Maximilian Schreiner
Max is the managing editor of THE DECODER, bringing his background in philosophy to explore questions of consciousness and whether machines truly think or just pretend to.
Read full article about: DOJ invokes national security to defend xAI's unpermitted gas turbines in NAACP lawsuit
US Justice Department calls xAI's chatbot Grok essential to military operations, defending its controversial gas turbines.
In a filing to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the NAACP, the Department of Justice argues that the suit "threatens American national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War's military operations." According to a statement by Cameron Stanley, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer at the Department of Defense, Grok is one of just four AI models that "support mission-critical operations across Secret and Top-Secret classified networks" - including recent strikes against Iran.
The NAACP filed suit because xAI, which is part of SpaceX, runs unpermitted gas turbines at its Colossus 2 facility in Southaven, Mississippi. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, the number of turbines has grown from 27 to 57 since April, driving a 111 percent spike in nitrogen oxide emissions. Beyond Colossus 2, Elon Musk's company operates just one other major data center.
Anthropic backs off unpopular billing overhaul as price war with OpenAI looms
Anthropic has pulled back its planned billing change for the Claude Agent SDK just before launch. Instead of separate credits, the SDK and third-party apps will keep drawing from regular subscription limits.
Read full article about: OpenAI burned through $34 billion last year
OpenAI spent $34 billion in the past year, far more than the year before. That's according to independent journalist Ed Zitron, whose figures were independently confirmed by the Financial Times.
About $19 billion went to research and development, while nearly $6 billion went to sales and marketing. Revenue came in at roughly $13 billion. By year's end, monthly revenue hit $2 billion, up from $1 billion per quarter at the end of 2024.
OpenAI's net loss jumped from $5 billion to around $39 billion. The Financial Times says most of that comes from a one-time, non-cash accounting charge of about $30 billion tied to the company's earlier corporate structure. Strip that out, and the loss sits at roughly $8 billion. OpenAI is preparing an IPO that could value the company at more than $1 trillion.
Read full article about: Nvidia joins AI debt boom with $20 billion bond sale
Nvidia wants to raise at least $20 billion through its first bond sale since 2021, Bloomberg reports, citing people with direct knowledge of the deal. The chipmaker is offering bonds in seven tranches with maturities ranging from two to 30 years. The longest tranche carries a spread of about 0.9 percentage points above U.S. Treasuries.
Nvidia plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including refinancing existing debt. JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are among the banks managing the sale.
The deal fits into an ongoing wave of corporate bond sales. Companies like Alphabet and Amazon have raised hundreds of billions of dollars since last year to build out computing capacity for AI. Nvidia's last bond sale was in June 2021, when it raised $5 billion.
Anthropic shutdown sparks sovereignty debate across Europe
The European Commission is assessing the implications of the US order that forced Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 worldwide. European researchers are debating the right response: building their own foundation models or securing access through contracts. But building out homegrown infrastructure would require computing capacity, energy, and competitive providers that Europe currently lacks, experts warn.
