The Week in AI: "All incumbents are gonna get nuked."
On Friday, my colleague Ethan Feller and I ran through a dozen developments that are transforming the economy right before our eyes. Here were 7 of the highlights...
1) Jensen at NVIDIA GTC Paris: "We are going to sell hundreds of billions worth of GB200/300."
CEO Jensen Huang has forecast spending on AI-enabled data centers will double to $2 trillion over the next four to five years. As Grace Blackwell systems deploy, with 208 billion transistors per GPU -- or nearly 15 trillion per GB200 NVL72 rack system -- NVIDIA NVDA engineers are building the roadmap for Rubin and Feynman systems with likely orders of magnitude greater power.
This is something I've talked about repeatedly for the past year: Wall Street analysts and investors are vastly underestimating the potential of the AI economy and the upgrades in infrastructure that need to occur to support self-driving cars, humanoid robots, and other autonomous machines.
And this doesn't include sovereign nation-states that need to build their own AI infrastructure for security and growth.
If you ever need clarity about the AI Revolution, or just to recalibrate your expectations and convictions, there is one place you need to visit: the NVIDIA Newsroom -- especially around a GPU Tech Conference (GTC). (I show you where in the video.)
For last week's Paris GTC, they rolled out 6 press releases and 19 blogs covering as many new innovations and partnerships across industry, enterprise, science and healthcare.
Nobody Wanted AI GPUs in 2016
Jensen also retells the story of the first DGX-1 in 2016. It was the mini supercomputer about the size of a college dorm fridge and it held 8 Volta GPUs with 21 billion transistors each.
And nobody wanted it. Except a little startup called OpenAI.
I like to use this story as an example of how NVIDIA has been in a very unique position ever since. They don't have to find "product-market fit" like most companies. Instead, they have been inventing a stack that developers didn't know they needed.
Get the whole story in the replay of last Friday's The Week in AI: The Reasoning Wars, Sam's Love Letter, Zuck's Land Grab.
Even if you don't have time for the 60-minute replay, at least do a quick scroll of the comments where I post all the relevant links to the topics we discussed.
With over 25 links, you are guaranteed to find something that answers your top questions about the AI revolution!
2) The New Civil War In AI: Not Safety, But Efficacy
There are many exciting debates going on in "the revolution" right now. A recent hot conflict is over whether or not the LLMs (large language models) are doing real reasoning, and even thinking.
This one heated up after Apple AAPL researchers released their paper "The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models."
We are amazed by the research, writing, pattern-finding and puzzle-solving of these models. But Apple researchers found some limitations where the models "give up" on large problems without enough context.
And it's worth pondering if they are simply "token prediction" machines that eventually get wrapped around their own axles.
I've experienced this with some of the "vibe-coding" app developer tools like Replit and Bolt.
But then other analysts and papers quickly responded and surfaced with the "limitations" of the Apple research, suggesting that the imposed cost expenditure limits imposed were the defining factor in the models giving up.
One of the rebuttal papers was titled "The Illusion of the Illusion of Thinking." Again, all these links are in the comments section of The Week in AI.
3) Google Offers Buyouts: AI Headcount Crunch Beginning?
My third topic was once again about the employment impact from generative AI and agentic AI being adopted in corporations.
I ran a query on ChatGPT for the "top 100 jobs most likely to be disrupted" in the next 3 years. You can find the link in the comments of the X Space.
Another tangible angle on job displacement was the revolutionary ad during the NBA finals by the prediction market platform Kalshi. It was created using the new Veo 3 graphics creator from Google by a filmmaker named PJ Ace.
Ethan and I discussed how this innovation is certain to disrupt advertising, marketing, and film as the machines can do in minutes what it used to take a team of people weeks.
And wait until you see the new Veo 3 ad from a Los Angeles dentist that is taking social media by storm. We'll talk about that in this Friday's Space.
Welcome to the Machine
But the most eye-opening news flash for me was the story on a company called Mechanize. While lots of job displacement will happen organically, this outfit is like a mercenary going after headcount.
