Nvidia & xAI Join $100B AI Infrastructure Partnership

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Fed Holds, Stocks fizzle, Nvidia Stargate rival, FTC, DOGE

• Companies to watch: X, xAI, Taara, Graphite, Dataminr, Generalist AI

• Feature: Nvidia, xAI Join $100B AI Infrastructure Partnership

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Fed Holds, Hints Cuts — The Fed holds rates at 4.25%-4.5%, signals two potential cuts, lowers 2025 GDP growth to 1.7%, raises inflation estimates to 2.8%. Stocks rose on Weds but fizzled out Thurs as Treasuries, USD rose and risk-off tone took hold.

Stargate Rival — Nvidia, xAI, Microsoft, BlackRock, and MGX form a consortium investing $30B in U.S. AI infrastructure, raising $100 billion.

Amazon Criticized — Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya criticized Amazon's working conditions, linking his dismissal to billionaire supporters of Trump, amid antitrust scrutiny.

DOGE Leashed — A federal judge ruled Elon Musk's role in DOGE breaches the appointments clause, orders USAID restored, limits dismantling efforts. Trump's expected exec order to abolish the Department of Education also faces legal challenges. A key Tesla analyst and booster urges Musk to leave DOGE.

State Spying Tech — Australia, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Singapore used Paragon's spyware, which can target apps without user interaction, per Citizen Lab.

EU vs. Big Tech — The EU is urging Apple and Google to comply with the DMA, citing unfair practices, despite potential Trump backlash.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

X — Despite a recent equity raise valuing it at $32B, the social platform’s valuation rebounded to $44B. 2024 adjusted earnings reached $1.2B, recovering to pre-Musk.

Taara — Alphabet's light-based internet project Taara will spin off into an independent company, aiming to compete with Starlink in connectivity solutions.

Graphite — The AI-powered code review platform raised $52M Series B led by Accel with Anthropic participating, aiming for product and team growth.

Dataminr — Raised $85M in debt to enhance its analytics platform for risk detection, support AI development, and expand international sales, nearing $200M in ARR.

Generalist AI — A former DeepMind researcher launched the stealth-mode robotics startup with backing from Nvidia, aiming to develop general-purpose robots.

xAI — Elon Musk's xAI acquired Hotshot, enhancing automated content creation to compete with OpenAI's Sora and Google's Veo 2. Hotshot focuses on video models impacting education and entertainment.

THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH
US-UAE AI Alliance Reshapes the AI Future

The global race for AI dominance is intensifying, and a powerful new alliance is taking shape between the US and the United Arab Emirates, focused on building foundational AI infrastructure. Pres. Trump and allies just met with UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the White House over two days, and jointly announced a potentially $100 billion initiative, the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP). The partnership sees an initial $30 billion committed by industry giants including newly announced Nvidia and xAI are joining Microsoft, and BlackRock in the project  anchored by the UAE’s MGX, a $100 billion fund with deep government ties. This project is additional to OpenAI and Oracle’s similar Softbank-backed venture also announced this month.

High-Stakes Diplomacy

The UAE seeks to ease US export restrictions on advanced semiconductors crucial for AI development to enhance its stated ambition of becoming a leader in digital innovation as it diversifies away from oil revenues. This goal requires access to cutting-edge chips like those from Nvidia. 

The US companies involved also support reconsidering these restrictions, recognizing the UAE's strategic value in the AI race, and eager for a slice of the money available for on-shoring manufacturing. Nvidia, for example, plans to invest $500 billion in US electronics manufacturing over the next four years, CEO Jensen Huang revealed this week, shifting its production away from Asia due to Trump’s tariffs and geopolitical risks. Huang stated Nvidia expects to procure around $500B worth of electronics, with "several hundred billion" of that being manufactured in the US.

Nvidia also just announced a partnership with GM to deploy its AI-powered tech and hardware across the automaker’s next-generation vehicles and production factories. This is set to be an early example of Nvidia’s massive plan to essentially power AI-driven factories across the country, from the hardware, through to the digital twins software and models.

