AI At The Edge

Nvidia's Jensen Huang departs, raising worries about AI startup funding and sparking a wave of commentary on Silicon Valley. Also: a tech summit in China, Amazon's plan to catalogue the world's products, a Microsoft outage, AI accusations in publishing, Nigeria's election worries, landslide warnings and young job seekers.

Sources:

• The New York Times: 5 Big Questions as C.E.O.s Meet in China
• The New York Times: Jensen Huang’s Fall Is a Dark Consequence of What’s Happening in Silicon Valley
• The New York Times: Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• The Verge: Jensen Huang and the decline of the visionary showman founder CEO
• The Guardian: ‘The social contract is broken’: young people on feeling shut out of careers
• The Guardian: ‘It’s like the wild west’: how AI has rocked the literary world
• DW: Nigeria: How the pcoming elections are influeced by the rise of AI disinformation
• BBC News: Microsoft says services fully restored after day-long global outage
• BBC News: Tech Now
• The Verge: Amazon has a plan to index the world’s online shopping data
• TechCrunch: Jensen Huang’s departure blasts big hole in AI startup funding, VCs and founders say

Jensen Huang's sudden resignation from Nvidia dominates the news, with fallout for chip supply chains, US-China tensions, Israel's startups and the White House. Also: markets shrug off the turmoil, doubts over Anthropic's IPO, a Microsoft outage, and the EU's first AI summit.

Sources:

• South China Morning Post: China could tighten rare earths exports if US escalates chip curbs over Nvidia: analysts
• TechCrunch: Israel’s VCs see opportunity for challengers in Nvidia’s turmoil
• The New York Times: Jensen Huang’s Fall Costs Asia an A.I. Ambassador to the U.S.
• TechCrunch: Jensen Huang didn’t show confidence in his successor, report says
• DW: Is the AI bubble bursting just as Anthropic goes public?
• BBC News: How a sex scandal at Nvidia is putting pressure on the White House
• The Verge: Let’s talk about Jensen Huang’s many affairs!
• BBC News: What we know so far about the Microsoft outage
• The New York Times: Looking Past Nvidia Turmoil, Stocks Log Best Week in Months
• South China Morning Post: Jensen Huang’s exit tests Nvidia’s supply chain clout, ability to bankroll AI buildout
• DW: EU leaders gather for first ever AI summit
• The New York Times: Nvidia Lost Its Founding C.E.O. Can It Keep Its Momentum?

Nvidia's board is reportedly weighing the future of chief executive Jensen Huang, rattling markets and raising questions about succession and tech power. Also: AI's boost to the UK economy, a prize-winning author cleared of using AI, a new drug-discovery model, Korean startups eyeing the US, and a book on AI in government.

Sources:

• TechCrunch: Nine Korean startups vie for a spot in Disrupt 2027’s Startup Battlefield 200 competition
• The New York Times: Wall Street Sees the Writing on the Wall for Jensen Huang
• The Guardian: Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza cleared of using AI to write prize-winning story
• The Guardian: AI helped UK defy expectations – but will economy’s resilience fizzle out?
• The New York Times: Nvidia Shares Plummet as Board Considers Jensen Huang’s Future as CEO
• South China Morning Post: If Jensen Huang exits Nvidia, who could take the US$4 trillion chipmaker’s reins?
• BBC News: Who could replace Jensen Huang as Nvidia's chief executive?
• The Guardian: Billions lost and markets roiled by one man’s indiscretion. Isn’t it now clear that these tech bros are too powerful? | Aditya Chakrabortty
• The New York Times: What Jensen Huang’s Potential Ouster Could Mean for A.I.
• Rest of World: The promise and peril of AI in government
• South China Morning Post: Loyalty vs accountability: a look at the Nvidia board deciding CEO Jensen Huang’s fate
• South China Morning Post: Former ByteDance AI scientist touts drug-discovery model that tops world leaders

Today: AI datacentres plan huge on-site gas power stations, Nvidia's governance crisis and the Jensen Huang affair, Alibaba's T-Head chip IPO, why AI agents are hard to train, trouble for universities and an Indian library, AI in Argentine and New York politics, and AI-fuelled abuse of women online.

