AI: Weekly Summary. RTZ #829

1. Nvidia’s Strong Results & China Challenges: Nvidia again reported strong FY Q2 2026 results, with across the board strength in its businesses. Their guidance going forward was a bit muted given the ongoing uncertainty over its sales into China. Amidst ongoing geopolitically driven trade negotiations between the US and China. The fundamental, bottoms up demand for Nvidia AI Blackwell GPUs and Data Center Infrastructure continues unabated. If anything, the latest AI innovations since OpenAI’s ‘ChatGPT Moment’ just over a 1,000 days ago, are accelerating the demand for its core products. That picture is offset with the uncertainty of its ability to sell China adjusted AI Chips, both the H20 and the newer Blackwell series of chips CEO Jensen Huang continues to balance Nvidia interests in the US and China. More here.

   

2. Drumbeats for Apple AI Deals: New reports outline ongoing Apple internal debate over possible bigger AI deals. This is the accelerating external context of the perception that Apple is the one Mag 7 most behind its peers on AI strategy and investment. I continue to view Apple’s position in a far better light, especially given its unique global set of hardware/software platforms being a distribution point to over 2.5 billion global users. Apple apparently is debating its ‘build vs buy’ options, across its senior management ranks. Options range from stakes in Perplexity to Mistral and others. Apple is apparently also considering a closer partnership with Google to use Gemini across its platforms. This would, add to its existing partnership with OpenAI. Apple in my view, continues to have time and options on AI, despite the independent industry AI frenzy. More here.

   

3. OpenAI & Google Tussle over AI Data: The race for AI data to continue to train better AI chatbot, reasoning and agentic models continues to accelerate. Especially with Google Search data a key target for major LLM AI companies. OpenAi in particular is mired in this tussle with Google around its Search Data. At issue is OpenAI getting the data from third parties like SerpAPI, an intermediary provider of Google Search data to LLM AI companies. These intermediaries scrape high quality information through web crawlers, with varying adherence to the voluminous permissions and terms of service of these destinations. Perplexity and others are also pursuing similar access to this data. The issue highlights a key ongoing issue in the industry to come to terms on organic and synthetic data to train future LLM AI models. This issue also presages a similar battle to come around AI leveraging user data through browsers. AI browsers are the next key area of focus for the AI/tech companies. More here.

   

4. AI Grind gets tougher: More reports on rising anxiety in AI and tech company senior management ranks, around keeping up in a highly competitive AI industry. Especially with its accelerating rates of underlying change. This sentiment crosses large and small tech companies, with a growing sense of the challenges of scaling up ‘add on’ and ‘native’ AI products and services. In addition, a new MIT study highlighted the difficulties in the enterprise space, with over 95% of AI pilots tracked seeing higher failure rates. Also, concerns abound over AI impact on hiring across computer science and other tech company priorities. As well as the impact of rising AI investments on existing tech business models. More here.

5. Anthropic makes AI Browser play: Anthropic made its initial move in the AI Browser space, with Chrome extensions to leverage its Claude models in existing internet Chrome browsers. This while Google is adding Gemini AI features to Chrome, and OpenAI is expected to launch its foray into AI Browsers. Perplexity is already seeing positive reaction to its Comet AI Browser. Expect additional initiatives from Apple around its Safari browser, both across desktops and mobile. Anthropic’s move is likely a precursor to additional initiatives in this area, given that browsers are the single most used applications by billions to access anything and everything on the internet. Google’s antitrust case around its Chrome browser is also a factor in these developments. All these moves also impact the evolution of ‘GEO’ (Generative Engine Optimization) of the internet, from the current ‘SEO’ (Search Engine Optimization) focus. More here.

   

Other AI Readings for weekend:

1. Anthropic sets precedent for AI model training on User Chat Transcripts. More on broader AI Privacy issues here.

   

2. Google’s ‘Nano Banana’ Gemini 2.5 Flash Image editor sees positive reception and reviews. Echoes OpenAI success with its ‘Ghibli’ image editor a few months ago. More on that here.

   

(Additional Note: For more weekend AI listening, have a new podcast series on AI, from a Gen Z to Boomer perspective. It’s called AI Ramblings. Now 18 weekly Episodes and counting. More with the latest AI Ramblings Episode 18 here, on AI issues of the day.

(As well as our latest AI ‘Reads’ and ‘Obsessions’ of the Week. Co-hosted with my nephew Neal Makwana. His latest ‘The New Terms of Service’ piece here).

Up next, the Sunday ‘The Bigger Picture’ tomorrow. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)