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WSJ’s new AI experiment

1 video generation = 1 steak on an electric grill?

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

Remember when The Wall Street Journal made that 3-minute AI video?

They’re back, this time asking:

How much energy does it really take to generate a single AI video?

(Is hitting “enter” on an AI prompt the energy equivalent of grilling a steak?)

According to their estimates:

1 video generation ≈ 1 rare steak
2 video generations ≈ 1 medium steak

And what about that original 3-minute video?

1,000 clips = 110,000 watt-hours (Wh)

That’s enough to grill 478 steaks. Or power an average U.S. home for 3.5 days.

Joanna also gives a behind-the-scenes look at a $9M GPU superpod powered by 31 DGX H100s.

💡 Here’s what you should know

💰 The numbers

  • xAI raised $10B in debt and equity to fund data center expansion and scale Grok.

  • Menlo Ventures is raising $1.4B across new funds to back AI-focused startups.

  • Surge AI is seeking up to $1B in its first fundraise, targeting a $15B valuation as it positions itself as a premium alternative to Scale AI for data labeling.

  • Genesis AI emerges from stealth with $105M seed funding to build a robotics foundation model using synthetic data generated by its own physics engine.

  • North.Cloud, an AI-powered cloud optimization startup, raised $5M to automate real-time savings and reduce waste across AWS and GCP.

  • Zango AI emerges from stealth with $4.8M led by Nexus to replace legacy compliance workflows with regulation-aware AI agents.

  • Airial, an AI travel planning startup founded by ex-Meta and Waymo engineers, raised $3M to turn TikToks and social content into personalized, bookable itineraries.

🧠 Thought starters

😂 Meme of the day

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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