AI Weekly: Billion-Dollar Deals, Geopolitical Clashes & Ethical Crossroads
By Dr. Hernani Costa — June 09, 2025
NYT-Amazon licensing, Apple's China setback, and more key AI moves
Last week in AI was a cocktail of billion-dollar bets, content paradigm shifts, geopolitical snags, and ethical flashpoints. GlobalFoundries committed another $16 billion to U.S. fabs—clear signals the AI-infrastructure arms race is accelerating. On the other hand, The New York Times and Amazon quietly inked a licensing deal that may reshape how publishers monetize content in the AI era.
Yet the tempo wasn't all triumph. Apple's AI rollout in China stalled under regulators, reminding everyone that AI isn't just tech, it's geopolitics. Meanwhile, a tragic deep-fake sextortion case and a U.S. government report riddled with hallucinated data highlighted how far we are from responsible systems. Bottom line: AI's evolution isn't just fast—it's foundational.
🧠 Top 2 AI Moves to Watch:
1. NYT × Amazon: Data Licensing Goes Mainstream.
The New York Times signed a multi-year deal letting Amazon's AI (Alexa, etc.) license NYT news, cooking, and sports content, while the paper sues OpenAI/Microsoft for unauthorized use.
Why it matters: Quality training data is now a paid asset. Expect publishers to copy-paste this playbook.
2. Apple-Alibaba Blocked in China
Apple's plan to ship iPhone AI features via Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 model hit a wall as regulators stalled the release, leaving Apple behind local rivals like Huawei.
Bigger picture: AI is as political as it is technical. National policy can decide which models consumers see and may fragment the global market.
🛠️ Tool(s) of the Week:
- Google AI Edge Gallery – Run LLMs on-device, offline. Big win for privacy & low-bandwidth regions. (Alpha)
- Mistral Codestral Embed – Code-focused embedding model that underprices OpenAI/Cohere at $0.15/M tokens.
- DeepSeek R1-0528 – 685 B-parameter open model with top-tier reasoning, MIT license, already in Huawei products—signal of China's open-source ambitions.
💼 Market Moves
- $40 billion – OpenAI raise (largest private tech round ever).
- $16 billion – GlobalFoundries U.S. fab expansion (backed by AMD, Apple, SpaceX).
- Rumored U.S.–UAE AI Data-Center Deal – Another Gulf-backed infra bid.
📈 Strategy Tip: Build AI Literacy Now
Microsoft is rolling out org-wide AI education; NY State is training public-sector workers. AI fluency is becoming baseline.
Start simple: teach prompt-engineering across roles, promote internal AI "translators," and reward experimentation.
Companies that invest in culture, not just tools, build real defensibility.
🎙️ Creator Commentary
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt at Axios AI+ Summit:
"It's not punk rock to scrape creators' work without paying them."
Creators are organizing. Expect more licensing deals…and more lawsuits.
💬 Quote of the Week
"AI won't replace people. It will replace people who don't use AI."
— Jeffrey Katzenberg, WndrCo co-founder, ex-Disney Chairman
🔥 Trending
- Deepfake Sextortion Tragedy: A U.S. teen died by suicide after scammers used AI-generated nudes. Lawmakers push the "Take It Down Act."
- Hallucinated Gov Report: U.S. Health Dept. retracted an AI-written report with fake stats, reigniting calls for human-in-the-loop checks.
🤔 Question to Ponder
Should AI firms pay creators whose data trains their models? If yes, who sets the price, and who enforces it?
Until tomorrow, stay curious.
— The First AI Movers Pro Team
Written by Dr Hernani Costa and originally published at First AI Movers. Subscribe to the First AI Movers Newsletter for daily, no‑fluff AI business insights, practical and compliant AI playbooks for EU SME leaders. First AI Movers is part of Core Ventures.
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