OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank

👋 Good morning or evening, wherever you are. It’s Tuesday.

The race to build AI’s backbone is moving faster than expected.

OpenAI and its partners are expanding Stargate with five new U.S. data center sites, bringing total planned capacity to nearly 7 GW and more than $400B in investment.

That puts the consortium on track to reach its $500B, 10-GW goal ahead of schedule by the end of 2025.

The new sites in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and the Midwest will create tens of thousands of jobs and anchor Stargate as the largest AI infrastructure program in the U.S.

OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank have become the three horsemen of the AI-pocalypse, and their momentum is reshaping both markets and geopolitics.

OK let’s keep going ↓

🔥 Creative pulse

If you missed James Wajura’s AI film The Mortals yesterday, it’s worth going back to watch. His perspective as both director and DoP brings rare vision, and a few moments feel completely new for AI.

Keep in mind that many experienced artists, directors, DoPs, and filmmakers haven’t even fully embraced AI yet. What happens when millions of them start rushing in?

Will the hierarchy of talent stay the same, or will the artists born in the AI era leave the deeper mark? It isn’t a competition, but it is a conversation worth having.

AI density is only getting bigger, and we’ll dig into this more soon.

PS: If you’re passionate about AI creative, join the club. It’s $5/month and the people inside will pull you higher than you could go alone.

Inside you’ll find filmmakers and festival-recognized directors, Cannes Lions jurors, studio veterans, award-winning creatives from film, gaming, music, and ads, plus early builders of the AI tools shaping the industry.

It’s global, it’s full of ambitious creators, and it’s where the next wave of breakthroughs is happening.

One insight or connection inside could change your life. Join now.

💡 Here’s what you should know

• Snowflake and partners launch Open Semantic Interchange

  Snowflake, Salesforce, dbt Labs, RelationalAI, and BlackRock back a vendor-neutral framework to unify data semantics, improve interoperability, and accelerate AI adoption.

• Meta launches super PAC to block state-level AI rules

  Meta is pouring tens of millions into a new PAC to elect state candidates who back AI progress and oppose restrictive tech regulation.

• Google expands AI Plus plan to 40 new countries

  The subscription offers affordable access to Gemini features, Veo 3 Fast video generation, Nano Banana image tools, productivity apps, and 200 GB of storage for individuals and families.

• Google Labs launches Mixboard, an AI-powered concepting board

  Mixboard lets users explore and refine ideas with generative visuals, text prompts, and easy editing tools.

• Microsoft building AI marketplace for publishers

  The company is piloting a Publisher Content Marketplace that would pay media firms for content used in AI tools like Copilot, aiming to create a sustainable model for publishers in the AI era.

• Microsoft cracks chip cooling with microfluidics breakthrough

  Microsoft has developed an in-chip liquid cooling system that removes heat up to three times more efficiently than today’s cold plates, paving the way for denser, faster, and more sustainable AI datacenters.

• Developers embrace AI as mainstream tool in 2025 DORA report

  Google Cloud’s annual survey finds 90% of software professionals now use AI daily, reporting major productivity gains and improved code quality, though trust in AI remains mixed.

• Micron lifts outlook on booming AI chip demand

  The memory maker forecast first-quarter revenue above estimates, driven by surging demand for its high-bandwidth memory chips, which are key components in Nvidia’s AI systems.

• Cloudflare expands Project Galileo to shield news sites from AI crawlers

  Journalists and local news outlets in Project Galileo will now get free access to Cloudflare’s Bot Management and AI Crawl Control, giving them tools to block or monitor AI scrapers, protect traffic, and negotiate fairer use of their content.

• Boeing and Palantir team up on defense AI

  Boeing Defense, Space & Security will use Palantir’s Foundry to unify data, boost production, and support classified military programs.

• Google Play revamps with AI gaming assist and cross-device play

  Google Play’s new platform adds an AI-powered in-game “Sidekick,” a personalized “You” tab, and PC gameplay as part of its expanded gaming experience.

• Google Photos adds conversational editing for Android users

  Android users in the U.S. can now edit photos by simply describing changes with voice or text, powered by Gemini AI.

Also Suno v5 is here:

💰 The numbers

• Filevine, a legal tech firm increasingly focused on AI tools, raised $400M in equity financing.

• Signal AI, a UK firm specializing in media monitoring + risk using AI, raised $165M led by Battery Ventures.

• Presight and Shorooq launched a $100M global AI innovation fund to back next-gen AI ventures.

• Obot.AI, an open-source / infrastructure AI startup, raised $35M in seed funding.

• AmplifAI, a contact center platform using AI to boost agent performance, secured $33.7M in a Series B round.

• Greptile, an AI startup building code validation tools, raised $25M in early-stage funding.

• UCLA and UC Davis will co-lead the PRISM Trial, a $16M national study on whether AI can improve breast cancer screening accuracy and reduce unnecessary callbacks.

• Rocket, an AI-powered app development platform in Surat, raised $15M from Salesforce Ventures, Accel, and others.

• Track3D, an AI-led real-estate intelligence startup (construction monitoring), raised $10M from Ironspring Ventures and others.

🧠 Thought starters

Chip leasing is the quiet revolution inside the $100B Nvidia and OpenAI deal.

Instead of owning GPUs, AI leaders will rent them like utilities, turning compute into a recurring line item rather than a capital expense.

This model locks in long-term revenue for suppliers, reduces upfront risk for builders, and accelerates scale.

But, it also raises bigger questions: what happens when the future of AI depends on a handful of providers, and when chip financing becomes entangled with state visits, sovereign capital, and trillion-dollar buildouts?

The next phase may look less like tech and more like energy or telecom.

Multi-year contracts, regulatory oversight, and financial engineering could turn chips into tradable assets, and what begins as a financing model for GPUs may end up reshaping the entire cloud hierarchy.

Let’s be fair though, because one reality is that not all AI output creates value. Research shows 40% of U.S. desk workers received “workslop” last month, polished but empty content that adds cost instead of progress.

For execs, the challenge is ensuring more compute drives substance, not cleanup.

😂 Meme of the day

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

Join the AI Creative Club (you’ll find me there). It’s not only for artists and filmmakers…it’s for anyone who recognizes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn as much as you can about AI to multiply your impact...to become superhuman. Remember, creativity is just intelligence having fun. This club is for ultra curious people, and if you’ve made it this far…you’re pretty damn curious and probably the smartest one in your circle of friends. It would be my honor to have you in there.

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