The New York Times titled their article "This A.I. Company Wants to Take Your Job."
And here's how an X post described the piece about the startup that wants to automate white-collar work "as fast as possible"...
"Mechanize wants to abolish all jobs. They make no secret of this. They are developing an AI program that is extremely promising and is being financed by everyone from Google to Stripe."
Then there is Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann saying we'll know AI is transformative when it passes the "Economic Turing Test:
Give an AI agent a job for a month. Let the hiring manager choose: human or machine? When they pick the machine more often than not, we've crossed the threshold."
I have several posts in the comments of the "The Week in AI" X Space on the employment wars. Plus, just about every post is from a particular source of AI insight or expertise whose account you should be following on X.
4) Marc Andreessen: "All incumbents are gonna get nuked. Everything gets rebuilt."
Translation: AI isn't an economic upgrade. It's a total reset.
Which brings me to my favorite part of our Friday X Space...
Cooker's RANT of the WEEK: "The Magical AI Transformation Won't Be So Gentle." Here I take the other side of Sam Altman's blog post from last week titled "The Gentle Singularity."
I call it his "love letter" not to make fun of him, but to highlight his optimism in the face of brewing storms.
A few weeks ago it was Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warning us about the rapid disruption of work and its impacts on citizens and families, not just the economy. Then the old wise-man of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, shared these sentiments in a recent interview...
The best-case future is a "symbiosis between people and AI" -- where machines handle the mundane, and humans live more interesting lives.
But in the kind of society we have now, he warns, AI won't free most people. It will concentrate power, and as massive productivity increases create joblessness, it will mostly benefit the rich.
This sober view instantly made me think of the 2016 book by Yuval Noah Harari Homo Deus in which the historian described how technology usually gets concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful. It's just how economics works, no matter the political flavor.
In this way, AI can move quickly beyond issues of personal safety, to those of economic security. In the X Space replay and the comments below it, I discuss the implications of "post-labor economics" as well as share more expert resources on these topics.
Be sure to catch the replay of The Week in AI to hear my sense of the "not-so-gentle" transition we are headed into.
5) Apple WWDC: The Non-Event of the Week in AI
For what to expect (or not) from Apple in AI innovation, I always turn to Robert Scoble on X @Scobleizer. Here were some of his summary posts...
Cynical take on Apple's WWDC: just doing things Microsoft did back in 2003. Liquid glass. Menus on tablets.
Dark take on it: it's way behind in AI, and didn't demonstrate any attempt to catch up.
Light take: Lots of new AI features, like your phone will wait on hold for you now.
Hopeful take: the new design joins Apple Vision Pro into its ecosystem, showing that the Apple Vision Pro is the future of Apple.
Scoble adds: I really hate the recorded product demos and the old people showing new features and attempting to be "hip."
On a more Apple-positive note, Scoble is looking forward to the next devices which should be coming in the AR space...
Later this year both Apple and Google are introducing heavyweight category wearables. Lighter than the first Vision Pro.
We will judge them by who has the best AI inside.
That is more important than resolution.
Google, today, looks like it is way ahead and pulling further away because this is a game of exponents.
I will buy both anyway. :-)
(end of @Scobleizer rants)
Many experts are sensing that Alphabet GOOGL is "firing on all cylinders across AI" as we've discussed previously. From Gemini 2.5 Pro and the astonishing new Veo 3 to building AI capabilities with their own with TPUs (instead of relying on NVIDIA GPUs), they're the only vertically-integrated player across all realms of tech.
Google will probably also figure out the shift from classic search to generative search, as Daniel Newman of the Futurum technology research group says. Reports of Google's demise have been greatly exaggerated according to @DanielNewmanUV and I wish I was listening before I sold my shares on the last "search is dead" scare.
6) Zuck Splashes the Pot with $14.3 Billion
Meta Platforms META plunked down that amount for only 49% of a private company called Scale AI. But the price tag made it the biggest pure-AI acquisition, following OpenAI's $6 billion purchase of Jony Ive's company.
