15 July 2025
Topic: Companies And Business
Thinking Machines Lab Raises a Record $2 Billion, Announces Cofounders
Mira Murati and several other former OpenAI researchers are behind the buzzy AI startup, now valued at $12 billion and officially out of stealth....
TL;DR
Thinking Machines Lab, an AI company founded by top researchers who left OpenAI, raises a record $2 billion seed round, valuing the company at $12 billion.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The $2 billion funding round is the largest seed funding round in history, reflecting the competitive AI market and premium on top AI talent.
- Thinking Machines is developing multimodal AI that will interact with humans through conversation, sight, and collaboration.
- The company will release its first product within the next few months, including an open-source component, to aid researchers and startups.
Nvidia says it has Trump administration green light to sell China its advanced H20 computer chips used for AI
Bangkok — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips …...
TL;DR
Nvidia has received approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips to China, reversing a previous policy.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- Nvidia can now better compete with Huawei in the China market and globally, thanks to the approval to sell its advanced H20 chips.
- The new policy is expected to bring substantial revenue growth to Nvidia, making up for losses caused by the previous ban.
- However, some analysts warn that Chinese firms may remain focused on domestic chip development due to concerns over future policy shifts.
Nvidia is set to resume China chip sales after months of regulatory whiplash
Nvidia announced Monday that it’s filing applications to restart sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, capping a spasmodic few mont...
TL;DR
Nvidia is filing applications to restart sales of its H20 AI chips to China, introducing a new 'RTX Pro' chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The U.S. government's flip-flopping on export controls has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers, who argue it undermines efforts to limit China's AI capabilities.
- Chinese companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, had stockpiled H20 chips, which are the most powerful chips Nvidia can legally sell to China, due to superior memory bandwidth and Nvidia's widely-adopted software ecosystem.
- Nvidia has announced plans to build AI servers in the U.S. worth as much as $500 billion over the next four years to address concerns about national security and commercial interests.
A former OpenAI engineer describes what it’s really like to work there
A senior engineer describes the thrill, chaos, and exhaustion of working at OpenAI this past year while launching its coding agent Codex....
TL;DR
A former OpenAI engineer shares his 1-year experience at the company, revealing its rapid growth, chaotic work environment, and focus on practical AI safety measures.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- OpenAI grew from 1,000 to 3,000 employees in a year, creating chaos and duplication of efforts.
- The company is focused on practical AI safety measures, such as preventing hate speech and manipulation of political biases, but is still working on long-term safety implications.
- OpenAI's culture is still like a small startup, with empowered employees and a 'launching spirit', but with top-down management and planning to address scaling issues.
Chinese firms rush for Nvidia chips as US prepares to lift ban
H20 chips, designed to skirt export bans, are back after Trump meets with CEO. Chinese firms have begun rushing to order Nvidia's H20 AI chips as the ...
TL;DR
Nvidia plans to resume sales of its H20 AI chips to mainland China after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump, potentially generating $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- Chinese tech giants are scrambling to order Nvidia's H20 chips after the company plans to restart shipments to mainland China.
- Nvidia is expected to receive US government licenses soon to resume H20 sales, with the Chinese market accounting for 13% of total sales ($17 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ending January 26).
- Nvidia will introduce a new 'RTX Pro' chip model tailored to meet regulatory rules in the Chinese market, though specifications and capabilities were not disclosed.
Meta fixes bug that could leak users’ AI prompts and generated content
The tech giant fixed the security flaw, netting a security researcher $10,000 for privately disclosing the bug....
TL;DR
Meta fixed a security bug in Meta AI chatbot that allowed users to access private prompts and responses of other users.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The bug allowed users to view someone else's private prompts and AI-generated responses by manipulating a unique number assigned to each prompt.
- Meta paid a $10,000 bug bounty reward to the researcher who privately disclosed the issue and deployed a fix on January 24, 2025.
- There is no evidence that the bug was maliciously exploited, but the vulnerability highlights security and privacy risks associated with AI products.
AV startup Pronto.ai acquires off-road autonomous vehicle rival SafeAI
Pronto.ai CEO Anthony Levandowski said the move is meant to help bolster his company's ranks with like-minded talent and complementary technology....
TL;DR
Pronto.ai, a startup that develops a self-driving system for haulage trucks and off-road vehicles, has acquired SafeAI, a competitor, to expand its engineering team and technology capabilities.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The acquisition will bring Pronto's engineering team up to 52 people, significantly expanding its capacity and resources.
- Pronto will gain access to SafeAI's technology, including its multi-sensor approach and ASIL D-certified safety framework, allowing it to offer customers a tiered technology portfolio.
- The acquisition price was in the millions, according to a source familiar with the deal.
