[10/19 21:00 UTC] Anthropic in talks with Nscale on a second, roughly 45 billion dollar compu…

AI News Flash for October 19, 2026 at 21:00 UTC. Topics: 1. Anthropic in talks with Nscale on a second, roughly 45 billion dollar compute deal for a Vera Rubin facility in West Virginia https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nscale-anthropic-talks-45-billion-193754631.html https://www.tradingview.com/news/stocktwits:f5488933c094b:0-this-nvidia-backed-cloud-computing-firm-is-reportedly-in-talks-to-sign-a-45b-compute-deal-with-anthropic/ 2. US State Department sanctions five Chinese entities linked to a former Google engineer convicted of stealing AI trade secrets https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesman/2026/10/imposing-sanctions-to-protect-americans-from-intellectual-property-theft https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesman/2026/10/imposing-sanctions-to-protect-americans-from-intellectual-property-theft-fact-sheet/ https://www.socialnews.xyz/2026/10/19/us-sanctions-five-chinese-firms-over-ai-theft/ 3. Germany's Merz, alongside Jensen Huang, urges companies to open their doors to AI as Berlin signs a physical AI pact with Nvidia https://kfgo.com/2026/10/19/germanys-merz-urges-ai-investment-ahead-of-nvidia-deal/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/germany-wants-to-lead-the-world-in-industrial-ai-how-nvidia-will-help/ 4. Australian report finds AI-powered workplace surveillance spreading, including a cashier warned over one error per 533 scans https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/20/workplace-privacy-concerns-employers-use-ai-to-monitor-staff 5. Mass General Brigham AI predicts biological age and cancer survival risk from a single face photo, trained on over 40 million images https://news.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/ai-facial-recognition-tools-assess-age-cancer-survival-risk