Just like Sam wasn't waiting around to find out what AI-native device Apple will build, so too Zuck isn't waiting around for permission to have access to the premier company in the data supply chain -- what some are calling the oil refinery of the AI economy.
What does that mean? Well if you think about data as various grades of crude oil, it needs to be cleaned and prepped in a number of ways before it can be "mined and modeled" for quality results.
That's where Scale AI comes in with data prep and labeling because major AI models need structured and labeled training data to generate knowledge tokens, insights, and deep learning.
Scale AI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo. The company specializes in providing high-quality data labeling, annotation, and model evaluation services that are essential for training advanced AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and generative AI systems.
Scale AI is known for its robust data engine, which powers AI development for leading tech firms, government agencies, and startups worldwide. Its research division, the Safety, Evaluation and Alignment Lab (SEAL), focuses on evaluating and aligning AI models for safety and reliability
7) AMD Unveils AI Server Rack, Sam on Stage with Lisa
I am still shaking my head at all the stuff that happened last week! As if all of the above wasn't enough, Advanced Micro Devices AMD held its annual Advancing AI conference last Thursday with a product roadmap for hyperscale inferencing that caught investor attention.
In addition to leaps forward in performance for the existing Instinct MI350 Series GPU systems, AMD CEO Lisa Su unveiled the Helios AI Rack-scale architecture supporting up to 72 MI400 GPUs, with 432GB of HBM4 memory per GPU and 19.6 TB/sec bandwidth. Available in 2026, this is clearly an answer to NVIDIA's GB200/300 series rack systems.
AI Market Growth: CEO Lisa Su projected an 80% increase in AI inference demand by 2026, driven by the rapid adoption and expansion of AI applications in enterprise and cloud environments.
Roadmap: AMD reaffirmed its commitment to an annual cadence of AI chip releases, with the MI400 and MI450 series already in development and expected to challenge Nvidia's flagship offerings in 2026 and beyond.
And then Sam Altman showed up during Lisa's keynote. Since he clearly can't get enough compute or GPUs, he's as tight with Lisa as he is with Jensen.
Lisa welcomed the founder and CEO of OpenAI as a key design partner for AMD's upcoming MI450 GPU who will help shape the next generation of AMD's AI hardware. OpenAI will use AMD GPUs and Helios servers for advanced AI workloads, including ChatGPT.
And AMD's other happy customers continue to come back for more with Meta deploying AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs for Llama 3/4 inference and collaborating on future MI350/MI400 platforms.
Meanwhile Microsoft Azure runs proprietary and open-source models on AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs in production and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will deploy zettascale AI clusters with up to 131,072 MI355X GPUs, offering massive AI compute capacity to customers.
This event made AMD shares a clear buy last week -- and this week if you can still grab some under $130!
OLD RANT: The Fundamental Difference
Finally, did you hear what another OpenAI co-founder said at the University of Toronto commencement address? Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI architect and deep learning pioneer who in 2024 started his own model firm, Safe Superintelligence, spoke these words to the new grads...
"The day will come when AI will do all the things we can do. The reason is the brain is a biological computer, so why can't the digital computer do the same things?
"It's funny that we are debating if AI can truly think or give the illusion of thinking, as if our biological brain is superior or fundamentally different from a digital brain."
I had to dig out my old rant about the fundamental difference(s) between human brains and computer "thinking." If you haven't heard me on this, you owe it to yourself so you can easily explain the differences to other "intelligence experts" telling you how consciousness works.
Bottom line: To stay informed in AI, listen to The Week in AI replay, or just go to that post to see all the links and sources. And be sure to follow me on X @KevinBCook so you see the announcement for the new live Space every Friday.
Only $1 to See All Zacks' Buys and Sells
We're not kidding.
Several years ago, we shocked our members by offering them 30-day access to all our picks for the total sum of only $1. No obligation to spend another cent.
Thousands have taken advantage of this opportunity. Thousands did not - they thought there must be a catch. Yes, we do have a reason. We want you to get acquainted with our portfolio services like Surprise Trader, Stocks Under $10, Technology Innovators, and more, that closed 256 positions with double- and triple-digit gains in 2024 alone.
