💰 OpenAI Signs $30 Billion-a-Year Oracle Deal to Power AI Expansion
OpenAI has struck a $30 billion-a-year deal with Oracle to lease 4.5 gigawatts of data-center capacity, roughly two Hoover Dams’ worth of power, for its Stargate AI infrastructure push. The move marks a shift from OpenAI’s Microsoft-exclusive model and is part of a broader $500 billion expansion effort. For Oracle, the deal underpins a cloud strategy aiming to hit $30 billion in annual revenue by 2028, though the heavy capital outlay has stirred investor anxiety.

🧑‍💼 Altman Tells Congress AI Will Wipe Out Entire Job Categories
At a Federal Reserve conference in Washington on July 22, 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman delivered a blunt assessment of AI’s transformative, and disruptive, trajectory. He warned that AI is already replacing entire job categories, with customer service roles the most obvious casualties: “you call one of these things … it does not make mistakes.” In healthcare, Altman said AI now outperforms most doctors at diagnosis, though he emphasized the need for human oversight.

🦾 White House to Expand U.S. AI, Block State Limits
The White House will unveil a plan to grow U.S. AI dominance by exporting AI tech, streamlining data center permits, and blocking federal funds to states with strict AI laws. It marks a shift from Biden’s cautious stance to Trump’s pro-growth approach. The plan also promotes Pentagon AI use and open-source development while aiming to reduce regulatory barriers.

📧 Startup Mixus Turns Email Into AI Command Center
Mixus, a Stanford-born startup, is redefining AI agents by letting users control them via email or Slack, keeping humans in the loop. The platform enables seamless task automation, shared memory across teams, and agent collaboration, without needing custom builds. Backed by $2.6M in funding, Mixus aims to make AI agents both usable and workplace-ready.

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Perplexity’s AI browser Comet signals a new era where users don’t just browse, they delegate. Its built-in assistant can order groceries, book travel, and manage digital tasks, acting like a web-savvy intern. The browser executes these commands using a blend of context, memory, and user data, hinting at the shift from search engines to task-based agents. While not flawless, Comet’s functionality points toward a hands-free online future.

That shift raises serious privacy and ownership questions. As browser agents like Comet become more capable, their reliance on real-time data sparks a new competition in “AIEO”—AI-era SEO. Meanwhile, media organizations and content creators face increased pressure to manage how bots interact with their content. → Read the full article here.

AI is helping physicists break new ground by designing experiments that humans wouldn’t dare attempt. At Caltech, software optimized the layout of LIGO’s gravitational-wave detectors, boosting sensitivity by up to 15% using a counterintuitive optical trick. Though the initial designs looked alien and absurd, they held up under scrutiny, relying on obscure quantum principles never before tested in the lab.

Across physics, AI is generating new experimental setups, rediscovering foundational laws, and even deriving better equations than humans. From quantum entanglement to dark matter modeling, the machine’s outputs are surprising and effective—though still in need of human interpretation. As one researcher put it, the AI isn’t inventing physics yet, but it’s showing us paths we missed. → Read the full article here.

Machine learning has revealed 86,276 previously undetected earthquakes beneath Yellowstone, exposing chaotic swarms on immature faults that had evaded human analysis. This tenfold increase in known quakes dramatically expands scientists’ understanding of seismic dynamics in one of Earth’s most active volcanic systems. The swarm activity offers new insight into the park’s turbulent underworld.

By modeling these quakes as fractals, researchers captured patterns that suggest a different kind of fault behavior than in regions like California. The findings not only improve risk modeling at Yellowstone but also have implications for geothermal energy and global volcano monitoring. → Read the full paper here.

🎬 Netflix Bets on AI Video Tools: Netflix is quietly using Runway’s generative video tech to streamline production, joining Disney and Lionsgate in testing AI's controversial role in Hollywood.

🐝 Amazon Acquires Bee: The voice-recording gadget captures daily conversations for memory, search, and journaling.

🙅‍♂️ Meta’s $1.25B AI Offer Rejected: An AI recruit reportedly turned down Meta’s four-year, $1.25B deal.

👔 Microsoft Raids DeepMind for AI Talent: Over 20 DeepMind staff, including key Gemini engineers, have jumped to Microsoft.

🧬 LatentX Brings Protein Design to Web: Latent Labs' new browser AI lets researchers create brand-new proteins from scratch, offering a free, fast tool for next-gen drug discovery.

📞 Hyper Snags $6.3M for AI 911 Help: Hyper’s voice AI handles non-emergency 911 calls, easing dispatcher load and speeding response—already live, it’s backed by Eniac and scaling fast.

OpenAI’s mysterious o3 Alpha model took 2nd in a top coding contest, while a separate experimental LLM just earned gold at the International Math Olympiad. Get the full scoop in Matt’s latest video! 👇

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Matthew Berman & The Forward Future Team

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