AI’s giants want to take over the classroom
OpenAI and Anthropic say AI can help students learn—not just cheat—even if real-world use suggests otherwise. School’s out and it’s high summer, but a...
TL;DR
A $23 million partnership between OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic aims to bring AI into K-12 classrooms, but its effectiveness and ethics remain unclear.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The initiative, National Academy for AI Instruction, will train teachers on using AI for teaching and tasks like lesson planning.
- Studies suggest that AI can improve student engagement, but also frequently leads to cheating and reduced critical thinking.
- Educators are divided on the use of AI in the classroom, with some resistant to the technology and others seeing it as a tool for enhancement.
World chess champion forces ChatGPT to surrender in history-making game
As fast as artificial intelligence might be improving, it's apparently still not good enough to beat a renowned chess champion, as the current world …...
TL;DR
The world chess champion has won against ChatGPT in a history-making game, with the AI model acknowledging the champion's methodical victory.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The world chess champion has outperformed ChatGPT in a high-profile match.
- The AI sector experienced a significant boost from the Trump administration, propelling AI stocks to historic highs, resulting in a $70 billion valuation.
- A $1,000 investment in Bitcoin made in 2019 has outperformed every major traditional asset, with a $70,000,000,000 valuation.
Nvidia says Trump administration lifts ban on AI chip sales to China
Washington has been concerned China could use Nvidia’s chips to get a jump on the U.S. in high-tech fields, particularly when it comes to artificial i...
TL;DR
Nvidia said the U.S. government is allowing the company to sell its AI chips to China, reversing course after banning sales in April.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- The sale of Nvidia AI chips to China has sparked concerns in Washington about helping Beijing's military and degrading the U.S.'s position in global high-tech competition.
- China is an important market for Nvidia, accounting for about 13% of the company's revenue last year.
- The Trump administration's reversal comes amid broader trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, and may be connected to a pledge to lift export controls on China.
Meta is reportedly using actual tents to build data centers
Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are in a hurry to build their superintelligence tech. The company has been poaching AI researchers, while Zuckerberg anno...
TL;DR
Meta is racing to build its superintelligence tech, with a 5-gigawatt data center called Hyperion and rapid hiring of AI researchers.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- Meta is building multiple temporary data centers, including Hyperion, to accelerate its computing power and AI capacity.
- The Hyperion data center in Louisiana is expected to have a capacity of 2 gigawatts by 2030, with Meta prioritizing speed over traditional construction timelines.
- By poaching AI researchers and accelerating its data center development, Meta aims to close the gap with competitors like OpenAI, xAI, and Google.
a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise
Data shows that the vast majority of images on Civitai were pornographic, and that the site hosted more than 50,000 AI models designed to recreate …...
TL;DR
New research reveals that the AI platform Civitai has a significantly higher volume of adult content than previously stated, with 56% of images tagged as NSFW by October 2023, contradicting the platform's CEO's earlier estimate.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- More than 40 million user-generated images on Civitai and over 230,000 models were studied, revealing a disproportionate rise in explicit content.
- The proportion of overtly sexual or disturbing content on the site grew from 41% to 80% in two years, with a significant increase in NSFW imagery in 2024.
- Civitai's CEO initially downplayed the site's adult content, stating that less than 20% of posts were 'PG-13' or above, but the data suggests that adult content was a dominant factor in the site's growth and user adoption.
Microsoft says new AI tool can diagnose patients 4 times more accurately than human doctors
Metr's 'Moore's Law for AI' isn't just for one task. New report shows the doubling of autonomous capability holds true across multiple domains!
A billion dollar company couldn't build a option to pin chats and messages. So i did.
Nvidia stock surges after CEO Jensen Huang announces previously-banned AI chips will be shipped "very soon"
Zuck: AI researchers joining Meta for infinite compute and small teams, not just money
Anthropic Status Update: Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:01:35 +0000
Swiss Open LLM
ChatGPT Pro Switched from GPT-Image-1 to DALL·E – Super Fast but No Text Capability? What’s Going On?
From Pipeline of Agents to go-agent: Why I moved from Python to Go for agent development
Anthropic Status Update: Tue, 15 Jul 2025 12:35:45 +0000
Nvidia Says U.S. Has Lifted Restrictions on A.I. Chip Sales to China | The Silicon Valley chip giant said the Trump administration, which had shut down its sales to China three months ago, had assured it that licenses for the sales would now be granted.
Chinese LLM thinks it's ChatGPT (again)
Meta on track to be first lab with a 1GW supercluster
I spent 8 years working at Silicon Valley AI startups funded by Sequoia, Felecis, Y-Combinator, etc.
Elon Musk’s AI bot adds a ridiculous anime companion with ‘NSFW’ mode