Meta bets big on superintelligence
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled plans to invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure in the pursuit of “superintelligence”.
Facebook’s parent company will bring its first data centre supercluster, Prometheus, online next year. Meta is building several multi-gigawatt clusters, including Hyperion, which will scale to five gigawatts.
Meta launches its Llama 4 models in April and Zuckerberg has since created Meta Superintelligence Labs, backed by a $14 billion Scale AI investment.
“Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.
Nvidia resumes AI chip sales to China
Nvidia will soon resume sales of its high-end AI chips to China after the US government assured the firm it will grant necessary export licenses.
The move reverses a ban on Nvidia’s H20 chips imposed by Trump’s administration in April over concerns they could be used by the Chinese military. The H20 was developed specifically for the Chinese market after Biden-era restrictions began in 2023.
CEO Jensen Huang met Trump to reaffirm Nvidia’s commitment to US AI leadership and discussed AI’s productivity benefits with Chinese officials. China, as the world’s second-largest economy, represents a critical market for the chipmaker.
The announcement comes as trade tensions ease between Washington and Beijing. Both governments agreed a temporary tariffs truce in May, setting a 12 August deadline for a longer-term deal.
Pentagon picks Google and xAI
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded contracts worth up to $200 million each to Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI to develop advanced AI capabilities for the Pentagon
The contracts will enable the Defense Department to develop agentic AI workflows for critical national security challenges.
“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” said Doug Matty, the DoD’s chief digital and AI officer.
For xAI, barely a year old, the contract represents a significant leap from startup to government contractor, marking the Pentagon’s diversification from OpenAI’s previous $200 million contract awarded last month.
The move addresses concerns about competitive contracting raised by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who urged the Pentagon to avoid over-reliance on single AI providers for federal operations.
xAI’s Grok AI: Major Expansion Across Multiple Fronts
Elon Musk’s xAI has accelerated its expansion with three major AI developments across multiple sectors. The company recently launched Grok 4 while simultaneously announcing Grok for Government, securing a $200 million ceiling contract with the US Department of Defense and gaining access to the General Services Administration schedule.
This move puts xAI alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the race to supply federal agencies with AI tools. The government suite makes frontier AI models accessible to US government customers across multiple agencies.
Beyond government applications, Tesla drivers will soon experience Grok firsthand. Musk confirmed the AI assistant will roll out to Tesla vehicles next week, integrating conversational AI directly into the automotive experience.
The developments mark xAI’s most aggressive push yet, positioning Grok as a direct competitor to established players while leveraging Musk’s existing infrastructure for rapid deployment.