See Stocks Now >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Apple Inc. (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD): Free Stock Analysis Report
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA): Free Stock Analysis Report
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis Report
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis Report
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
U.S. says tariff deadline of Aug 1 is firm, no extensions
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to members of the media after he arrived at Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire, Scotland, Friday, July 25, 2025.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) WASHINGTON — The U.S. deadline of August 1 for imposing tariffs on its trading partners is firm and there will be no extensions, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday. 'So no extensions, no more grace periods. August 1, the tariffs are set. They'll go into place. Customs will start collecting the money, and off we go,' Lutnick told 'Fox News Sunday.' After the levies kick in, U.S. President Donald Trump -- who was negotiating Sunday in Scotland with European Union officials -- is still willing to keep talking, Lutnick said. Of the Europeans, Lutnick said, 'You know they're hoping they make a deal, and it's up to President Trump, who's the leader of this negotiating table. We set the table.' So far five countries have struck deals with the Trump administration ahead of the Friday deadline as it tries to overhaul the global system of largely free trade by slapping tariffs on countries that the United States deems as engaging in unfair practices. These five are Britain, Vietnam, Indonesia the Philippines, and Japan. The levies they accepted are often higher than the new base rate of 10 percent that the United States has applied to most countries since April. But they are far below the levels the Trump administration threatened to impose if no deal were reached. AFP
Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
U.S., China negotiators to resume talks in effort to extend tariff truce
Senior U.S. and Chinese negotiators meet in Stockholm on Monday to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of the countries' trade war, aiming to extend a truce keeping sharply higher tariffs at bay. China is facing an August 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump's administration, after Beijing and Washington reached a preliminary deal in June to end weeks of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs. Without an agreement, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from duties exceeding 100 per cent. The Stockholm talks, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, take place a day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meets Trump at his golf course in Scotland to try to clinch a deal that would likely see a 15 per cent baseline tariff on most EU goods. Trade analysts on both sides of the Pacific say the discussions in the Swedish capital are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs but could prevent further escalation and help create conditions for Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet later this year. Previous U.S.-China trade talks in Geneva and London in May and June focused on bringing U.S. and Chinese retaliatory tariffs down from triple-digit levels and restoring the flow of rare earth minerals halted by China and Nvidia H20 AI chips and other goods halted by the United States. U.S. to discuss tariff deadline extension with China as Trump, Philippines reach deal So far, the talks have not delved into broader economic issues. They include U.S. complaints that China's state-led, export-driven model is flooding world markets with cheap goods, and Beijing's complaints that U.S. national security export controls on tech goods seek to stunt Chinese growth. 'Stockholm will be the first meaningful round of U.S.-China trade talks,' said Bo Zhengyuan, Shanghai-based partner at China consultancy firm Plenum. Trump has been successful in pressuring some other trading partners, including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, into deals accepting higher U.S. tariffs of 15 per cent to 20 per cent. He said there was a 50-50 chance that the U.S. and the 27-member European Union could also reach a framework trade pact, adding that Brussels wanted to 'make a deal very badly'. Two of Trump's top trade officials, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, will attend the Scotland talks and then travel to Stockholm. Analysts say the U.S.-China negotiations are far more complex and will require more time. China's grip on the global market for rare earth minerals and magnets, used in everything from military hardware to car windshield wiper motors, has proved to be an effective leverage point on U.S. industries. In the background of the talks is speculation about a possible meeting between Trump and Xi in late October. Trump has said he will decide soon whether to visit China in a landmark trip to address trade and security tensions. A new flare-up of tariffs and export controls would likely derail any plans for a meeting with Xi. 'The Stockholm meeting is an opportunity to start laying the groundwork for a Trump visit to China,' said Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Bessent has already said he wants to work out an extension of the August 12 deadline to prevent tariffs snapping back to 145 per cent on the U.S. side and 125 per cent on the Chinese side. Still, China will likely request a reduction of multi-layered U.S. tariffs totaling 55 per cent on most goods and further easing of U.S. high-tech export controls, analysts said. Beijing has argued that such purchases would help reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, which reached US$295.5-billion in 2024. China is currently facing a 20 per cent tariff related to the U.S. fentanyl crisis, a 10 per cent reciprocal tariff, and 25 per cent duties on most industrial goods imposed during Trump's first term. Bessent has also said he would discuss with He the need for China to rebalance its economy away from exports toward domestic consumer demand. The shift would require China to put an end to a protracted property crisis and boost social safety nets to encourage household spending. Michael Froman, a former U.S. trade representative during Barack Obama's administration, said such a shift has been a goal of U.S. policymakers for two decades. 'Can we effectively use tariffs to get China to fundamentally change their economic strategy? That remains to be seen,' said Froman, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.
