So a $38 billion deal with AWS just landed. That's
huge, securing massive compute power. And for
a company looking at, what, over $1 .4 trillion
on infrastructure over the next decade? Yeah,
$1 .4 trillion. It sounds absolutely staggering.
It is. And that's not just spending money. It
feels like they're building the literal foundations
for whatever AI becomes next. It really is the
price of admission these days, isn't it? Welcome,
everyone, to the Deep Dive. Our whole mission
here is to get you past those splashy headlines
and really dive into the core strategy. What's
really going on in this, let's call it the Great
Compute War. Okay. So today, yeah, we're going
to unpack these massive deals, look at some of
the flashpoints, you know, layoffs blamed on
AI, where the legal lines are being drawn, and
then we'll get to the really wild stuff like
data centers in space. Seriously. Seriously.
So, yeah, this is going to be your shortcut to
really getting this strategic. landscape of AI
right now. All right, let's start with that $38
billion AWS deal then. Because for a while, it
really felt like Microsoft kind of had open AI
locked down, didn't it? It did seem that way.
They put in $13 billion early on, had that first
dibs thing on infrastructure spent. Exactly.
But well, that old agreement, it's basically
done, gone. What's really interesting, though,
is the type of money involved. How so? Well,
yes, they still have this enormous... commitment
with azure we're talking like 250 billion dollars
huge number quarter trillion yeah but A lot of
that is in cloud credits, and it's spread out
over quite a few years. Okay, so it's not like
a giant cash payment up front that stops them
looking elsewhere. Precisely. That's the key.
So this AWS deal, plus the fact they're working
with Google and Oracle and even CoreWeave, it
shows they're absolutely multi -cloud now. They're
free to shop around. They can look for the best
GPUs, the lowest latency, specific network setups,
whatever they need. It's smart. Stops them getting
locked into one vendor. It almost feels like...
Like a geopolitical strategy, not just business.
Spreading the risk, spreading the power. Making
sure no single partner controls their most vital
resource, which is compute. That's exactly the
strategic play. And, you know, this makes Amazon's
position fascinating. How is that? Well, Amazon
is the main backer of Anthropic, right? One of
OpenAI's biggest rivals in the LLM space. Yeah,
a direct competitor. And yet AWS is now hosting
both of them. On their servers. Whoa. So Amazon
is trying to be like the neutral ground, the
Switzerland of AI clouds hosting everyone, even
the company competing with their own investment.
That's bold. It's a massive gamble because controlling
that underlying compute infrastructure, you know,
where the actual models run, that's rapidly becoming
the new critical global infrastructure, maybe
even like a sovereign resource down the line.
And Amazon just wants to own the highway. Doesn't
matter who's driving the trucks. Pretty much.
And the spending. It's just ramping up this $38
billion to AWS. It's just one more step towards
that massive $1 .4 trillion goal over the next
decade. That number. It's still hard to really
wrap your head around. How do you even plan for
needing over a trillion dollars worth of servers
and power? Softly. Whoa. Imagine scaling that
infrastructure to handle like a billion queries.
Consistently. So why is this big shift to multi
-cloud actually matter for future innovation?
Well, thinking about it, it means less reliance
on just one partner, right? And way more freedom
to shop around for pure speed and capability.
Exactly. Less reliance, more freedom to chase
performance. But, you know, scrambling for the
hardware for the compute, that's only one side
of this. The other side is how society, how the
law, is trying to keep up with what this power
means when it actually gets deployed. Let's talk
about those flashpoints happening right now.
And that deployment is moving fast. OpenAI's
video tool, Sora, it's now live on Android across
the US, Canada, Japan, Asia. Big rollout. And
we're seeing a whole new flood of AI -generated
videos hitting places like TikTok. It's gone
viral again. But at the same time, you see these
headlines about layoffs. Big numbers. Over 60
,000 jobs cut at huge companies, Amazon, UPS,
Target. Yep. And the official reason often given
is AI automation. Right. But the experts, they
often point to something else, something they
call AI washing. AI washing. Can you break that
down for us? Yeah, sure. AI washing is basically,
well, it's a convenient story for corporations.
It means blaming massive job cuts on AI, you
know, this futuristic force, even when the reality
is it's not purely because of automation. It
might be standard cost cutting or market changes
or restructuring. But AI is an easy scapegoat.
