US lifts export ban on Nvidia's H20 chips

PLUS: Meta's Manhattan-sized AI plan, Google's $25B clean energy deal, and Devin's creator acquires a rival

Welcome back, AI’ers!

Here’s What’s On The Menu For Today

  • US lifts export ban on Nvidia's H20 chips

  • Meta's Manhattan-sized AI plan

  • Devin's creator acquires a rival

  • Google's $25B clean energy deal 

AI ON MY MIND

Happy Tuesday,

After months of restrictions, the U.S. government is giving Nvidia the green light to resume selling its H20 AI chips to China. The policy shift follows intense lobbying and an effort to reassert U.S. competitiveness in the critical market.

The move allows Nvidia to reclaim a key revenue stream and re-equips Chinese tech firms with their preferred hardware. But does this signal a broader change in U.S. tech strategy, balancing economic leadership with national security concerns?

By the way, I've been getting questions about how AI works in practice, so I'm launching a separate newsletter that dives deeper into real business applications and practical advice. [Click here if you're interested].

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Nvidia Gets Green Light For China

The Recap: In a significant policy reversal, the U.S. government has given Nvidia assurances it will grant licenses to resume selling its H20 AI chips to China. The move comes just months after an April ban restricted sales of the chip, which was specifically designed for the Chinese market to comply with earlier export controls.

Unpacked:

  • The reversal follows intense lobbying from CEO Jensen Huang, who recently met with President Trump to argue that the restrictions hindered U.S. competitiveness in a key global market.

  • Resuming H20 sales allows Nvidia to better compete with local rivals like Huawei, as Chinese companies have expressed a strong preference for Nvidia’s chips and its CUDA computing platform.

  • The original ban in April forced Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in inventory, while Chinese data centers struggled to find a comparable alternative for their AI services.

Bottom line: This decision allows Nvidia to reclaim critical market share in China and re-equips Chinese tech firms with the powerful tools they prefer for AI development. It also signals a potential shift in U.S. tech policy, attempting to balance national security with the economic realities of global AI leadership.

Meta's Manhattan-Sized AI Plan

The Recap: Mark Zuckerberg revealed Meta is investing “hundreds of billions of dollars” into building gigawatt-scale AI data centers as part of its push for superintelligence. The plan includes multiple projects, with one nicknamed 'The Beast' projected to cover an area the size of Manhattan.

Unpacked:

  • The initiative includes two massive superclusters: Prometheus in Ohio, a 1-gigawatt facility launching in 2026, and Hyperion in Louisiana, a $10B project targeting 2-5 gigawatts by 2030.

  • To accelerate the timeline, Meta is reportedly building some of these GPU clusters inside tents, a move designed to get compute online much faster than traditional data center construction allows.

  • This massive investment is fueling internal debates at Meta about shifting away from its open-source strategy to potentially monetize its future, more powerful models.

Bottom line: This project's sheer scale signals a new era of infrastructure investment required to compete at the frontier of AI. Meta is making a clear, capital-intensive bet that owning the entire compute stack is essential to winning the race to superintelligence.

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Relevance is my favorite AI tool right now (even more so than N8N).

Here’s why:

It’s an AI agent building tool that doesn’t require you to build out the logic using nodes. Instead, you use natural language to build out these agents. But the best thing imo is that you can build AI Agent teams.

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👾 AI Tools We Use Everyday

➡️ N8N for AI Agents - Literally use this everyday to write this newsletter (link)

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➡️ GummySearch - AI Reddit research (link)

Tools are sourced from our database and are not sponsored or affiliated.

Cognition Acquires Windsurf's Remains

The Recap: Cognition AI, the company behind the Devin coding agent, has acquired the remains of rival startup Windsurf, snapping up its assets just days after Google poached its leadership.

Unpacked:

  • The deal followed a major move by Google, which hired away Windsurf’s CEO and other top talent, leaving the startup in a vulnerable position.

  • Cognition gains Windsurf's key IP and its remaining engineering team, which will be integrated into the company's ongoing development efforts.

  • This strategic purchase consolidates talent in the AI agent market and strengthens Devin's position against a growing field of competitors from both startups and big tech.

Bottom line: This acquisition highlights the aggressive competition for talent and technology in the AI developer tool market. Developers should watch for an accelerated roadmap from Cognition as it integrates Windsurf's tech to enhance Devin's capabilities.

Google's $25B AI Power Play

The Recap: Google announced a $25 billion investment in AI infrastructure and data centers, supported by a landmark $3 billion deal to power its operations with U.S. hydropower.

Unpacked:

  • The move addresses AI's massive energy consumption with the world's largest corporate clean power deal for hydroelectricity, part of Google's goal to run on carbon-free energy by 2030.

  • The investment extends beyond infrastructure, launching a nationwide AI Works initiative in Pennsylvania that provides free AI training for businesses and residents.

  • Google is also collaborating with grid operator PJM Interconnection, using its own AI to accelerate the process of connecting new power sources to the grid.

Bottom line: This massive investment shows that scaling AI is no longer just a software challenge, but a physical one requiring huge commitments to energy and infrastructure. As a result, tech leaders are now becoming key players in shaping the nation's energy future and workforce development.

OTHER NEWS YOU MAY LIKE

xAI secured a contract worth up to $200M with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop AI agent workflows, launching a “Grok for Government” initiative.

Amazon unveiled Kiro, a new AI coding assistant from AWS designed to turn conversational “vibe coding” into viable code, complete with auto-generated project plans and documentation.

Google added expert-curated featured notebooks to NotebookLM from sources like The Economist and The Atlantic, allowing users to research topics with pre-loaded, verifiable sources.

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Until next time, stay safe.

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