TL;DR

Nvidia, AMD regain China AI chip exports; Meta, Google, Trump drive $100B+ U.S. AI infrastructure; Pentagon awards $800M agentic AI contracts.

Highlights

• Nvidia and AMD received U.S. approval to resume H20 and MI308 AI chip exports to China, reversing earlier restrictions and restoring access to a $17B market segment 12.
• Pentagon awarded $800M in contracts to xAI, Google (GOOGL ), OpenAI, and Anthropic to develop “agentic AI” prototypes for defense and intelligence, including secure model fine-tuning 3.
• Meta (META ) committed “hundreds of billions” to multi-gigawatt AI data centers (Prometheus, Hyperion), aiming to support superintelligence-scale models; new Superintelligence Lab is weighing a shift from open-source to closed models 45.
• President Trump announced a $70B AI and energy package, including data centers, grid upgrades, and workforce training, with executive orders pending to accelerate U.S. AI infrastructure 6.
• Google (GOOGL ) will spend $25B on Mid-Atlantic data centers and signed a $3B, 20-year hydropower deal with Brookfield (BAM ), securing up to 3 GW of clean energy 8.
• CoreWeave (CRWV ) will invest up to $6B in a new Pennsylvania AI data center, further establishing the state as a key infrastructure hub 11.
• Cognition AI acquired Windsurf’s IP and team after Google’s (GOOGL ) $2.4B non-exclusive tech license and OpenAI’s failed bid, reflecting heightened competition for coding agent platforms and talent 7.
• Broadcom (AVGO ) began shipping its 51.2 Tbps Tomahawk Ultra Ethernet switch, supporting up to 1,024 AI accelerators per fabric and challenging Nvidia’s (NVDA ) NVLink 10.
• OpenAI launched deep research models with web search and remote multi-context processing ($10/1K queries); LG (LPL ) introduced EXAONE 4.0, a 32B-parameter hybrid model with advanced reasoning, under a non-commercial license 12.
• Anthropic released Claude for Financial Services, integrating real-time market data and sector-specific prompt libraries for finance professionals 13.
• BMW partnered with China’s Momenta to co-develop driver-assist AI for China-market vehicles, highlighting global automaker reliance on local AI suppliers 14.
• Groq added the open-source Kimi K2 LLM to GroqCloud, offering 185 tokens/sec inference and broadening high-performance open-source model access 15.

Commentary

U.S. policy on AI chip exports to China is shifting, with Nvidia (NVDA ) and AMD (AMD ) both receiving approval to resume shipments of their H20 and MI308 accelerators 12. This move restores a critical revenue stream for both companies and reopens a major channel for U.S. chipmakers into China’s AI hardware market. The decision also signals a more flexible approach to export controls, with immediate implications for supply chains and competitive dynamics in both U.S. and Chinese AI sectors 12.

AI infrastructure investment is scaling rapidly. Meta’s (META ) announcement of “hundreds of billions” in data center spending 4, Google’s (GOOGL ) $25B regional buildout (paired with a record $3B hydropower deal with Brookfield (BAM )) 8, and the $70B public-private U.S. initiative led by the Trump administration all point to intensifying demand for compute and energy 6. Pennsylvania is emerging as a strategic hub, with CoreWeave’s (CRWV ) $6B facility and multiple federal and state-backed initiatives 11. The focus on grid upgrades and clean energy procurement reflects growing awareness of power as a limiting factor for AI growth 6811.

Competition for AI talent and foundational technology is escalating. The Windsurf saga—culminating in Google’s (GOOGL ) $2.4B tech license, Cognition’s acquisition, and OpenAI’s failed bid—illustrates the premium placed on agentic coding platforms and the scarcity of experienced teams 7. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s $800M in contracts to leading AI developers for “agentic AI” prototypes demonstrates the U.S. government’s intent to leverage commercial LLMs for defense and intelligence, with a focus on secure, adversarially robust systems 3.

On the product front, OpenAI’s new deep research models, LG’s (LPL ) EXAONE 4.0 12, and Anthropic’s sector-specific Claude for finance signal continued model innovation and verticalization 13. BMW’s partnership with Momenta 14 and Groq’s rollout of the Kimi K2 LLM 15 further highlight the global reach and diversification of AI applications, from automotive to open-source infrastructure.