Good morning. Turns out White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks didn’t much like that Jack Clark essay about AI that I linked to in yesterday’s newsletter.
TL;DR
- Apple unveils M5 chip with over 4x GPU performance for AI tasks.
- AI investment group, including BlackRock and Microsoft, to acquire Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion.
- Nation-state actors, possibly linked to China, breached U.S. cybersecurity firm F5.
“Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” Sacks wrote in response to the essay by Clark, an Anthropic co-founder. “It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”
Reactions to Sacks varied. Some praised Clark for her openness and genuineness. Others suggested that if Sacks aimed to foster responsible AI advancement, he might contribute to rectifying a funding system that favors a single winner or establish consistent federal AI legislation. A significant number, however, merely echoed Trump's rhetoric.
But it was Keith Rabois, the Khosla Ventures investor and longtime Republican donor, who best captured the essence of social media dialogue in 2025: “Just ignore him,” he told Sacks, in full view of Clark. Way to take the high road, dude.
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Apple debuts M5 chip
I love the smell of fresh silicon in the morning.
Apple on Wednesday took the wraps off the M5 system-on-a-chip from its maker reportedly offers “over 4x the peak GPU compute performance for AI” over the previous generation, attributed to an updated GPU, a more powerful CPU, and enhanced Neural Engine parts.
What the hell does it all mean? In short, Apple is—like so many of its peers—reworking its home-grown hardware to optimize it for artificial intelligence.
Thanks to the new Arm-based silicon, for example, Apple’s new 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Pro will enjoy “dramatically accelerated processing for AI-driven workflows.” Vision Pro gets an upgrade, too. (All three of you who bought one may clap.)
Don’t expect to find an M5 in an iPhone, though. Like its predecessor chips, the “M” series is too large, too hot, and too battery-draining for use in smartphones. (Apple’s flagship iPhones and entry-level iPads run on the A19.)
So: Wanna run a diffusion model in Draw ThingsSure, go ahead. If you're hoping to run an LLM locally, which is quite popular these days, feel free to do so. Are you interested in actually utilizing Apple Intelligence features?
Well…they’ll be a little snappier, too. —AN
AI group to acquire Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion
It’s one of the biggest data center deals ever.
An investment group that includes BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia, and xAI agreed on Wednesday macquarie Asset Management's Aligned Data Centers, a major global operator, is being acquired for $40 billion, encompassing debt, by an unnamed entity.
If you’re thinking, “It must be AI,” you’re exactly right.
Dallas-based Aligned is a rapidly expanding hyperscale operator offering cloud infrastructure through approximately 50 sites. The company asserts it has over 5 gigawatts of both current and future capacity.
This deal is noteworthy as it represents the initial investment from The Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership, a consortium also comprising BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners and the UAE's state-backed investment entity, MGX.
(Wait, MGX? Aren’t they also funding the OpenAI-SoftBank-Oracle Stargate project? Yep.)
The collaboration aims to secure up to $100 billion in equity and debt for the development of AI computing and energy infrastructure.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year, pending regulatory approval. —AN
Nation-state actors have breached U.S. Cybersecurity firm F5.
Surely we can all agree: If a major cybersecurity company is hacked, that’s very bad, yes?
Earlier this year, Seattle's F5, a company that serves all but two of the Coins2Day 50—discovered that state-sponsored hackers had compromised its infrastructure, absconding with unspecified security flaws and proprietary code.
Yikes.
F5 says it first became aware the breach, which occurred on August 9, revealed that attackers had secured extended access to the company's systems, including a development area for its primary product and its engineering information repository.
“Some of the exfiltrated files from our knowledge management platform contained configuration or implementation information for a small percentage of customers,” the company said.
F5 reports no suspicious code alterations and no attacks stemming from the compromised data. The company is unaware of any public disclosure of this information.
Still, the intrusion—possibly linked to China—was enough to warrant statements from both the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre. —AN
More tech
—Big Tech dines at Trump dinner. The White House's new $250 million ballroom received donations from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Palantir.
—$300 trillion mistake. Why did fintech Paxos accidentally mint, then destroy, PayPal’s PYUSD?
—Salesforce long-term outlook improves. The company's stock surged following its projection of $60 billion in revenue for 2030 and its denial of assertions that AI is generating substantial software code.
—About that erotica-in-ChatGPT thing. OpenAI is “not the elected moral police of the world,” CEO Sam Altman responds following backlash.
—Chinese hackers compromise U.K. Gov’t servers. State actors routinely accessed classified information for at least 10 years.
—X to display more user account info. An attempt to battle bots.
—Rakuten mulls U.S. IPO of credit card business in light of rival SoftBank’s plans to do the same with its PayPay service.