Good morning, AI enthusiast.

Microsoft is making a massive investment of nearly $20 billion to secure the raw computing power needed to drive the AI industry. The multi-year deal highlights the immense demand for GPUs that even the biggest tech players are struggling to meet.

The move underscores a critical bottleneck in the AI boom: a worldwide shortage of the specialized hardware needed for training and inference. As even tech giants turn to third-party suppliers, will this new class of infrastructure providers become the true kingmakers of the AI era?

In today’s AI recap:

• How to build a facebook competitor cloning automation (watch here)

• Microsoft's nearly $20B bet on AI compute

• ASML's $1.5B investment in Mistral

• Alibaba’s new trillion-parameter model

• 8 trending AI Tools

Microsoft's $19B Compute Bill

The Recap: Microsoft is spending up to $19.4 billion over five years to secure massive AI computing power from infrastructure provider Nebius. The multi-year agreement underscores the insatiable demand for the GPUs that power the AI industry.

Unpacked:

• Microsoft is increasingly turning to third-party providers like Nebius and CoreWeave to satisfy the extreme demand for AI compute from its cloud customers, including OpenAI.

• Amsterdam-based Nebius is a relatively new major player, having emerged from a deal that split the assets of the Russian technology company Yandex.

• The company will provide Microsoft with dedicated GPU infrastructure capacity from its new data center in Vineland, New Jersey, with services starting later this year.

Bottom line: This massive investment shows that even hyperscalers like Microsoft cannot build data centers fast enough to keep pace with the AI boom. The deal solidifies a new market for specialized AI infrastructure companies that can supply the raw computing power everyone needs.

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ASML's Big Bet on Mistral

The Recap: Semiconductor equipment leader ASML is investing $1.5 billion to become the top shareholder in French AI startup Mistral. The deal is part of a larger $2 billion funding round that connects the hardware and software layers of the AI stack and aims to strengthen Europe's technological independence.

Unpacked:

• The new funding round boosts Mistral’s valuation to $11.7 billion, making it the most valuable AI company in Europe.

• This investment is a strategic move to bolster European tech sovereignty as Mistral competes with U.S. giants like OpenAI and Google.

• ASML, the sole supplier of crucial EUV lithography machines for advanced chips, can use Mistral’s AI to improve the performance of its manufacturing tools.

Bottom line: This deal highlights the critical link between the specialized hardware that powers AI and the intelligent software that defines it. By pairing the continent's top chip-equipment maker with its leading AI model builder, Europe is making a significant move to create a more self-reliant technology ecosystem.

AI Training

The Facebook Ad Thief (Clone Your Competitors Top Ads with AI + n8n + Nano Banana)

The Recap: In this video, I'm going to show you how to build an AI automation that's able to analyze the best performing live ads that your competitors are running on Facebook and Instagram. It's going to find the best ads, download the ad creative, and then spin that ad creative to promote your product or service offering.

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Alibaba Enters Trillion Club

The Recap: Alibaba has joined the elite club of AI developers with its first model to exceed one trillion parameters. The new release, Qwen-3-Max-Preview, positions the company to compete directly with the industry's largest models.

Unpacked:

• Qwen-3-Max-Preview is a text-only model that represents a major step up from Alibaba's previous models, which ranged up to 235 billion parameters.

• While impressive, the model enters a competitive field where leading models like OpenAI's GPT-4.5 are estimated to have a parameter count of 5 to 7 trillion.

• Alibaba claims the model outperformed its predecessor and bested several competitors, including MoonShot AI’s Kimi K2 and a version of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 on a series of internal benchmarks.

Bottom line: This move signals that the race for AI supremacy is a global one, with Chinese tech giants now directly challenging Western dominance. Professionals should watch this space as more powerful, regionally developed models become available.

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The Shortlist

Anthropic endorsed California’s SB 53, becoming the first major AI lab to support the landmark bill mandating transparency and safety protocols for frontier AI models.

OpenAI backed Critterz, an animated feature film being produced in just nine months for under $30M, aiming to showcase its AI tools to Hollywood.

Motion raised a $38M Series C, valuing the Y Combinator-backed startup at $550M to build an integrated suite of AI agents for small and medium-sized businesses.

PwC slashed its entry-level graduate hiring in the U.K., with its chief attributing the cuts to AI's impact on roles and a broader economic slowdown.

Signing off,

David, Lucas, Mitchell — The Recap editorial team