Sources:

• The Guardian: AI datacentres plan on-site power stations on huge scale despite climate risks, research reveals
• TechCrunch: Nvidia’s crisis has corporate governance experts reaching for the popcorn
• South China Morning Post: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair: everything you need to know
• South China Morning Post: Amid Nvidia saga, T-Head IPO a crucial test for Alibaba – and China’s AI ambitions
• South China Morning Post: Alibaba readies T-Head chip IPO as Hong Kong frenzy cools
• The New York Times: Why Is It So Hard to Teach A.I. Agents to Behave? Researchers Have a Theory.
• The Guardian: AI has made it ‘close to impossible’ to assess university coursework, regulator says
• BBC News: New Indian mega library rocked by scandal over 'AI-generated books'
• The New York Times: From Argentina, a Warning to America’s Tech Right
• The New York Times: Unions to Press on A.I. Threat in Mamdani’s First Labor Talks as Mayor
• DW: How AI worsens online violence against Middle East women
• The Guardian: Australians are not streaming Australian music. Why the hell not?! | First Dog on the Moon

Nvidia is engulfed in a scandal around CEO Jensen Huang, with fresh questions about its board and a push in Congress for tougher China export controls. Anthropic sets terms for a huge stock market listing, plus open-source AI security, Ukraine's drone supply squeeze, Hollywood storyboard artists, ChatGPT's Teen Mode and AI-fueled disinformation after the Krakow attack.

Sources:

• The New York Times: Nvidia’s Game of Thrones
• BBC News: Anthropic to raise $64bn in major stock market listing
• The New York Times: Nvidia’s Board Has a History of Letting Jensen Huang Get His Way
• The New York Times: Anthropic Targets Valuation of Up to $1.4 Trillion for Blockbuster I.P.O.
• The Guardian: ‘Without storyboards, I feel like I’m in Grand Central station in my underwear’: film’s fightback against AI
• TechCrunch: Cyberattacks threaten to make open-source AI a little less open, Hugging Face exec warns
• Ars Technica: Ukraine’s fiber-optic drones get squeezed by AI data center demand
• South China Morning Post: US lawmakers push for tougher China export controls in defence bill amid Nvidia scrutiny
• The Guardian: ChatGPT’s Teen Mode could deprive teenagers of a fundamental need | Robin Kirman
• South China Morning Post: Who is Alice Huang and why is her relationship with Nvidia’s CEO under scrutiny?
• DW: Fact check: Online disinformation rife after Krakow mass shooting
• BBC News: Faisal Islam: What the boss of US tech giant Nvidia told me about China and national security

Nvidia's board is investigating CEO Jensen Huang over his relationship with a woman U.S. officials say worked for Chinese intelligence, and analysts weigh what it means for the company, the chip trade and the AI race. Also: China's industrial AI push, DeepSeek's agent growth, the fight for Silicon Valley talent, two Guardian opinion pieces on AI politics and risk, and AI in specialty chemicals.

Sources:

• The New York Times: What to Know About Nvidia’s Investigation of Its C.E.O.
• The New York Times: How Indispensable Is Jensen Huang?
• The New York Times: Nvidia Opens Investigation Into Jensen Huang’s Relationship With Chinese Spy
• South China Morning Post: Nvidia fallout: chipmaker faces extensive risks after CEO affair, analysts and lawyers say
• DW: Why Nvidia CEO's affair with alleged Chinese spy matters
• TechCrunch: Is Jensen Huang’s job on the line? Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld estimates it’s “about a 50-50”
• South China Morning Post: Beyond LLMs? China forges new path for AI with focus on industrial systems
• South China Morning Post: Can DeepSeek challenge OpenAI, Anthropic in AI agents as Harness adoption takes off?
• Rest of World: Chinese AI firms want Silicon Valley’s top minds. Poaching them won’t be easy
• The Guardian: Anti-AI populism is the future of American politics | Garrison Lovely
• The Guardian: Today’s AI won’t achieve superintelligence. But catastrophic risk is real | Sunita Verma
• MIT Technology Review: Innovating with AI in the special chemicals industry

Today's briefing covers a Tencent AI chief's warning about AI and biology, a wave of hacking incidents, a flood of chatbot-written complaints in the UK, and new questions over who is getting Nvidia chips in China. We also look at the politics of AI after the midterms, humanoid robots, Sony's anime push and an AI cooking assistant.