Yeah. Makes it sound inevitable almost. Yeah,
I can see that. You know, I still wrestle with
prompt drift myself. Like you tweak one word
in a prompt and suddenly the AI gives you something
totally. different. It's unpredictable sometimes.
And this AI watching thing just highlights how
much confusion there still is. Confusion about
what the tech can actually do versus, you know,
the hype around it. And that confusion. It's
right at the heart of the whole public trust
issue. Why do some people love AI and others
really fear it? It often comes down to how our
brains handle risk and, frankly, how much we
trust something we don't fully understand. If
it feels confusing, it feels riskier. Makes sense.
And the legal system is definitely being forced
to react now. We're already seeing some clear
boundaries emerge. Like what? Well, like you
can ask GBT for health questions, although seriously,
be careful. Double check every. Absolutely. Disclaimer
needed there. But you cannot currently build
a regulated business that offers, say, legal
advice. using that model. That's a really important
line in the sand for commercial uses right now.
And the legal heat is definitely rising. I mean,
talk about drama. Did you see that moment when
a guy actually walked up and served Sam Altman
a real legal subpoena? When was this? During
a live talk Altman was having with Steve Kerr,
the basketball coach. It was apparently related
to some anti -AI protest case. Wow. That's intense.
It shows this isn't just academic anymore. It's
hitting the real world legal system and all.
For sure. But even with all that tension, the
money keeps pouring in for specific applications.
Look at Hippocratic AI. That's a health care
focused model. Right. I saw that. They just raised
one hundred and twenty six million dollars. Big
names backing them. Andreessen Horowitz, Google
Ventures. They're valued at what? Three point
five billion dollars now. Shows there's still
a huge appetite for specialized AI. OK, so given
all this legal stuff, this tension. How quickly
is the legal system actually adapting to these
non -negotiable AI limits you mentioned? Honestly,
slowly. It seems like it requires really clear
boundaries, like avoiding using AI for regulated
stuff like health or legal businesses directly.
Yeah, slow and steady seems to be the pace for
law. Oh. Okay, let's shift gears a bit. From
the serious stuff in boardrooms and courtrooms
to the culture around AI, it feels like we've
reached peak AI meme season. Oh yeah, definitely.
The vibe check is strong right now. AI memes
are everywhere. And honestly, the collected roasting
of the big tech players, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google,
Apple, it feels kind of healthy, you know? A
way to process all the competition and maybe
some of the frustration. It is pretty funny sometimes.
But then, then there's the weird stuff. The spine
check trends, as the source called it. Apparently,
there's this bizarre new wave of... AI chiropractors
fueled by video tools like Sora generating realistic
looking adjustments. Wait, what? AI chiropractors?
Yeah. And we really need to say this clearly.
Please, please do not use AI for medical advice
and especially not for anything like spinal adjustments
based on a generated video. Just don't. Okay.
Yeah. That's definitely a do not try this at
home situation. Wow. But that absurdity, it actually
highlights something important, doesn't it? What's
that? When the outputs look this convincing visually.
Some people will try anything, which is maybe
why we're seeing creators push back in other
ways. Oh, so? Like sharing really detailed AI
performance charts, adding their own analysis
of what these models can really do. It feels
like a push for more transparency, for community
driven benchmarks, not just corporate hype. That
makes sense. That need for reliable info, for
real metrics. Yeah. It connects right into all
the new tools popping up, too. This feels like
where the democratization starts to kick in.
Totally. We're seeing this explosion of really
focused. tools like a lay its whole purpose is
making high quality presentations using ai takes
away a lot of that painful slide building time
yeah i could use that and loosen for video right
you just chat with the ai tell it what you want
and it generates edited video that cuts out a
ton of manual editing exactly then there's skyvern
that one sounds interesting automating workflows
you do in your web browser think of all those
repetitive clicks and data entry tasks and offices
oh yeah automating the boring stuff. Huge potential
there. And my favorite from this list has to
be Atom, text to 3D models. Yeah. And apparently
with sliders, so you can tweak them easily after
generation. Like stacking Lego blocks of data
almost. You just describe what you want and poof,
a 3D object appears that you can actually adjust.
Really cool. So thinking about the culture, these
tools. What do those weird trends like the AI
chiropractors really tell us about the risk when
this stuff gets deployed? I mean, it tells me
people will try absolutely anything, right? So
any regulation, any safety measures, they really
need to focus super hard on user safety first
and foremost. Because assumption of sensible
use. Probably not safe. Good point. User safety
first. And this brings us kind of full circle
back to infrastructure, but on a way bigger scale,
a cosmic scale maybe. We know these massive AI
models are already straining Earth's power grids,
and crucially, water. They need so much water
for cooling those giant server farms. That strain,
that resource pressure, it's forcing the big
players to think, well, radically differently.
