Trump's $15T Gulf AI Diplomacy Deal

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech News: PPI, CPI, AI Diffusion Rule, Chip Security, Copyright, Data

• Company Watch: Perplexity, Humain, Bestow, TensorWave, Granola, Realta

• Feature: Trump's $15T AI Gulf Diplomacy Deal

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Market Update — Latest PPI and CPI data show cooling inflation, but Powell warns of potential long-term rate increases due to supply shocks. This and a 2% drop in oil prices supported markets, but raises concerns over rising real yields.

AI Rule Reversal — The Commerce Dept has rescinded the Biden era AI Diffusion Rule. Trump plans a new rule emphasizing negotiations over blanket restrictions.

Chip Security Act — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced the Chip Security Act, aiming to prevent smuggling into China amidst export control concerns.

Copyright Clash — Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the U.S. Copyright Office director, for denying Elon Musk's request to use copyrighted works for AI training.

Data Broker Debate — The White House ended a plan to prevent data brokers from selling Citizens' sensitive information after industry lobbying, citing Fair Credit Reporting Act conflicts.

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COMPANIES TO WATCH

Big Movers

Humain — Nvidia will supply over 18k advanced AI chips to Humain under a White House initiative. Also AMD partners to invest $5B in an AI Zone in the kingdom, with a $10B commitment for future expansions.

Databricks — Acquiring Neon for $1B to boost AI capabilities by integrating Neon's serverless database with its data intelligence services.

Perplexity — The AI startup is nearing a $500M funding round, boosting its valuation to $14B, a 50% increase from last year. Accel leads the investment amid rising interest in generative AI companies.

Making Waves

Bestow — The insurtech company raised $120M in Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs and Smith Point. It reports significant revenue growth and plans to expand internationally.

TensorWave — The AI infrastructure startup secured $100M to enhance its AMD-powered cloud infrastructure, targeting a 20x revenue boost to over $100M this year by expanding its GPU cluster.

Granola — The AI notetaking app raised $43M at a $250M valuation. With growing usage for personal notes and meetings, it's launching collaborative features to boost team sharing.

Realta Fusion — The fusion energy startup secured $36M to develop its fusion reactor prototype aiming to produce commercial power at competitive rates.

SignalFires — Read the Top signals, Startups + Deals From Last Week

Trump's $15T AI Gulf Diplomacy Deal

The numbers committed on Trump’s Middle East trip are staggering. Saudi Arabia: $600 billion. Qatar: $743 billion. UAE: $14 trillion. The whistlestop tour secured investment commitments that dwarf anything Silicon Valley has seen yet. Gulf petrodollars are purchasing unprecedented access to US technology to build their sovereign AI capabilities as the nations seek to replace black gold with digital gold. The desert kingdoms have transformed from customers to partners, with cancellation of Biden-era AI export controls, and “mates rates” chip deals as a carrot.

Saud In The House

Trump’s $600B deal with Saudi Arabia includes investment in the US, including a $142B defense deal for advanced military equipment. The partnership aims to enhance energy security and technology, with significant investments in AI, infrastructure, and healthcare. Saudi Arabia is investing in "sovereign AI" data centers to control its AI future, with support from the U.S. under Trump's administration. Nvidia, AWS and AMD are expected to benefit significantly from this trend, potentially generating billions in revenue as Gulf nations seek to develop their own sovereign AI capabilities. Amazon Web Services' and Nvidia also partnered with Saudi-PIF backed startup Humain. AWS is helping build Saudi sovereign cloud AI capabilities. 

Qatar and UAE Step Up

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has also unveiled plans for a massive US investment push over the next decade. American tech startups may suddenly have access to massive capital. Qatar's influence extends from AI labs to aerospace, with Trump announcing Boeing's largest-ever order from Qatar Airways as part of the package. Boeing will provide up to 210 widebody aircraft to Qatar Airways, including the 787 Dreamliner and the larger 777X model with engines from GE Co.

Last stop on the tour was the UAE. They announced a $1.4T... yes trillion... investment spanning critical sectors such as “technology, AI, and energy.” Meanwhile, G42 is simultaneously expanding into the US market with Trump’s blessing. Their Cisco partnership demonstrates they're building serious infrastructure. The UAE will also import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips annually, starting this year,

Nvidia Strikes Gold

While Washington restricts Huawei's AI chips globally and shuts down advanced chip exports to China, Jensen Huang has also positioned Nvidia as a primary beneficiary of Trump's AI diplomacy revolution, boosting its market valuation to $3T and Huang's net worth up ~$12B to ~$120B, Nvidia's advanced Blackwell processors will now be flowing freely to Saudi data centers providing a major replacement of the lost business. This strategic positioning sent Nvidia's stock soaring 6% as investors recognized the massive new revenue streams. 

