AI: Google AI Shifts West, Nvidia ‘Uber Kingmaker’, DeepSeek Prices Up, & More. AI-RTZ #1172
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Big Changes at Google AI: Google saw big changes in senior AI personnel and geographical shifts this week. Demis Hassabis stepped up to chairman and Alphabet chief scientist, with Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over all AI model development from Mountain View, reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai. And four of Google’s most important builders, led by Jeff Dean, are striking out to found Discovery Loop, a recursive self-improvement startup with Google itself investing. The AI center of gravity crosses from London to Silicon Valley, a real loss for the UK and Europe. More here and here.
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Nvidia now ‘Uber Kingmaker’ in AI: Nvidia is shaping up to be a bigger AI ‘Kingmaker’ than ever, with over $750 billion in resources and growing, including talks to backstop up to $250 billion so OpenAI can lease its way to more compute. Circular financing concerns aside, these deals are a pathway to recognized revenues across Nvidia’s trillion-plus dollar backlog. The Kingmaker is now also something like a lender of last resort. More here.
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Global AI Pricing NOT ‘going to Zero’: New reports on AI pricing ‘going to zero’ are overdone. The pricing spectrum is widening instead, down at the commodity end and up at the frontier end. Exhibit A this week: DeepSeek told developers it plans significant price increases, while resuming an $8 billion round at a roughly $70 billion valuation. More here and here.
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US Big Tech focuses on ‘Missionaries’ over ‘Mercenaries’: US tech companies are focused on retaining high priced AI talent after last year’s unprecedented talent grab from each other. Mission and compounding work now matter as much as the pay packages. More here.
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SpaceX’s post-IPO Quarter & lockup release: SpaceX released its first quarter after its mega-AI IPO, with revenue up 92%, spending running at twice revenues, and a reasserted $100 billion ARR target for year end. The market now watches a roughly 900 million share lockup, over $120 billion at current valuations, lifting within days. More here.
Additional Items.
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Students and Faculty in the US are turning more positive on AI. More here.
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White House’s new ‘AI Framework’ leaves US open source alone for now. More here.
(Additional Note: AI Ramblings is now a weekday daily podcast called AI Ramblings Daily (ARD). Different content than AI-Reset to Zero (AI-RTZ), which remains a daily morning substack with now over 1150+ ‘MY TAKES’ on key AI events and issues turbulently flowing by. AI Ramblings Daily is typically a 20 minute afternoon podcast on my take on additional AI developments of the day. Both daily substack and podcasts typically discuss different AI issues and items. And are free to subscribe. Try this week’s series:
ARD 132, ‘As the AI World Turns.’ Oracle, OpenAI & Leopold: Ellison’s 81 ups and downs from the PC to the AI waves, OpenAI ambitions against Anthropic’s focus, and Leopold and South Korea’s leverage woes.
ARD 133, ‘Que Sera, Sera’ in AI. White House, Apple/OpenAI & Elon/SpaceX: the White House AI rules go classified, the Apple and OpenAI PR theft fight, and a possible SpaceX/Tesla merger question.
ARD 134, ‘Out of the Gate.’ SpaceXAI, White House AI Rules & AMD: SpaceXAI’s first public quarter, the White House exempts US open models, and AMD runs into Elon.
ARD 135, ‘Striking Out’ at Google. Mostly in a Good Way: Sir Hassabis steps up, Jeff Dean’s Discovery Loop strikes out toward RSI, and Gemini retires Google Assistant this fall.
ARD 136, ‘Plot Twists’ in Global AI. Google, Frontier Models & DeepSeek: Google’s AI gravity moves to California, sandboxed models find back channels, and DeepSeek prices up):
(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)
