How Nvidia beat the AI chip ban

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Thursday.

How Jensen Huang got Trump to reverse the AI chip ban (NYT):

• In April, the Trump admin blocked Nvidia’s AI chip sales to China.

• Huang launched a months-long lobbying campaign: meeting with Trump, testifying to Congress, and building ties with allies like David Sacks inside the White House.

• He argued banning U.S. chips would push countries toward Chinese alternatives.

• Sacks and Huang aligned on loosening Biden-era chip export limits.

• After securing a huge chip deal with the UAE, they made the case that U.S. tech should be the global standard, just like the U.S. dollar.

• Trump agreed: Nvidia’s fourth-tier chips can now be sold to China again.

Wait, there’s chip tiers?

Quick explainer:

Tier 1–2: Top chips like H100 and H200 used to train advanced AI models
Tier 3: Slightly downgraded chips with limits on bandwidth or memory
Tier 4: Export-approved chips like H20, designed to meet U.S. rules but still useful

OK let’s keep going ↓

🔥 Creative pulse

I found another incredible Runway Act-Two video.

If you liked the last two I posted on LinkedIn, you’ll love this one.

It’s a silly demo reel…but it shows just how impactful AI motion capture will be across multiple industries.

Watch the video. Posted on LinkedIn.

💡 Here’s what you should know

• ChatGPT agent is here

  ChatGPT agent starts rolling out today to Pro, Plus, and Team; Pro will get access by the end of day, while Plus and Team users will get access over the next few days. Enterprise and Education users will get access in the coming weeks.

• Adobe Firefly adds AI video, sound, and avatar tools

  New features include advanced video controls, generative sound effects, and text-to-avatar creation for streamlined content production.

• Dow Jones Newswires launches AI-powered French translation service

  Dow Jones is now delivering up to 1,000 real-time financial news stories per day in French using a multi-agent AI system with human editorial oversight, expanding its reach to French-speaking investors and professionals.

• Delta expands AI-powered ticket pricing to more flights

  Delta plans to use AI to price 20% of its flights by year end, raising concerns among experts about fairness, transparency, and the impact on premium travelers.

• Mistral adds deep research and voice to Le Chat

  Le Chat now handles structured research, voice input, and organized projects.

• Anthropic faces class action over AI book scraping

  A federal judge approved a nationwide class action allowing authors to sue Anthropic for allegedly scraping millions of pirated books to train its AI.

• Google Gemini gets AI pair programmer mode

  Gemini Code Assist’s new Agent Mode can plan and edit entire codebases from a single prompt, enabling faster, smarter development.

• Zoho launches private LLM for secure enterprise AI

  Zia LLM is built in-house, runs on Zoho’s own servers, and rivals top models without using third-party data.

• FAO launches AI chatbot for global HR support

  FAO debuts CertusCare, an AI HR chatbot offering 24/7 support on benefits and policies across global offices.

💰 The numbers

• Anthropic is reportedly raising a new round at a valuation exceeding $100B.

• Perplexity is now valued at $18B following its latest funding discussions.

• UK is investing $1.3B to boost public AI compute 20x over 5 years, with support from Nvidia, Intel, and others.

• Gates, Ballmer, and Koch-backed groups commit $1B over 15 years to build AI tools for frontline workers.

• Hadrian raised $260M to expand AI defense factories, including a new site in Arizona.

• Lovable, a Swedish AI startup building agentic coding tools, raised $200M in a Series A at a $1.8B valuation to become Europe’s newest unicorn.

• Unify raised $40M to expand its AI-native go-to-market platform.

• QpiAI raised $32M to advance its AI‑quantum computing platform.

• H2Ok Innovations raised $12.4M to grow its AI-powered sensor platform for CPG manufacturing.

• Quandri secured $12M to scale its AI automation tools for insurance brokerages.

🧠 Thought starters

• Netflix debuts AI-generated VFX in sci-fi show

• Inside Meta’s AI Push: Zuckerberg x The Information

  ⏱️ 24:38 min (YouTube)

😂 Meme of the day

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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