Musk pouts about being left out of Stargate AI project; beware of Chinese AI tech
Advanced Computing, AI/ML, Chips, and Extended Reality
Good morning,
What a week it was, last week—although it was fairly quiet in fundraising news with Anthropic topping the charts as it raised a fresh $1B from previous backer Google, even as it is raising a $2B round led by Lightspeed at a $60B valuation. DeepSeek has emerged from China with a low-cost, high performing AI model that appears to be competitive with OpenAI’s o1 advanced reasoning model. Beware of the baked in biases of the model though, as it is clearly highly-censored (check out the Editor’s Picks below for more on that).
President Trump announced last week the Stargate effort, a $500B AI public-private effort with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Oracle, amongst others. The President’s special advisor Elon Musk came out vehemently opposing Stargate—most likely because his AI company xAI wasn’t invited to the party. The President, for his part, dismissed Musk’s criticisms while acknowledging that the project is a multi-year effort that may not have all of the funding necessary to see it through to completion, yet. We’re going to pick up Quantum Mechanics for Dummies, Part 2 next week. In the meantime, enjoy a little musical interlude parodying controversies over renaming national and international geographic features:
Mount McKinley (Not Denali)
(To the tune of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by The Four Lads) (and rewritten by Building our Future staff with the help of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o)🎵
Way up north, they once called it McKinley,
But some said Denali was its name originally.
The mountain’s tall, and oh, so controversial,
Names change fast, it’s bureaucratic reversal!Why they changed it, well, you’ll never know,
From the president to park service, it’s a show.
Republicans said, “Hey, keep McKinley!”
But Alaskans cried, “It’s Denali!”Whoa-oh-oh, Mount McKinley, not Denali,
The tallest peak in the U.S.A. is just so chilly.
It’s Mount McKinley, not Denali,
Where names flip-flop like a snowdrift so silly!🎵
And hey, don’t forget the Gulf of Mexico,
President Trump renamed it just to steal the show.
“Gulf of America!” was his decree,
But hurricanes and fish? They didn’t agree!So much drama, what’s in a name?
History’s a circle; it’s always the same.
Denali or McKinley, what’s it to be?
Pick a name, stick it on, let’s all agree!🎵
Whoa-oh-oh, Mount McKinley, not Denali,
It’s a mountain saga, and it’s never-ending, really.
From Denali back to McKinley,
And Gulf of America? That’s just plain silly!🎵
(Instrumental break with big-band swing)🎵
Now, dear listener, what’s the lesson here?
You can rename it all, but the mountain don’t care.
No matter what you call it, it’ll stand so tall,
Denali or McKinley—it’s bigger than us all!🎵
Whoa-oh-oh, Mount McKinley, not Denali,
It’s a federal case, but the mountain stands still-y.
From Denali back to McKinley,
Just let it go, folks, you’re looking so silly!🎵
Alright, enough silliness. Let’s dig in to the news.
News Headlines:
Pete Hegseth narrowly wins confirmation to be Trump’s defense secretary (DS)
US, Colombia clash over deportations and raise tariffs in show of Trump’s pledge to limit migration (AP)
As he kicks out immigrants from America, President Trump encourages Egypt, Jordan to take in Palestinians; they’re not interested (AP)
Trump uses mass firing to remove ‘independent’ inspectors general at a series of agencies without providing Congress the statutory 30-days notice (AP)
Trump and Musk are at odds again, this time over the U.K. Prime Minister (BI)
Quantum Tech:
President revamps science advisory council with focus on quantum, other emerging technologies (QI)
Quantum industry group calls for President to appoint a quantum ‘czar’ (NG)
GAO warns that the next big cyber threat could come from QCs (GAO)
Quantum computer efficiently suppresses errors with two different correction codes (PHY)
Quantum squeezing unlocks lightning-fast gas sensors (ST)
Quantum sensors could power $2.2B tech revolution by 2045 (INN)
Scientists find that adding bridges can help stabilize quantum communications networks (NW)
D-Wave announces new Leap Quantum LaunchPad™ program to fast-track deployment of quantum computing applications (BW)
AI / ML
President Trump shrugs off Musk opposition to $500B Stargate plan (FOR)
Pentagon official: Stargate program could aid DoD’s AI efforts too (BD)
Power generation challenges could overshadow Stargate AI initiative (DN)
Pentagon replaces Task Force Lima with the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell to accelerate AI adoption (GCIO)
Chinese AI company DeepSeek has everyone in Silicon Valley talking (TC)
Open-source DeepSeek-R1 claims to use pure reinforcement learning to match OpenAI o1 — at 95% less cost (VB)
TikTok owner ByteDance, DeepSeek lead Chinese push in AI reasoning (RT)
Trump orders review of Biden admin’s AI work, creation of new AI action plan (FS)
The Pentagon says AI is speeding up its ‘kill chain’ (RCD)
FAANGs increased support to Israeli Defense Force during its war against terror-group Hamas (TG)
Advana’s future uncertain as program manager prepares to leave DOD (DS)
OpenAI launched an AI agent (TC)
Perplexity launched an AI agent for Android to rival ChatGPT, Siri, Alexa (RT)
Nanotech, Nanomaterials, Chips
GSI Technology powers Army AI innovations with Gemini-II chip (SWS)
'Medieval' nanotech chainmail sports 100 trillion chemical bonds per square centimeter — and could be the future of armor (LS)
Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Nvidia battle it out for AI chip supremacy (TV)
TikTok owner ByteDance plans to spend $12 billion on AI chips in 2025 (RT)
Deal Flow:
Funds
QDNL Participations announces €60M global fund for early stage quantum startups, with €25M first close (QI)
VC
AI startup Anthropic raised $1B from Google, amid plans to raise $2B at a $60B valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (TC)
ZuriQ, a two-year-old startup developing a quantum computer using trapped-ion qubits to allow scaling raised a $4.2 million round led by Founderful (QI)
PE / M&A / Exits / Other
French AI startup Mistral, last valued at $6B, is working towards an IPO (TC)
D-Wave announces successful completion of $150M at-the-market equity offering (BW)
Opportunities:
DARPA needs input on tech for AI system vulnerability assessment (SAM)
Editor’s Picks:
If you haven’t read it yet, here’s Congress’ Bipartisan Task Force Report on AI.
Foreign Affairs ran a great piece on how quantum computing will reshape the global economy and security.
Dave Schroeder posted a series of screenshots on LinkedIn of his experiments with DeepSeek, demonstrating its biases from CCP censorship.
Lighter Side:
Keep Building,
BOF