In partnership with
Dear Readers,
OpenAI’s latest numbers read like a paradox, billions burned in pursuit of something that might just change everything. As Ray Kurzweil returns to the spotlight, the line between vision and excess blurs: is this a bubble, or the ignition phase of a new intelligence economy?
In today’s issue: Anthropic expands in India, coders rebel against AI tools, and China turns rare earths into leverage. Beneath the headlines, a pattern emerges, belief still fuels progress faster than profit ever could
In Today’s Issue:
🔮 Ray Kurzweil predicted AGI by 2024, with human-AI merging and radical longevity
💸 OpenAI burned $7.8B operating at a loss in H1 2025
🤝 OpenAI and AMD struck a multibillion-dollar deal
💰 Elon Musk's xAI is reportedly raising $20B
✨ And more AI goodness…
All the best,
Anthropic Expands AI Presence India
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the company’s growing footprint in India, where Claude Code usage has surged fivefold since June. The meeting emphasized how India’s large-scale adoption of AI in key sectors like education, healthcare, and agriculture could play a decisive role in shaping global AI development.
Engineers Rebel Against AI Coding
A growing “Cursor resistance” movement is emerging in Silicon Valley, as seasoned engineers push back against company mandates to use AI coding assistants like Cursor, Claude Code, or GitHub Copilot. Startups and tech giants alike hail these tools as productivity boosters; Anthropic’s Dario Amodei even predicted AI would write 90% of code by now, but many developers distrust their accuracy and fear job erosion. The divide reveals a cultural and technical fault line: while management sees efficiency, coders see a future where human craftsmanship risks being automated away.
China Retaliates Over Rare Earths
Beijing warned of “resolute countermeasures” after Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods, following China’s new export restrictions on rare earth minerals. The clash marks a major escalation in the tech-trade war, as both sides weaponize key resources—Washington with semiconductors, Beijing with rare earths essential for chips, EVs, and defense tech. For AI, the stakes are high: rare earths power GPUs, data centers, and sensors, meaning prolonged tensions could choke the material backbone of global AI infrastructure
gpt5-pro is superhuman at literature search:
it just solved Erdos Problem #339 (listed as open in the official database erdosproblems.com/forum/thread/3…) by realizing that it had actually been solved 20 years ago
h/t @MarkSellke for pointing this out to me!
— #Sebastien Bubeck (#@SebastienBubeck)
1:17 AM • Oct 12, 2025
According to public chatter (and posts by researchers like Sébastien Bubeck), GPT-5 Pro reportedly “solved” Erdős Problem #339 — but in fact it surfaced a paper from ~20 years ago that had already resolved it. The buzz is that this marks a shift: AI not necessarily creating new theorems yet, but becoming extraordinarily sharp at rediscovery and deep literature search.
The Last 6 Decades of AI — and What Comes Next | Ray Kurzweil
Since Ray Kurzweil is back in the spotlight after reaffirming his theories, we recommend watching this Ted Talk.
h/t @pablco (1:25)
— #Tibor Blaho (#@btibor91)
6:37 AM • Oct 11, 2025
ChatGPT messages incoming
The Takeaway
👉 AI progress may accelerate far beyond linear expectations - design for leap phases, not steady climbs
👉 Human-AI integration (via novel interfaces) becomes a live research frontier, not sci-fi
👉 Health and longevity applications may lead as vanguard use-cases, driving demand and regulation
👉 Governance, equity, and safety must scale in parallel with technical ambition
The room fell silent when Ray Kurzweil strode on stage at MIT, because he promised not just incremental progress, but a whirlwind of transformations in intelligence, health, and human-machine synergy. In his recent lecture, he doubled down on his forecast that within decades AI and biology will merge, unlocking radical longevity and cognitive expansion.
We’re talking about more than smarter chatbots: Kurzweil envisions a future where AI enters our bloodstream (via molecular robots), our medical trials happen in silico, and aging becomes optional. His argument leans heavily on exponential growth in compute power, progress that almost feels invisible day-to-day, but compounds wildly over time.
Why it matters: It reorients AI work from narrow optimizations toward holistic, long-term aspirations, and forces leaders to confront agency, governance, and access on a cosmic scale.Sources:
How 15 Small Brands Achieved Remarkable Marketing Results
Stop believing you need a big budget to make an impact. Our latest collection highlights 15 small brands that transformed limited resources into significant market disruption through innovative thinking.
Case studies revealing ingenious approaches to common marketing challenges
Practical tactics that delivered 900%+ ROI with minimal investment
Strategic frameworks for amplifying your brand without amplifying your budget
These actionable insights can be implemented immediately, regardless of your team or budget size. See how small brands are making big waves in today's market.
OpenAI Burns Billions Amid Boom
OpenAI made $4.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2025 but burned $2.5 billion in R&D and another $2 billion on marketing, leading to a $7.8 billion operating loss. Despite this, it’s pursuing a $500 billion valuation and massive new funding rounds for AI data centers. FT Alphaville wryly notes that OpenAI spent more on marketing and stock options than it actually earned—an emblem of today’s overheated AI boom.
OpenAI Seals Big AMD Deal
OpenAI and AMD struck a multibillion-dollar agreement under which OpenAI will deploy hundreds of thousands of AMD AI chips (equivalent to ~6 GW) from late 2026 onward, and receive an option to acquire up to 10 % of AMD at a nominal price. The deal signals OpenAI’s bet on securing its compute supply chain and gives AMD potential massive revenue uplift (projected > $100B over four years) while shifting industry dynamics around AI hardware. Since then, AMD’s stock skyrocket.
xAI Raises $20B, Nvidia Backing
Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI is reportedly aiming to raise $20 billion in a mixed equity-and-debt round, with Nvidia committing up to $2 billion directly toward equity. The funds will be used largely to secure Nvidia GPUs and scale xAI’s “Colossus 2” data center architecture, strengthening its competitive positioning in the AI infrastructure race.
Moosend: Craft Emails That Convert
Stand out with personalized campaigns that build loyal customers. Grow your audience and scale your business effortlessly.
