NEW LAUNCHES

The latest features, products & partnerships in AI

• Google Ads now allows advertisers to generate realistic AI images of humans

• Arc Institute, Stanford launch largest ever publicly available biomolecular AI model

• Nvidia’s new AI platform aims to simplify sign language learning

• Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati launches AI startup Thinking Machines

• Samsung releases One UI 7 beta with new AI filters (and broken Google Wallet)

• Apple brings AI-powered Visual Intelligence to iPhone 15 Pro

• AI startup Together raises $102M at $3.3B valuation

IMPLEMENTATION

Announcements, strategies & case studies

• Nearly half of knowledge workers would use AI even if bosses forbade it, survey finds

• Too much too fast? Concerns raised amid Musk plan to replace government workers with AI wherever possible

• San Jose State University appoints first ever AI librarian

• Open-source AI speeds up patient-matching for clinical trials

• The practical and hidden costs of mass AI deployment in 2025

• How AI tools are reshaping coding education for new programmers

AI AGENTS

Launches, research & more from the AI Agent Report Newsletter

• Scalpel, Please: AI sharpens medical training at NYU Langone with advanced LLMs

• What makes Google’s new Co-Scientist AI tool so powerful

• How OpenAI’s new Deep Research AI system is outperforming the most brilliant humans

• Microsoft’s latest AI model ‘Magma’ controls software and robots

GOVERNMENT

Law, regulation, defense, pilot programs & politics

• Latin America intrigued by China’s DeepSeek, shifting the AI landscape in the Global South

• Undersea cables channel data and power, but they face major risks

• Global electricity demand is surging — but AI is only a small part of the story

• South Korea to build world’s largest AI data center

• AI cameras to detect phone and seatbelt offenses in UK Police trial

• DeepSeek downloads halted in South Korea amid privacy issues

• South Korea goes big, targets 10,000 GPUs for national AI computing hub

IN OTHER NEWS

Compelling stories beyond the usual categories

• The Last Human Job: New book delves into the pitfalls of automation and the future of work

• IBM selects 5 urban sustainability nonprofits to accelerate with AI tools, computing resources

• How Orakl Oncology is accelerating cancer treatment with Meta’s open-source AI

• Avalanche of AI content leaves Reddit mods feeling chilly

• Stanford AI Lab merges with HAI under Carlos Guestrin’s leadership

What’s happening in AI right now

The great AI price war

A pricing shock ripples through the market

Chinese AI company DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the industry by releasing a model matching OpenAI's performance at just 1/27th of the cost allegedly. The impact was immediate - nearly $1 trillion in market value vanished from AI infrastructure stocks like Nvidia. Yet simultaneously, SoftBank pursued a massive $25 billion investment in OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation, highlighting a stark disconnect between short term public market reactions and private valuations.

This pricing disruption comes as global competition in AI infrastructure intensifies. South Korea announced plans for the world's largest AI data center, a 3-gigawatt facility valued at $35 billion. Not to be outdone, Malaysia's Johor state is racing to build 1.6 gigawatts of data center capacity. The South Korean government is also acquiring 10,000 GPUs for a national AI computing hub, leveraging its exemption from U.S. export controls on AI chips.

The hidden costs of enterprise AI

While base model costs plummet, businesses face complex decisions about AI implementation. Beyond the obvious costs of compute and engineering talent, companies must navigate regulatory compliance, risk management, and data transparency requirements. The telecommunications industry offers an instructive case study - while 84% of telcos report AI driving revenue growth, they're discovering that building AI infrastructure capabilities may be more profitable than their traditional connectivity business.

Global power shifts

DeepSeek's rise illustrates the changing dynamics of global AI development. The company's cost advantage and language support for Portuguese and Spanish has attracted significant interest in Latin America. Yet this also raises concerns about technological dependency and data sovereignty, as highlighted by South Korea's recent suspension of DeepSeek downloads over privacy issues.

Infrastructure arms race

The massive data center buildouts in Asia reflect an emerging infrastructure arms race. Together AI's recent $305 million funding round at a $3.3 billion valuation demonstrates strong investor confidence in AI infrastructure platforms. However, Malaysia's aggressive data center expansion has drawn criticism as "digital colonialism" that may strain resources without proportional local benefits.

Looking ahead

Several key questions emerge:

1. Will AI development costs continue to drop at this dramatic pace?

2. Can pure-play AI model companies achieve sustainable profitability in an increasingly commoditized market?

3. How will nations balance the drive for AI sovereignty with the efficiency of shared infrastructure?

4. What happens to current AI valuations if the cost structure of the industry fundamentally changes?

The next few months will be critical in determining whether this week's pricing shock represents a temporary disruption or a fundamental shift in AI economics. While lower costs may accelerate AI adoption, they also challenge the business models that have driven the industry's explosive growth.

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