⚡ Gemini 3 Flash Brings Fast Frontier AI
Google launched Gemini 3 Flash, expanding its Gemini 3 model family. The model delivers frontier-level reasoning with significantly faster speeds and lower costs. Google says it rivals larger models on advanced benchmarks while using fewer tokens. Gemini 3 Flash is rolling out across Google products, APIs, and enterprise platforms.

💰 OpenAI, Amazon Discuss $10B+ Investment
OpenAI is in talks with Amazon about an investment that could exceed $10 billion, CNBC reported. The deal would also involve OpenAI using Amazon’s custom AI chips. Talks follow OpenAI’s October restructuring, which loosened Microsoft’s exclusivity. Amazon already backs Anthropic, signaling broader bets on generative AI infrastructure.

🛒 Coursera To Buy Udemy In AI Push
Coursera will acquire Udemy in an all-stock deal, valuing the combined company at $2.5 billion. Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 Coursera shares, valuing Udemy at about $930 million. The merger aims to strengthen corporate training offerings, especially in AI, data science, and software skills. The deal reflects consolidation in online education after post-pandemic slowdown.

🔲 Google Targets NVIDIA’s CUDA With TPUs
Google is working to reduce NVIDIA’s software advantage by improving PyTorch support on its TPU chips, Reuters reported. The effort, known internally as TorchTPU, includes potential open-sourcing to boost adoption. Meta, the creator of PyTorch, is involved as it looks to cut reliance on NVIDIA GPUs. Google confirmed the initiative, citing rising demand for the chips.

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The Recap: China’s government and investors have poured more than $5 billion this year into humanoid robotics startups, betting the technology will drive the country’s next phase of economic growth. Reported by Meaghan Tobin and Xinyun Wu, the article notes that while Chinese robots have dazzled audiences with lifelike movement, demonstrations, and stunts, they remain limited in real-world usefulness and struggle with unpredictable tasks. With more than 150 manufacturers competing and few clear commercial use cases, Beijing itself has warned that the sector risks becoming crowded with repetitive products and speculative investment.

Highlights:

Forward Future Takeaways:
China’s humanoid robot push shows how industrial policy, manufacturing scale, and aggressive capital deployment can rapidly create global leadership — even before clear use cases exist. The risk, as Beijing itself acknowledges, is that hardware progress and hype may outpace practical demand and software intelligence. The open question is whether advances in artificial intelligence can close that gap fast enough to justify the billions already committed. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)

AI use at work is accelerating across the U.S., with nearly half of employees saying they now use AI at least a few times a year, according to new Gallup survey data released Monday. Weekly usage has nearly doubled year over year, but adoption remains uneven across industries: technology, finance, and other knowledge-based roles lead by a wide margin.

The findings suggest AI is reshaping how certain professionals work, even as concerns about job displacement persist. Daily AI use, however, remains limited, indicating the technology is not yet fully embedded in most roles. → Read the full article here.

Databricks said on December 16, 2025, that it raised more than $4 billion in a Series L funding round valuing the company at $134 billion, underscoring strong investor demand for AI-focused software firms. The round comes less than six months after Databricks’ previous raise at a $100 billion valuation, giving the data and AI platform provider significant capital to outspend rivals.

The company reported a $4.8 billion revenue run rate in the third quarter, up more than 55% year over year, with over $1 billion each from AI products and data warehousing. CEO Ali Ghodsi said the funding will help Databricks accelerate growth in what he described as an increasingly competitive race. → Read the full article here.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said advances in robotics and a renewed focus on U.S. manufacturing will create new categories of jobs, pushing back against fears that AI will only replace workers. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Huang argued that large-scale AI growth depends on physical infrastructure—factories, data centers, and energy systems—that require skilled trades rather than elite academic credentials.

He linked robotics development, including projects led by Tesla’s Elon Musk, to entirely new industries that do not yet exist. Huang framed manufacturing and energy expansion as essential to sustaining long-term AI-driven economic growth. → Continue reading here.

📖 Kindle Adds “Ask This Book” AI: Amazon launched a spoiler-aware chatbot in the Kindle iOS app that answers questions about plots and characters.

📈 MetaX IPO Ignites Shanghai Surge: Chinese AI chipmaker MetaX jumped 692% on its Shanghai debut after a $600 million IPO.

⏸️ Sanders Urges AI Data Center Pause: Senator Bernie Sanders called for a moratorium on new U.S. AI data centers to curb environmental strain and job losses.

👨‍💼 Amazon Taps DeSantis to Lead AI: Amazon appointed longtime AWS executive Peter DeSantis to run a new AI organization overseeing models, custom chips, and quantum computing.

🚀 Nebius Launches AI Cloud 3.1 (Paywall): Nebius unveiled Al Cloud 3.1 with NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra compute, adding HGX B300 systems.

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Thanks for reading today’s newsletter—see you next time!
Matthew Berman & The Forward Future Team

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