $2 trillion construction industry, featuring automated workflows, real-time project visibility, and integrated financial operations, currently in beta for Enterprise Suite customers (Intuit)

Funding & Deals

• Simile - $100M Series A: Builds predictive behavior modeling technology that simulates human decision-making for enterprise applications, trained on extensive interviews and real-world data to predict consumer preferences and analyst questions - Led by Index Ventures (TechCrunch)

• Fibr AI - $5.7M Seed: Marketing technology startup developing AI-powered personalization and optimization tools for customer acquisition and conversion - Led by Accel (Scene for Dummies)

• Alaffia Health - $55M Series B: Automates health plan claims operations for healthcare providers, focusing on streamlining administrative processes and reducing operational costs - Amount from Healthcare IT Today roundup (Healthcare IT Today)

Related reading: Check out this week's Deep Insights analysis for strategic context on these developments.