Globe and Mail
7 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
What Are the 3 Best Bargain Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy Right Now
Key Points Taiwan Semiconductor's projected growth should translate into a higher premium than it is currently trading at. The market is concerned that AI will disrupt Adobe's business. Google Search is a primary target of several generative AI companies. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Finding bargains in the artificial intelligence (AI) investing world isn't easy, but they're out there. Three that I've got my eye on are Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL). All three of these trade at a hefty discount to the broader market, yet are still quite promising. If you're looking for value in the AI space, this trio is an excellent starting point. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » How do these three fit into AI? Taiwan Semiconductor is the best-positioned of this trio. It's the primary chip fabricator for some of the leading tech companies, including Nvidia and Apple. Its chip production facilities fabricate chips that its customers have designed, placing TSMC into a neutral position in the AI race. It performed phenomenally well over the past few years, with revenue in U.S. dollars rising an astounding 44% in the second quarter, which exceeded expectations. This strength is expected to persist for many years. Management guided at the start of 2025 that it expects its revenue to increase at nearly a 20% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. Taiwan Semi is a key player in AI technology, and it holds an enviable position. Adobe makes leading graphics design tools that are the industry standard. Whether it's video editing or image creation, Adobe is a top option. However, investors are growing increasingly concerned that generative AI creation technologies could displace Adobe. Image and video creation using generative AI models has come a long way, and has reached a point where it's nearly indistinguishable from what humans create. As a result, many are forecasting the downfall of Adobe. However, I think that's a bit premature. Adobe has also invested heavily in generative AI and has its own Firefly product that allows seamless integration of AI with its existing editing tools. This allows Adobe to compete in this realm while also giving creators more control over the end product than what many generative AI models do. This could keep Adobe relevant within the graphic design industry, making the forecast of its downfall somewhat inaccurate. Currently, Adobe is performing well and has posted consistent revenue growth over the past few years. ADBE Operating Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts. If Adobe is supposed to be getting displaced, don't tell it that, as it's still growing at a healthy pace. Last is Alphabet, the parent company of the Google Search engine. Its stock is running into the same fears as Adobe's, as investors worry that generative AI will replace Google Search. While some have made the switch, investors need to remember that Google is an ingrained habit among internet users around the globe. It would take a massive technological leap, which most users won't need anyway, to get them to switch. Google has already implemented the popular AI search overviews feature, which seamlessly integrates search results and AI, and that could be enough to maintain the vast majority of its dominant market share. If Google Search can maintain most of its market share, the stock is poised to move higher, as it trades at a significant discount to the broader market. How cheap is this trio? Alphabet's stock trades at a deep discount to the broader market, despite strong results. GOOGL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts. Considering that the S&P 500 trades for 23.8 times forward earnings, this seems like a reasonable price to pay for the upside that Alphabet provides. Adobe is similarly cheap, trading for 18 times forward earnings. ADBE PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts. Taiwan Semiconductor is actually more expensive than the broader market at 25 times forward earnings. However, it's expected to grow at essentially double the pace of the market over the next five years, so this slight premium to the market seems a bit low. As a result, I'm confident labeling Taiwan Semiconductor as a bargain buy right now. Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now? Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,063,471!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025