A Desert Tech Oasis

The Gulf has everything AI needs – capital, energy, and a steady supply of cheap technical talent from around the world, much of it from India. OpenAI is also reportedly considering building data centers in the UAE to greatly expand its Middle East footprint. A deal could be announced as soon as this week. This would be a massive AI infrastructure investment outside the US for the company. This strategic alliance could give OpenAI abundant energy resources and cooling solutions for power-hungry AI systems, potentially solving its scaling challenges. Industry analysts predict advanced AI applications will emerge from these desert data centers driven by innovative cooling systems designed for such extreme environments.

Major Geopolitical Reshuffle

This aggressive technology play with the Gulf states has reportedly divided the Trump administration. China hawks warn about technology leakage risks, but economic pragmatists touting trillion-dollar investments have won out. This contradiction reveals the complex tradeoffs driving America's technology diplomacy.

The AI deals also coincide with broader Middle East realignments. Negotiations for a revamped Iran nuclear deal are reportedly being advanced, while Trump removed sanctions on Syria, recognizing the Saudi-allied and relatively Israel-friendly new Syrian regime (led by a formerly proscribed terrorist group, the Al Nusra front). Palestinian concerns are as usual marginalized in this new regional calculus.

A 2% drop in oil prices suggests energy concessions may be part of these massive deals. Lower energy costs would benefit US consumers while potentially providing Gulf states with preferential pricing for their energy-intensive AI data centers.

Takeaways: AI development under Trump will likely continue to be determined by this type of geopolitical dealmaking. It’s unlikely that this VC injection will be significant capital to offset the worst of the disruption to supply chains the wider tariffs policy could cause, but it could help keep AI innovation in the US humming even if there is a larger market reset. And while there may be some validity to fears of China accessing sensitive tech, it seems absurd to think that wouldn’t happen anyway.

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BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

GPT-4.1 — Avail in ChatGPT for faster coding, instruction following.

Google — AlphaEvolve uses Gemini for scientific algo tasks + Gemini Nano enhances scam protection on Search, Chrome, Android.

Anthropic — Launching Claude models for hybrid thinking, tool usage.

Notion — AI for Work adds Meeting transcription, Enterprise Search.

Generated Assets — AI tool for analyzing stocks, creating custom ETFs.

Psyche — Decentralized AI infrastructure for distributed model training.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Meta FAIR — Open Molecules 2025 accelerates scientific discovery.

The Boring Company — Achieves Zero-People-in-Tunnel autonomous mining.

Robot Chefs — Automation in Korean eateries affects food quality.

Android Auto — Added Gemini Auto AI assistant to enhance driving.

Venus Rocket — US tests rotating detonation hypersonic engine.

Microsoft — ADeLe framework evaluates difficulty, predicts model success.

CRYPTO WATCH

Senate Crypto Bill — Key Democratic senators are close to a tentative agreement on a previously rejected Senate crypto bill. A draft may circulate soon.

Coinbase x Riot Games — A partnership signals a potential reconciliation between gaming and crypto, despite gamers' historical aversion to crypto and NFTs.

Coinbase Bounty Hunt — Offering a $20M bounty for information on the cybercriminals who attempted to extort the exchange after accessing data from users.

Mask Token — Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, suggests a native token remains a possibility, with plans for wallet advertising.

Digital Euro Timeline — The ECB plans to finalize agreements for a digital euro by early 2026 pending necessary legislation and political agreement.

Bitcoin vs. Gold — JPMorgan analysts forecast BTC will surpass gold in the latter half of 2025 based on increased corporate purchases and state-level adoption.

SPACE_RACE

SpaceX_Starship's 9th test flight is next week, reusing heavy booster, pends sign-off.

Solar Flare_Strongest X2.7-class flare causes R3 radio blackouts in Eu, Asia, ME.

NASA_ PUNCH Spacecraft captures zodiacal light rainbow.

China_Shares Chang'e 5 moon samples, but a U.S. law bans US research access.

MEMETICS

Do we really think reading our own emails will even still be a thing in 18 years?

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