Big tech articles

Nvidia may have just built its own hyperscaler without owning a single data center

Why it matters: Nvidia has quietly assembled every piece of a cloud giant, and it doesn't even need to own the buildings. That is the theory making the rounds, and once you see it laid out, the last two years stop looking like a chip company having a very good run and start looking like a plan. The financing arrangement Nvidia signed this month with BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and four other Wall Street heavyweights, aimed at funneling more than $500 billion of outside capital into AI data centers, would be the last piece clicking into place. Most outlets filed it under the now usual "more AI money" headline, but there is a more interesting read.

Elon Musk earned over 2.5 million times more than Tesla workers as CEO pay surged again

Nvidia's Jensen Huang joins X, defends Chinese AI: "Open-source models that are excellent should be used"

Big quote: Jensen Huang just spent a week watching his company's valuation get hit by the threat of a Chinese open-weight model. His response was to go on the record defending it. Speaking to Axios in Fort Worth, Texas, at the opening of a new phase of the Wistron plant that builds Nvidia's AI infrastructure, the Nvidia CEO said American companies should "absolutely" be free to run Chinese models. "These Chinese models are excellent," he said. "Open-source models that are excellent should be used." Asked whether China could displace American labs, he was blunt: "Zero possibility."

Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and other US tech giants are hiding $1.65 trillion in AI debt

Ripple effect: Amid growing talk of an AI bubble, a study by Japanese market analysts has found that five of the largest American technology companies are carrying a collective "hidden" debt of over $1.65 trillion, driven largely by massive spending on AI infrastructure. That undisclosed sum exceeds the $1.35 trillion the same companies have officially reported on their balance sheets, and it has grown eightfold over the past four years.

Microsoft's new EU disclosure shows exactly how tech giants separate profits from where the work happens

Jensen Huang's signed leather jacket could sell for up to $60,000 at charity auction

In brief: These days Jensen Huang is better known for turning Nvidia from a beloved gaming company into a somewhat disliked AI supercorporation. But he used to get a lot of attention for his leather jacket. Now, one of those famed items of clothing is going up for auction, and it's expected to raise $40,000 to $60,000 – for charity, of course.

Big Tech's $8 trillion AI bet is making consoles, cars, and electricity more expensive for everyone else

Trump threatens 100% tariffs on any country imposing digital services taxes on US tech firms

Europeans are starting to see US tech as a privacy risk, survey claims

SpaceX goes public in the largest IPO ever, and Musk crosses the trillion-dollar line

Why it matters: The largest IPO in history did two things at once: it made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire, and it quietly converted a privately held rocket company into a stock that millions of investors may soon own whether they chose to or not. SpaceX isn't asking Wall Street to price its launches or its satellites. It's asking the market to bet that a rocket company is on its way to becoming one of the most valuable AI companies on Earth, and to start paying for that future today.

Tech executives are suffering from "AI psychosis," says Box CEO

TL;DR: A growing backlash against the forced adoption of AI is building across the industry, but enterprise executives remain as bullish as ever on the LLM-driven future. According to at least one prominent tech leader, that enthusiasm may signal how out of touch those at the top have become.

Pope Leo XIV says humanity needs to disarm AI before it's too late

Jeff Bezos isn't worried about the AI bubble: "the good ideas will pay for all of the losers"

Sounding off: Concerns over an AI bubble have intensified as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon collectively pour hundreds of billions into data centers, chips, and model development. But Jeff Bezos believes that even if the boom collapses financially, the long-term technological gains could still justify the frenzy. His comments arrive at a moment when OpenAI alone is reportedly valued at $852 billion and looking to IPO, underscoring just how unprecedented the AI spending race has become.

Elon Musk loses OpenAI trial after jury says he waited too long to sue

What just happened? Elon Musk isn't accustomed to losing, but the world's richest man just felt the sting of defeat in his trial against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and President Greg Brockman. A federal jury said that Musk had waited too long to file his suit, which accused the defendants of violating an agreement to keep OpenAI as a charitable non-profit organization.

The Pentagon just signed AI deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia - and cut Anthropic out entirely

Big Tech killed California's anti-self-preferencing bill in a month

Clicking "reject cookies" might not actually do anything

Bottom line: Those annoying cookie-consent banners that have flooded the internet over the past several years are supposed to give users the option to block most tracking cookies from advertisers. However, a recent California audit claims that the largest ad tech companies usually send cookies anyway, having decided that simply paying potential billions in fines is more profitable.

US warns EU over regulation, says fines on American tech giants could have consequences

Trump names Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sergey Brin for tech advisory council

Patreon rejects "fair use" claims for AI training, calls for creator compensation

Oracle prepares new round of layoffs while doubling down on AI infrastructure

Oracle is spending billions on AI data centers as cash flow turns negative

Nvidia says its investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely its last

AMD is selling $60 billion worth of GPUs – and a piece of itself – to Meta

Editor's take: AMD and Meta have joined the growing circus of reciprocal deals Big Tech is using to bootstrap what it hopes will become a self-sustaining "AI economy." Under a new multi-year agreement, the two companies will closely align their technology roadmaps – though AMD's role comes with strings attached, including hitting specific performance targets in the stock market.