Sam Altman wrote a science fiction novel

Why is DeepSeek different from Open AI? What has the AI revolution taught us about the AI industry? The case of Stargate in the wake of Nvidia

On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about the only thing the AI industry — and pretty much the entire tech world — has been able to talk about for the last week: that is, of course, DeepSeek, and how the open-source AI model built by a Chinese startup has completely upended the conventional wisdom around chatbots, what they can do, and how much they should cost to develop.

The real problem is that while the training cost was reported to be $100 million by OpenAI, DeepSeek had a training cost of $6 million. In a matter of days, DeepSeek went viral, becoming the No. 1 app in the US, and on Monday morning, it punched a hole in the stock market.

Panicked investors wiped more than $1 trillion off of tech stocks in a frenzied selloff earlier this week. Nvidia, in particular, suffered a record stock market decline of nearly $600 billion when it dropped 17 percent on Monday.

Even if Stargate secures its full $500 billion and builds out its massive AI infrastructure, there’s a more crucial question: what if raw computing power isn’t the path to AGI? A fundamentally new learning paradigm is the argument made by Databricks VP Naveen Rao. It won’t get us there by itself. His skepticism gained weight recently when DeepSeek, a much smaller China-based AI lab, achieved o1-level performance allegedly using far less computing power by focusing on more efficient training methods.

He has written himself into a classic science fiction narrative about a visionary promising to transform society through technological might. The most intriguing question is what happens when human ambition collides with reality. In six months or a year, we’ll know if Stargate was the opening chapter of America’s AI revolution or just another techno-optimist fantasy that couldn’t survive contact with the real world.

It also helps with being a good person. Mark Zuckerberg, Musk, and Altman are seemingly in a data center measuring contest, constantly one-upping each other through social media posts and press releases. It has become as trendy to get the largest data center empire as it is to get a new designer bag. A flex that says they can change the physical world as much as the digital one shows their ability to wield computing power.

That’s a huge bet that artificial intelligence leaders are making right now. It isn’t dumb to bet on scale. The scaling hypothesis is what has given the best models of today, because it suggests that if you make anai bigger and fed more data and computing power it gets smarter A lot of the compute will be used for inference to allow the models to handle a lot of requests at once. The infrastructure lead said that keeping it up and running is a very big feat. In theory, Stargate could help a lot with that.

The financial goals of Stargate hold up in a best-case scenario according to Kent, who is a lead data center operator. Its first year budget is $100 billion, which is enough to build a lot of data centers. There is no guarantee that money can be spent quickly and efficiently.

AI Data Centers Aren’t Just For Small Business Applications, But They Can Prevent Multiple-Horizon Infrared Power Losses

You may remember the $10 billion lcd factory, which was scaled down well after Trump got a chance to do his victory lap. The project fizzled after publicity and most of the jobs never materialized.

Most data center facilities are not designed to handle the enormous power requirements associated with artificial intelligence. The typical American home uses less than one watt of electricity a day, but the server rack that looks like a bookshelf uses five to 10 kilowatts. A modern AI GPU rack drawing 45 to 120 kilowatts can consume in a day what several apartments or even an entire small apartment building might use in a day. Current-generation facilities require at least 100 megawatts, and Draper estimates the next generation will require 200 kilowatts per rack, consuming as much electricity per day as dozens of homes.

10 data centers are going to be built in a Texas location which is likely to have its own renewable energy potential. Trump has pledged to fast-track construction through executive orders as the venture eyes expansion beyond Texas. While traditional data centers cluster in cities to minimize lag time for business software, AI facilities can prioritize power access over location, Draper added. The spacing of facilities is difficult when it’s the goal to use the compute for inference.

Older data centers can’t handle higher power densities so you can’t just add more electricity here. They lack both the electrical infrastructure to deliver that much power and the cooling systems needed to handle the intense heat these AI chips generate.

Source: Sam Altman’s Stargate is science fiction

Openai is in the Final Stages of Crowdfunding: How Valuable is OpenAI, SoftBank? The Silicon Valley of Sam Altman’s Stargate

None of this feels or looks right. Despite its rapid growth it is losing billions of dollars each year, and its business model is not stable as it charges customers $200 per month. At this burn rate, even the deepest pockets will eventually run dry. That’s why critics are side-eyeing Son’s involvement — he’s an investor known for throwing cash at moonshot ideas only to yank the funding when reality catches up. Perhaps an investor like Son is Altman’s last resort. It is reported that Openai is in the final stages of raising a new funding round from SoftBank, which would value the startup at an amazing $340 billion.

The numbers are weird, but the White House’s first Buddy, Tesla’s Musk, wasted no time shouting out what everyone else was whispering. Soon after the announcement, Musk said that they don’t have the money. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Even though SoftBank has a complicated history with its investing, it’s not hard to see why the Vision Fund caused WeWork’s downfall.

The Information says that OpenAI and Softbank will each commit $19 billion to the project. While they will be the largest backers, their exact ownership percentage isn’t clear — Altman has described them as general partners (GPs), meaning they will have significant control rather than simply an equity split. OpenAI and SoftBank are expected to hold a major stake and influence — reportedly around 40 percent each — with Oracle and MGX taking smaller positions. The total initial investment from all partners is $45 billion.

Some of the rest is supposed to come from investors and debt financing that could eventually trade like bonds. SoftBank carries about $150 billion on its books. There is a chance that Altman will look for additional capital from the United Arab Emirate. Even so, there’s a massive gap between $45 billion and $500 billion, and even the most aggressive capital raising efforts have limits.

Source: Sam Altman’s Stargate is science fiction

The Case for OpenAI: Musk versus the government in a Trump era technicolor warped partnership between Microsoft and Openai

Musk’s lawsuit with Openai is not a neutral observer. At this point, the conversation has become a mix of sniping and bloving. Trump brushed off questions regarding Musk’s funding concerns: “I don’t know if they do, but you know, they’re putting up the money. The government is putting up money. He told reporters that he hopes they do and that Musk does not like one of them.

A Microsoft-Openai plan for a massive data center was in fact promoted as a landmark Trump-era project. But that partnership frayed as Microsoft grew wary of its OpenAI dependence and OpenAI struggled with computing costs. In exchange for the Microsoft deep pockets, Altman traded a more complex web of funding partners.