Securing US Technological Edge

Nvidia's central role in the AIP also signals a US intent to maintain dominance in AI chip technology. For Microsoft, the partnership is another sign of its venturing away from OpenAI, after it recently began building its own models comparable to the world’s top AI systems. xAI's participation further boosts the development of advanced AI models like Grok 3, which will require significant computing power. It also positions xAI as a leading player in the AI field globally, giving it the connections to play a significant role in powering the industrial revolution expected from AI. 

Powering Up

The first major project of the AIP will be a massive data center in Abilene, Texas housing around 400,000 Nvidia AI chips by mid-2026, suggesting the massive size of the partnership’s plans. It will require 1.2 gigawatts of power capacity, to be powered by renewable energy. Renewable energy companies GE Vernova and NextEra Energy have agreed to collaborate with AIP to accelerate the scaling of energy solutions for AI data centres as part of the project. In a week that saw oil price volatility with the re-escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza (with US approval), more strikes on Yemen, and increased pressure on Iran from the Trump admin, the importance of energy security is a big consideration in AI resilience.   

Ultimately, the strengthening US-UAE and US-Saudi collaborations have far-reaching geopolitical repercussions on the complex and interconnected nature of global tech, economics and politics in the AI age. It's hard not to see this announcement as another win for the US in the battle against China for AI market dominance. But MGX’s ties to China have been well publicised in the past, so it is still unclear to what extent this partnership will require an exclusive US alliance.

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BUZZY TOOLS
Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

NVIDIA — 1. Blackwell Ultra GB300 + Vera Rubin AI superchips. | 2. 2 personal AI supercomputers. | 3. GR00T N1, world 1st humanoids open foundation model.

Adobe — Launches Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator for AI-marketing

Gmail — AI search update for faster, relevant email retrieval.

iPhone 17 Air — 5.5mm, ultraslim bezels, battery efficient, ~$900, in Sept.

Google — Pixel 9a, midrange, $499, Tensor G4 processor, 30hr battery. In April.

Tencent — New AI service converts text/images to 3D visuals with Hunyuan3D-2.0.

BUZZY TECH
The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Pruna AI — Open-sources its AI model optimization for LLM compression.

Eternal Data Storage — Nanoglass enables 360 TB storage for 13.8B years.

AI Chip Design — Synopsys' AgentEngineer automates semiconductor design.

Chem AI Tool — ML identifies chemical compositions with 99% accuracy.

Digital Brains — MS, Inait develop AI models mimicking mammalian brain.

Inference-Time AI Scaling — New method enhances AI by parallel answers.

AI Task Completion — New metric identifies “Moore’s Law” for AI progress.

SPACE_RACE

—SpaceX_Returns NASA astronauts to Earth after 9-mth ISS stay.

—SpaceX_NROL-57 launch set for March, aims to break reuse record.

—Chinese Space Robot_6-legged hybrid bot for asteroid/lunar mining ops.

—Space Force Budget_FY2025 cut to $28.7B, $30M to GPS satellites.

—Space Weather_Satellite operators seek better weather models post-Gannon.

[NEW FEATURE] CRYPTO WATCH

Trump Bitcoin Pledge — Trump vowed to make the US the leading Bitcoin superpower at the Blockworks Summit, criticizing Biden's crypto policies.

SEC Crypto Custody Rule — Acting SEC Chair Uyeda is reexamining a proposed rule requiring advisers to use qualified custodians for crypto, amid industry concerns.

TON Foundation — Raised over $400M through a token sale, supporting its Telegram-based blockchain ecosystem development.

Ripple — CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced SEC will drop its appeal in a key crypto case, seen as a victory for Ripple amid similar withdrawals involving Coinbase and Robinhood.

Kraken — The crypto exchange is reportedly close to acquiring a futures trading business for $1.5B, aiming to expand its offerings in the derivatives market.

Privy — Announced a new funding round led by Ribbit Capital, showcasing growth from 1M to over 50M accounts since October 2023, with plans to expand.

MEMETICS

Wow! Deel updated its corporate platform. The honesty is brutal.

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