Stripe wants to own the toll booth between AI models, for ~$10bn

Stripe is negotiating to acquire OpenRouter, an AI model marketplace that connects developers to over 400 language models, for about $10 billion, a significant increase from its previous valuation. OpenRouter acts as a routing platform between AI model providers and users, aiming to optimize costs and performance. The deal is preliminary and faces competition from other tech firms, while some question the high valuation given the potential ease of replicating such software.