Sources:

• South China Morning Post: AI will soon master biology, unleashing new safety risks, Tencent AI chief warns
• The New York Times: The World Can’t Get Enough Anime. Can Japan Cash In on Its Success?
• South China Morning Post: China’s Pudu Robotics, which makes 80% of its sales abroad, takes on Tesla in humanoids
• The Guardian: ‘AI clog’: UK public bodies battle onslaught of chatbot-generated complaints
• The Guardian: Hot fridges, a fake nuclear alert and a $6bn heist: are we in the foothills of a hacking epidemic?
• The New York Times: We Just Had an Anti-Slop Election
• TechCrunch: After the midterms, things are looking rocky for Elon Musk and data centers
• TechCrunch: Megaspeed exec was recruited to spy on Nvidia CEO, according to US intelligence memo
• The Verge: NYT Cooking’s AI assistant saved my weeknight chicken, but almost ruined my cake
• The Verge: The US let Nvidia sell chips to an empty office in China

OpenAI is reportedly valued at 1.25 trillion dollars after a fresh 11 billion dollar raise, while Anthropic nears an IPO and AI stocks bounce back. We also cover questions about US-approved Nvidia chip sales to Chinese firms, a reported Chinese spying effort, data center trouble from Wyoming to Scotland to Thailand, and a chatbot taking on a mother's complaints.

Sources:

• The New York Times: Can I Have an A.I. Chatbot Field My Mother’s Endless Complaints?
• The Guardian: Steve Jones on dangerous tech innovations – cartoon
• The New York Times: U.S. Cleared Nvidia Chips to Chinese Firms With Empty Offices and Troubling Ties
• The Guardian: Lanarkshire AI datacentre to fully rely on National Grid despite renewables claim
• The Guardian: The datacentre arms race hits pause in south-east Asia
• TechCrunch: Crusoe sells troubled Wyoming data center project to Google
• The Verge: OpenAI valued at $1.25 trillion, as rival Anthropic nears its IPO
• The Verge: China reportedly recruited AI exec to spy on Jensen Huang
• TechCrunch: OpenAI reportedly raises an additional $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation
• BBC News: AI stocks climb after trillions wiped from market values
• The Verge: All the latest updates on AI data centers

Global markets sold off as investors worried about tougher scrutiny of AI and data centers after the US midterms. Also: Microsoft buyouts and a data center protest in Amsterdam, a UN fight over autonomous weapons, AI cheating on the SAT, China's AI chipmakers, and a humanoid robot cleaner.

Sources:

• The Guardian: Global stocks tumble as AI panic grips markets after Democrats’ midterm success – business live
• BBC News: Global stocks plunge as fears over US AI slowdown spread to Asia and Europe
• DW: European shares join a global sell-off as AI spending fears rattle Wall Street and Asian markets
• South China Morning Post: AI bubble bursts, fifth plenum resolution, Singles’ Day
• The New York Times: Why the Tech Right Lost Big This Week
• The New York Times: Microsoft’s Buyout Offer Sets Its Workforce on Edge
• The Verge: Protesters break into Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam
• The Guardian: Russia and US seek to block plan for binding rules on autonomous weapons
• The New York Times: How the College Board Is Fighting A.I. Cheating on the SAT Tests
• The Guardian: Nigel Farage's exit from the Telegraph may be cause for cheer. But there’s a sobering side to this story | Jane Martinson
• South China Morning Post: China’s AI chipmakers report first profits, but will the trend continue?
• MIT Technology Review: I watched a humanoid robot clean my apartment. It felt like a taste of the future.

Tech takes a beating at the polls, with Elon Musk's political spending drawing a poor return and Texas politics shifting under big business. We also cover Agility Robotics going public, Unitree's robot claims, China blocking SoftBank's ABB robotics deal, Big Tech's AI spending, protests against datacentres in Europe, a Micron strike in Taiwan, a profile of Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and a startup offering prizes for materials breakthroughs.

Sources:

• TechCrunch: A YC startup is putting $1M behind five unsolved materials science problems for AI
• The New York Times: The Texas-size Political Tremor Rattling Big Business
• The New York Times: Elon Musk’s Very Bad Night
• The New York Times: What Shaped Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s Thinking on A.I.
• Ars Technica: Agility Robotics' Nasdaq debut invites scrutiny of humanoid robot market
• TechCrunch: Agility is the first pure humanoid robot company on the stock market. Are you buying?
• The Guardian: Was Elon Musk the US midterms' biggest loser? – Stateside with Kai and Carter
• South China Morning Post: Powered by GPT-6, Unitree humanoid robots master painting, chess without training, says CEO
• Rest of World: A rare strike in Taiwan exposes labor unrest beneath the global AI rush
• The Verge: Big Tech’s big AI buildout will not end until someone stops it
• South China Morning Post: China blocks SoftBank’s US$5.4 billion takeover of ABB’s robotics division
• The Guardian: Activists across Europe prepare two days of protests against datacentres