Which brings us to Google's Project Suncatcher.
Possibly their wildest plan yet. Which is? Launching
data centers into space. Okay. You mentioned
this earlier. Data centers in orbit. Tell us
more. Where exactly? When? So the plan is pretty
ambitious. They want to deploy over 80 satellites,
each one packed with AI processors powered by
solar panels. And they're aiming for low Earth
orbit about 400 miles up the target date by 2027.
2027. That's soon. But why space? It just sounds
incredibly expensive and maybe environmentally
tricky, too. Launching rockets isn't exactly
green. Right. There are definitely costs, but
the efficiency gains they're chasing are potentially
enormous. That's the justification. Efficiency
how? Solar panels. In space, they're roughly
eight times more efficient than on Earth. Eight
times. Wow. Why? Simple. No clouds, no atmosphere
scattering the light, no nighttime cutting off
power, no shade from buildings or trees, just
pure constant sunlight. Okay, that's a big energy
advantage. Huge. Plus, the vacuum of space means
you don't need vast amounts of land for server
farms. And critically, you don't need millions
of gallons of water for cooling. Space is its
own cooling system, basically. So you bypass
the biggest resource bottlenecks we have down
here, power generation, consistency, and water
usage. That's right. Instantly. That's the idea.
extreme efficiency. It's actually making the
economics look surprisingly possible. Launch
costs are dropping dramatically. Yeah, SpaceX
and others are making it cheaper. Exactly. So
some projections suggest that by the 2030s, the
actual operational cost of a space data center
might match or maybe even beat the cost of running
one on Earth. Still, that counterpoint you raised,
launching rockets does create CO2. A lot of it.
Are we just trading one environmental headache
for another? That's the big question, isn't it?
Launching is polluting. And astronomers are really
worried, too. They're concerned about all these
new satellites cluttering up the sky, interfering
with telescopes. They call it the bugs on a windshield
effect. Bugs on a windshield. Vivid. And Google's
not the only one thinking about this, right?
This space compute race. Oh, definitely not.
Elon Musk with Starlink and SpaceX is obviously
a massive player in space infrastructure already.
And there are startups jumping in, too, like
StarCloud. Apparently, they're planning to send
NVIDIA chips up this month just for testing.
This month. Wow. OK, so the race is already underway.
It seems so. So final thought on this space angle.
Will the environmental hit from all those launches
end up canceling out the long term energy savings
they're promising? That's the trillion dollar
question. Maybe literally it might. But the company
is pushing this. They're focusing hard on those
huge long term efficiency gains and getting rid
of the strain on Earth's water and power grids.
Right. It's a long term bet. OK. So we've covered
a lot of ground in this deep dive today. What's
the big picture here? What should we take away?
I think the core findings are pretty clear. First,
that compute war. It's leading to power decentralizing,
moving away from just one single infrastructure
partner. It's a strategic necessity for companies
like OpenAI. Okay. Decentralization. Yes. Second,
public trust in AI is really fragile. It's under
constant pressure from things like that AI washing
we talked about and all these legal challenges
popping up. Trust is a major issue. Right. Fragile
trust. And the third thing. The third thing is
just the sheer, almost unbelievable demand for
compute power. It's so intense, it's literally
pushing the industry to look off planet, to space,
to orbit, to figure out how to power its future.
Decentralization, fragile trust, and looking
to space for power. Got it. And knowing this
stuff, it's really vital for you listening now
to understand the strategies behind these huge
tech companies. Their decisions today are genuinely
going to shape how pretty much every digital
service works over the next 10 years or more.
Absolutely. Okay, so here's a final thought for
you to chew on, something to consider after we
wrap up. Will any of these big cloud providers,
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, will any of them truly
stay neutral? Switzerland. Once hosting, the
core AI models become seen as the new essential
global infrastructure. Ooh, that's a great question.
Can neutrality hold when the stakes are that
high? Something to think about in a world that
seems to be changing at, well, orbital speed.
Thanks so much for joining us for this deep dive
into the sources today. We really hope you found
it useful. Keep exploring. Keep questioning.
Yeah. Thanks, everyone. We'll get you next time.