🤖 Axios PM: AI biz kingpin

💻 Happy Cyber Monday. Today's newsletter, edited by Alex Fitzpatrick, is 597 words, a 2.5-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.

Nvidia's latest billion-dollar deal cements its status as a kind of Cornelius Vanderbilt or J.P. Morgan-style backer of the AI boom, Axios' Jeffrey Cane writes.

• 💰The company is taking a $2 billion stake in chip software designer Synopsys as part of a broader partnership.
• 💸 That comes after Nvidia (with Microsoft) announced a $15 billion investment in AI developer Anthropic, one of its many recent headline-grabbing deals.

In 2024 and so far this year, Nvidia and its venture capital unit have made 117 investments totaling over $62 billion, per PitchBook.

• 📈 That's a big jump from the previous two years, when it made 46 such investments totaling about $6 billion.

"This is really, really important work that we do," CEO Jensen Huang said on Nvidia's latest earnings call.

• "All of the investments that we've done so far, all of it, period, is associated with expanding the reach of CUDA [Nvidia's parallel computing platform and programming model] and expanding the ecosystem."

🤨 Skeptics question whether the piles of money Nvidia and others are pouring into AI infrastructure can ever be profitable.

• Yet there is logic to Nvidia's investments that can get lost amid the eye-popping numbers, like its recent $100 billion OpenAI partnership.

💻 That arrangement is "performance-based," per UBS — unlike the speculative commitments of the dot-com era.

• 💽 Nvidia's investment is contingent on OpenAI putting at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers using Nvidia systems into operation.
• 🗓️ That's a colossal and time-intensive effort, with the first gigawatt not expected until late next year.

👀 What's next: Investors are watching whether Nvidia's strategy will change now that Google has emerged as a legit competitor.

• Go deeper.

Power demand from U.S. data centers will hit 106 gigawatts by 2035, Axios' Ben Geman writes from new BloombergNEF research.

• 📈 That's up 36% from the group's April outlook, "illustrating just how quickly the sector is expanding."
• 🚛 Data center development is moving away from cities and into the suburbs as space needs grow, the researchers add.

🤖 Big tech and the Trump administration are all in on AI — and scrambling to find new power sources for the emerging tech.

• 💵 Yet the data center boom is fueling reliability fears and consumer backlash as electricity prices rise.

"These pressures point to an inflection moment for U.S. grids: the desire to accommodate AI-driven load without undermining reliability or driving up power costs," the researchers say.

• Go deeper.

Amazon is investing over $1 billion to raise pay and lower the cost of health care for hourly employees.

What this means:

• Average pay is increasing to $23/hour.
• Affordable health plans that are $5 per week, and doctor visits start at just $5.

Learn more.

1. ✈️ Air travelers without a Real ID or passport will be charged $45 starting Feb. 1, up from the TSA's originally proposed $18. Go deeper.
2. 🚫 A federal appeals court disqualified President Trump's former personal attorney Alina Habba from serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey. It's the latest instance of a court blocking Trump's efforts to install loyalist attorneys in big jobs. Go deeper.
3. 🛩️ Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are investigating FBI Director Kash Patel's reported use of a government jet to visit his girlfriend and take other personal trips, Axios has learned. Go deeper.
4. 🏡 Zillow "quietly removed" climate risk estimates from over 1 million listings after pushback from real estate agents and homeowners, the N.Y. Times reports. Gift link.

The White House is decked out in holiday decor, Axios' Paige Hopkins writes.

• ❤️ This year's theme, "Home is Where the Heart Is," is a bit pared down — especially without the East Wing to decorate.
• 🎄There are still intricate details throughout, including "Be Best" ornaments and a Lego portrait of Trump.

See more photos.

Amazon has invested more than $1.5 trillion into infrastructure and compensation for employees since 2010.

The impact: Amazon is investing in communities across America, helping employees and whole communities thrive.

Learn more about Amazon's economic impact in your community.

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